The Power of the Rubric

Rubrics are extraordinarily helpful tools for grading as well as pedagogical tools for improving student writing.  For instructors, rubrics help reduce the emotional angst that often comes with assigning grades and keeps grading more consistent.   For students, a rubric communicates the instructor’s expectations, provides a framework for specific goals and feedback, and helps identify key elements of successful historical writing. 

To achieve the pedagogical goals of the rubric, it is essential to give your students the rubric, and to do so before they write the paper.  I return papers with summary feedback of specific positive comments and constructive criticism that correspond with the categories of the rubric.

I emphasize that the rubric is designed to support an ongoing process of growth and illustrates a spectrum of development.  Grades are embedded in this process (and roughly correspond with the levels in the rubric), but if used alone they are only clumsy tools.  In my classes, we often work through Caleb McDaniel's fantastic rubric of historical thinking throughout the course, which supports a similar focus on growth.

For more information on rubrics, you can also check out the resources at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Writing Revision

Revision is an essential part of how writing is a process of thinking, to paraphrase Lynn Hunt's wise words, but students often need clear guidance and structure in learning what rethinking and reworking an argument really means.  Below are my guidelines for students, and I hold them accountable by collecting their "before and after" topic sentence compilations.