---
title: "Grade essay questions in a lesson"
slug: "grade-essay-questions-in-a-lesson"
tags: ["Totara Learn", "Content Creator", "How-to"]
updated: 2025-07-22T10:52:18Z
published: 2025-07-22T11:18:35Z
canonical: "totara.help/grade-essay-questions-in-a-lesson"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Grade essay questions in a lesson

Essay questions in lesson activities require manual grading (i.e. a trainer must grade learners’ submissions) with an optional comment.

To grade an essay question, follow these steps:

1. Click the **Grade essays** tab at the top of the lesson page.
2. Click the essay link in the middle column of the page.
3. Give the essay a score and add some comments.
4. Click the **Save changes** button.
5. When you have finished grading essays, click the **Email ALL graded essays** link to notify your learners.

As learners complete the lesson, their scores are recorded in the gradebook. If you’ve allowed learners to attempt a lesson multiple times, their scores may change as they repeat the lesson.

## Next steps

- [Add content pages to a lesson activity](/19/docs/add-content-pages-to-a-lesson-activity)
- [Add a question to a lesson activity](/19/docs/add-a-question-to-a-lesson-activity)
- [Manage lesson pages](/19/docs/manage-lesson-activity-pages)

![Course badge](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/course-badge_Lesson.svg?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-06T06%3A36%3A07Z&se=2026-11-06T07%3A36%3A07Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=7w5lAS7iQivKDfFjr0faSrJlLqJk3DBKEioocOK1zzQ%3D)The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using the [Lesson activity](https://totara.community/course/view.php?id=433) in Totara. Here you can learn more about using the lesson activity, find out about best practice, and give it a go yourself.

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

© Copyright 2025 Totara Learning Solutions. All rights reserved. Some content originally obtained via [GPLv3 license](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL) and continues to be available under GPLv3. All other content is the sole copyright of Totara Learning Solutions.