Constructing Class Rubrics

Constructing Class Rubrics

Conditions for Success

These are some of the conditions that I like to discuss with my classes before we begin generating rubrics (adapted from Guba and Lincoln’s Fourth Generation Evaluation, pp. 149-50):

·  Discuss and ask student to articulate HOW they will use the rubric. What position will students work from when they discuss, debate, argue, etc.? How shall they define and enact personal integrity? How will they hold each other and themselves responsible for their judgments?

·  Define what it means to use the rubric in meaningful, responsible, and competent ways. What minimum competence to communicate shall we expect? How will we hold ourselves responsible for this competence? Will there be any consequences for those who do not meet this minimum competence? Who will police minimum competence?

·  Discuss the sharing of power. How will we guarantee that we all share power as equally as possible? Are there classroom protocols or strategies we can institute that will ensure an appropriate share of power to all?

·  Discuss and ask students about “growth” in writing/thinking and what it means to them. How much change or growth in our own individual thinking (or positions) about writing and the evaluation of it, should we expect from ourselves and others? How willing are we to change? How can we make sure that we accomplish this change? How shall we measure it?

·  Ask students to agree upon and commit to a certain amount of time on the major tasks associated with the rubric. How much commitment of time and energy shall we expect and be responsible for? How shall we measure this each day, each week, etc.? What consequences will there be should someone not meet these commitments? Should we institute a “punishment” for those who do not meet their commitments?

Caveat About Rubrics

The rubrics I discuss in this workshop and handout are NOT grading sheets, grading guidelines, or grading rubrics, although they can be used to grade student work with some modifications. They are rubrics that do two things only:

·  articulate the minimum expectations for a written assignment (usually this is the “C” level), or the minimum expectations for some other degree of work (for example, “B” level work);

·  identify the student behaviors or the characteristics in texts (one or the other) that meet minimum expectations.

These two things mean that these rubrics are used mainly for (1) helping students write and revise their work, (2) structuring students’ reading and responses to their colleagues’ drafts, or (3) helping teachers structure their responses and guide their assessments of drafts.

Notice that rubrics discussed in this handout will not tell students what an “A” paper is, or the difference between a “B” and a “C” paper. They will explain what is necessary to meet a certain degree of expectations, or the primary traits that will count in the evaluation of writing.

I do not suggest using more than one rubric at a time with students on an assignment. Additionally, a rubric that identifies minimum expectations (“C” work) is often problematic when simply reproduced with changed adjectives (e.g., “adequate support” changed to “strong support”). These two rubrics will say very little that is different, and likely will not offer students any more guidance than the one rubric. Furthermore, often the distinction many teachers make between grades in written work are not always about degree but also about kind/substance, which makes for a different rubric.

Sample Inductive Activity

You can generate rubrics in a number of ways. I’ve found that most methods of rubric generation fit into two kinds of activities, inductively and deductively based activities. Most importantly, rubric activities should get students to:

·  generate rubric criteria (What characteristics are most important to judge in the writing? Why are they important to the genre and audience expectations, and the purpose and rhetorical effects of the document in question?),

·  discuss criteria’s meaning (What do each criterion mean? Why are they important to judge in this assignment or document? How does a writer accomplish them?),

·  use (How does a reader apply or use the rubric when reading an actual text? How does a reader identify each criterion in a text? What kinds of observations and judgments are useful for writers?).

I’ve found that rubric building activities can take from 2 days to 2 weeks to construct a finished rubric, depending on how much time you wish to spend discussing and testing the rubric. I suggest at least two drafts of a rubric (one draft might be used to test it on a “live” piece of writing) before you begin using it for essays that count. Here’s a sample sequence of activities that creates a rubric inductively:

1. Individual pre-work/homework: Students find an academic essay they each like (you may provide other guidelines for selection of these essays, or even provide a range of essays yourself). They bring a copy to class and write up a list of “good characteristics” of the essay, ones they can attempt to practice in their own writing.
2. Group work/Discussion: Students use their readings and lists of good essay characteristics to construct simple rubrics, drafts really. They present these drafts to the class (maybe 3-5 rubrics are made in a class session in groups). They discuss them, then revise. You could also have them do reflective work on these rubrics between this class session and the next meeting. I typically structure the rubric product by providing a template for producing their group rubrics (see the box to the right).
3. Condense and Revise: Students should then look over the rubrics created, decide on what to keep and what to throw away. Criteria can be collected into one big list, or you might choose to start with what the class considers the most acceptable rubric, then add or take away from it using the others not adopted. I do this in class, and usually it takes the 45-50 minutes because I want lots of discussion and lists made on the board. It’s also a good idea to have students do all this writing, not you. I usually have 2 or 3 students volunteer to take accurate notes of our rubric conclusions, so that I can collect these notes at the end of class and post them as a rubric on our Web site or distribute it at the next session. I’ve also done this condensing activity in three parts, in class, then out of class, and finishing up in class again (but using a shorter discussion time).
4. Reflection: Always have them reflect on what they are doing and why. I have them do this online (via Blackboard). This is so that you can hear their concerns, they can think through what they are doing, and you can also keep an archive of their growth (see condition #4 in the above section). I always provide prompts for these reflections so they can think about specific things (this lets me gently guide discussions and rubric considerations), and usually have them reflect once a week (over the weekend). We then read and discuss these reflections, and sometimes use them to rethink and revise our rubric at various stages of the semester.

There are several things to notice about this activity that may help you design your own. First, there is pre-work that gives students real material (sample texts) to cull for “good characteristics” of effective writing. Second, that pre-work is used for discussions with colleagues about good writing, or about what might be expected in the assignment. Third, those discussions (usually group discussions) lead to a document produced by the students, which then is revised or consolidated after other similar documents have been reviewed. Finally, students have the chance to reflect, debrief, ask questions after the process. Formal written reflection can be quite valuable, especially if it’s done on several occasions.

Sample Deductive Activity

A deductively produce rubric begins with rubrics already created, say from past classes, or other schools and teachers (it’s easy to find rubrics or writing criteria that other teachers have used online). Students use these “old” rubrics to create a new rubric that you’ll use in your class. Here’s a simple process for producing a rubric deductively:

1. Individual pre-work/homework: Ask students to find rubrics for similar assignments as the one you’re building this rubric for (or you can provide several rubrics and assign students a rubric to consider). Have them look over the rubric and rewrite it in their own words, adding, subtracting, and modifying the dimensions as they see fit. Give them a structure (like the one above). This will help organize their ideas, especially since the rubrics they will be using may be in a variety of formats and structures.

1. Test individual rubrics: Once students have created their rubrics, have them read a sample text with the rubric in mind. Ask them to judge the sample for quality – how well does the sample meet (or not) expectations? You can supply the sample. It should be a sample of the kind of writing they will be expected to do. Give them guidelines for their reading and use of the rubric. Have them write up simple assessments for each dimension they have listed on their individual rubrics. Each assessment can be structured to help students produce similar assessment documents. Give them a pattern to follow. Perhaps something like the following two-part structure:

·  Restate the evidence (found in the paper) for your judgment in 2-3 sentences as an observation. What do you notice in the paper?

·  State clearly your judgment or claim about the quality of the essay along this dimension. What do you think of the quality of what you notice just in terms of this rubric dimension/characteristic?

1. Reflection and revision of rubrics: After they’ve finished this assessment of the quality of the paper, ask them to reflect upon their assessment and the rubric they created. What did the rubric capture well for them as readers? What did it help them see in the paper? Which rubric criteria were difficult to observe, or find evidence for? Which were hard to make judgments about? What characteristics in the writing did the rubric not capture well? What dimension or qualities did the rubric seem to miss? What things do they think should be changed or revised in the rubric? Based on their reflections, students should then revise their rubrics.
2. Collection and recreation: Take all the rubrics and list their dimensions out (it may be a long list). Give the list to your students. In groups, have them reduce and recreate the rubric with the best parts (dimensions) and the best articulations of qualities. Essentially, you are asking them to choose the best items, the ones that best describe the work and expectations they have ahead of them. You can have them post on Blackboard or on the board in class. If they do this in groups, you may have 5-10 lists (remember: most rubrics can really only be between 3-5 items long) that locate the key dimensions worth keeping for the final version. You can then take these lists and make a master list, or a master rubric.

While I placed the testing and reflection components at steps #2 and #3 (above), it seems appropriate to have them at the end of the process. It depends on how much time you wish to spend and what goals you wish for that reflective activity. Testing and reflecting at the end would offer a way to test not just the rubric but how well students can use the rubric consistently and meaningfully. Using rubrics to respond to colleagues’ writing takes practice. It also takes practice in learning how to use colleague’s responses.

Response Strategies for Students

Getting students to respond meaningfully using rubrics is just as difficult as getting them to respond meaningfully without them. Before you ask students to respond to each others’ drafts, it can help them if you think carefully about:

·  what the specific goals/purposes are for their responding,

·  what methods they’ll use to read and respond to colleagues’ writing,

·  the written product(s) that will come from their reading and responding,

·  what uses writers will have for readers’ written responses, and

·  how writers might respond to or dialogue with readers about their work.

The following response strategies are a some I’ve found useful for various purposes.

·  Ask students to respond or assess colleagues’ writing using only one of the rubric’s dimensions. You can choose the dimension to assess or have students choose the most appropriate one to assess. Structure the document readers produce by giving guidelines to help writers get what they need and readers to read in useful ways, such as the following:

·  300 words (about 1 page),

·  offer evidence from the text for all judgments (do not make claims about the text that are not backed up by observations from the text)

·  quote at least 2 places in the text,

·  suggest at least 2 places to begin revising and explain how those changes will help meet or exceed expectations.

·  After readers assess their colleagues’ documents, ask them to rewrite (as if they were the writer) a few crucial paragraphs that they have suggested needs revising. Students can meet or get into groups (or share these rewritten portions and assessments on Blackboard) and discuss the assessments and their rewrite of the chosen paragraphs, talking about the particular revision decisions readers made in the paragraphs, why readers made those decisions, and their effects. This activity works best if more than one reader revises the same document. This keeps writers from simply taking the revisions and using them, which is not the point of this activity. The point is to get readers and writers to have discussions about what kinds of specific writerly decisions help a draft or writer meet or exceed expectations.