Writing Realistic Rubrics

Debbie Willingham
Oct 20, 2008

Have you ever:

  • feared that a student (or their parent) would challenge a grade and you would not be able to defend it adequately?

  • wished your students would know what grade they deserved rather than asking what grade you "gave" them?

  • wanted a better way to discuss with students, parents, and peers the meaning of quality work

One of the most difficult tasks facing teachers is that of fairly and realistically assessing students' mastery and understanding in performance, product, or writing based assessments. Many rubrics are so general or vague that they do not truly reflect the detail we would like to provide as feedback.

The answer is to use rubrics that include a fixed score using a 100-point scale, a list of criteria/characteristics that may be weighted at different levels, and specific expectations for each level of the scale for each of the criteria. Using a 100-point scale for major grades (which most rubrics are used for) keeps the teacher from having to recalculate after scoring to have a grade that can be averaged with others. This can be accomplished by assigning a percentage number grade to each item on the scale. For example, on a rubric with 4-3-2-1 as the scale, assign 4=25, 3=21, 2=18, and 1=15. For each criteria students then receive a percentage number, and when added together they automatically provide a number grade on a 100-point scale.

Because criteria to be graded do not always need to be assigned the same weight or importance, it is also advantageous to the teacher to double or triple the weighting of the most important criteria. For example, in a history class the application or analysis of content is likely more important than grammatical mistakes or neatness, so it should carry a higher (heavier) weighting (for example, application of content=50%, grammar and punctuation=25%, neatness=25%). In an art class, application of technique and neatness may be more important than use of content (for example, application of technique=40%, neatness=40%, use of history content knowledge=20%).

Within each "box" of the matrix on a rubric, whenever possible, teachers should have quantitative rather than qualitative expectations in order to avoid subjectivity. For example, "6-7 facts included in description" is better than "most facts included," as is "no more than 3 grammatical errors" is better than "several grammatical errors."

Using these simple guidelines can enable teachers to write more realistic rubrics, leading to clearer, more focused expectations and higher quality work. Remember to use your Learning-Focused Notebook or The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model Part 4 Planning Units for Learning Notebook to help develop your rubrics.