Rubrics are a systematic process for assigning scores
on a piece of writing. Rubrics are often used to assess the overall quality of
writing, often for evaluation purposes. Rubrics usually lists criteria for a
piece of work, and educators then mark how well the student had met each set of
criteria by assigning it a level 1, 2, 3, or 4. They help teachers to look at
the same elements in each piece of writing, and are non-objective, fast, efficient,
and easy to use. Rubrics “rate the presence of elements deemed important” (Alber-Morgan et
al., 2009), which teachers then use to classify student work according to
specific traits. They are also helpful to students, as they clearly identify exactly
what is expected of students. Rubrics are ideal when educators want to assess
specific aspects of writing within a piece of work (is there a topic sentence,
are capital and periods always used, etc).
Unfortunately, as Wilson (2009) notes, rubrics only
look at specific writing criteria, and therefore they often force us to see all
pieces of writing the same way, which does not allow for educators to offer
responsive insight or their own ideas about the content of a piece of writing.
In addition, Wilson argues that while they are objective, they are not helpful
when assessing writing, as writing is a naturally subjective subject, that
requires a reader’s reflections.
One examples Wilson gave in her article was how one student submitted a
piece of writing that had sections in it which were obviously plagiarized.
Using a rubric, the student would have received a zero. By reflecting on why
the student may have plagiarized that section, Wilson found that the
subject was too difficult for the student to understand, and helped the student
find a new source to help her understand the content.
Watch a video of Maja Wilson discussing her views on writing rubrics
here:
From my use of rubrics within my
practicum, I learned that while the use a rubric can be very effective for
explaining to students the expectations that they are required to meet, the
rubric itself has to be very detailed and explicit in order for students to
understand how each part of the assignment is being marked. For example, when
marking a final writing assignment on paragraph writing, in the rubric there
was no mention in any section that proper spelling was an important component.
However, after completion of the assignment, there were some students who had
incorrect spelling in their final paragraphs. Yet, as proper spelling was not
stated on the rubric, it would be unfair to make them lose marks for something
that the teacher had not told them to do. This made me realize how much time
and thought needs to go into making a rubric, and how detailed they need to be.
It also helped me see the negatives to assessing writing using a rubric, as
there will likely be elements that an educator will fail to account for ahead
of time, which will result in the rubric failing to accurately assess every
aspect of a student’s work.
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