Grading with Assessment Rubrics
A Guide to Evaluating Writing and Alternative Learning Projects
Imaginative lessons make teaching and learning a lot more fun, but it is also important to keep course objectives in mind when creating those lessons. Assessment rubrics are one way of ensuring that students understand expectations in advance of completing an assignment, and teachers maintain a fair standard of assessment.
An assessment rubric includes a list of standards that a student must meet in order to earn a perfect score. Each item on the list is assigned a value based on its importance. When evaluating a student project, writing assignment, or other product, the teacher will deduct points from the possible total for items that do not meet the stated standard. Students can thus identify specific areas of strength or weakness on the graded task.
When creating a rubric for a writing task, teachers must be very aware of student ability and the course objectives. Since writing is a process and several drafts may be written and evaluated prior to a final draft, the teacher may even want to create separate rubrics for each step in the writing process.
While constructing a rubric, keep the following hints in mind:
Do
- Keep curriculum objectives and specific standards of learning in mind.
- Focus on skills that students have learned in past lessons as well as new areas of instruction.
- Provide students with a copy of the rubric before a writing assignment is begun.
- Encourage students to use the rubric during peer editing.
- Include space for suggestions and words of encouragement.
- Provide examples of writing that meet the standards of the rubric, and discuss these examples in class.
- Use the rubric to keep your scoring and comments consistent to a standard.
Don't
- Include items on the rubric that have not yet been explained in class.
- Expect a finished and polished project on early drafts.
- Compare one student's work with another's.
- Be afraid to have students help you design a rubric based on provided learning objectives.
- Include subjective or irrelevant items on the rubric. Make the assessment specific to the learning goal!
Example Assessment Rubric for a Final Draft of a High School Persuasive Writing Assignment:
Content and Organization -
- 10 points - Is there a clear thesis statement that reflects the writer's position?
- 5 points - Is there a "hook" in the introductory paragraph that makes readers want to read more?
- 5 points - Is there a clear beginning, middle and end?
- 10 points - Are paragraphs guided by strong topic sentences and are all of the sentences within each paragraph related to the topic sentence?
- 5 points - Is the paper well researched?
Logic -
- 10 points- Is the logic in the supporting paragraphs clear, or do readers have to struggle to identify the reasoning? Are informal arguments clear?
- 5 points - Does the writer anticipate and address opposing arguments or objections?
- 5 points - Is the essay dominated by appeals to reading?
- 5 points - Does the writer make good use of emotional and ethical appeals?
- 5 points - Does the writer avoid logical fallacies (bandwagon appeals, red herrings, etc.)
Nuts and Bolts -
- 20 points - Is the essay free of grammar and punctuation errors?
- 10 points - Does the writer avoid wordy sentence constructions?
- 5 points - Does the writer make use of transitions and cueing devices to make the writing smoother?
Assessment rubrics can be structured to fit any writing assignment or project.
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Simplify Grading with an Assessment Rubric.
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