One of the dilemmas that teachers frequently face is grading student papers. As a teacher, the author regularly reads research regarding instructional practices, grading, and assessment, but struggled to translate theory into practice in her own classroom. The intent of this article is to share one method of instructing and grading writing that has a sound research base. This method is easy to implement and makes sense; it provides students with meaningful assignments and teachers with clear guidelines on how to efficiently grade writing. This article describes five practices for effectively grading writing that demystify the grading process and focus on students' writing more and faculty grading less. (Contains 1 table.)