Assessment rubrics you use in teaching writing need five components
to assure your evaluations are on target. Leave any one out of
your writing rubric and you'll make grading writing more difficult
for yourself. Who needs to make grading papers any harder?
Remember, writing assessment should focus on the
writing skills you want students to be able use by year's
end. Assessing what students know about any component of the
writing process may give a totally skewed picture of what their
writing skills actually are.
1) Identification of the writing situation for which it is used.
You might have one rubric for writing done in class in a period
and another for writing done outside class, when students theoretically
have more time to spend.
Grading papers is easier if your assessment rubric is geared
to the specific type of writing you are evaluating. I have different
rubrics for work that follows the persuasive
essay pattern and for work that uses a narrative
format, since these are organized very differently.
Not only can I check things off in a genre-specific rubric, but
students can use the rubrics as self-assessment guides.
ab-shape-reshape
2) Elements the written piece must include.
A rubric for evaluating a three-paragraph essay wouldn’t
have the same list of elements as a rubric for evaluating a term
paper.
Your rubric should be detailed enough to serve as a checklist
for students preparing their writing.
Giving the students the rubric before they write not only lets
them assess their own work, but eliminates complaints that they
didn't know your grading standards.
3) Standards for mechanical competence in that class.
Your rubrics should indicate your standard of acceptable
spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar.
Believe me, students who consider themselves A students will
work on their writing mechanics if those errors are all that keep
them from earning A's.
4) Total points possible for various components of the writing.
Research shows that if you want student to become good writers,
you have to grade them primarily on the content of their writing.
That means grading on:
By stipulating how many of the points possible you will award
to the content itself and how much to the mechanical components,
you keep yourself focused on the content as you grade.
Typically, you should assign no more than 30% of the total points
on a paper to writing mechanics.
5) A place for comments about one thing the student could do
to improve the next paper.
Help students focus on something they can do to improve their
grade on the next paper.
If possible, give two suggestions:
-
One suggestion that will produce a quick
improvement (such as following directions!).
-
One suggestion that will produce results over a longer
period, such as more complete development of ideas.
Including
these 5 components in your assessment rubrics assures you will evaluate
all essential elements in every piece of formal writing.
