Transcript Assessing Writing? What we need…might just be A Few Good Rubrics.

Assessing Writing?
What we need…might just be
A Few Good Rubrics
After all, rubrics should help us
define proficiency and some
measure of success…..
Rubrics do have a long tradition…
The word itself is related to--and derives
from—a root meaning ‘red.’ As early as
1375, notes the OED, the word was used to
refer to “ a direction for the conduct of a divine
service, inserted in liturgical books and properly
printed in red.” Only later was the word also used to refer
to chapter or section headings--also printed in red, and
was extended as well to denote categories (“We’ll put this under the rubric
of ‘necessary evils’.”). Our current use--which itself most likely derives from a
mix of an extension of the first meaning: “an authoritative rule or direction” with
the other two.
BUT……
There’s good news and, perhaps, less good news
First, the less good news
Effective rubrics are not “general” ones:
their effectiveness—their assessment value—is directly related to how
closely aligned they are
with the “product” of a particular assignment and goals of that assignment.
We must craft them ourselves—taking advantage of
guidelines, but making them “fit” what we’re doing
http://oneextradegree.blogspot.com/2012/02/chocolate-chip-cookie-rubrics-and.html
…But we are all thinking through these issues
Questions About Rubrics and Writing
A small—preliminary—set of questions was sent to a
few faculty:
1. Do you use a rubric in any of the writing
assignments that you give?
1. What aspects of assignments--the prompts
themselves--do you feel are most crucial for
students to use, and are the most important to
make explicit for them?
2. What aspects of writing assessment do you think
we should collectively be focusing on?
Some Responses: What Do Faculty Think?
A number of faculty do not use rubrics with students, but give them instructions
regarding what the expectations are. These could be built into rubrics… Those
who do use rubrics share them with students with the initial assignment.
Regardless of their use of a rubric or scoring guide, the faculty who
responded each commented on the importance of specificity in an
assignment—posing a focused question for the students, making certain
they (can) read and understand it—some want students to restate the
question in the essay.
Should questions be the students’ own, responding faculty want them to make the
questions clear, and to be able to build thesis statements and discussion (including
argument) around them.
Faculty were uniformly concerned with organization, paragraph structure,
and many noted sentence structure and vocabulary (both disciplinary and
more general use) as critical issues as well.
Thinking Through and Beyond the Essay or Paper
“Plagiarism” and academic integrity were both mentioned in
response to the question about what aspects of writing assessment
we should be focusing on. Ian Barnard (English, University Writing
Council), who has done work in this area, made note of this ongoing
project, which seems an excellent resource:
http://site.citationproject.net/ , Rebecca Moore Howard
At least two faculty members among those who responded used
rubrics for work on Moodle. This work included forum responses
regarding class discussions, peer reviews of work posted on Moodle,
and critical/analytical reading summaries. Students have written
guides to the expectations for these distinct assignments, and they
write “to” them.
That’s all better news
And there’s more
There are helpful resources
a. The chapter (and references) from John Bean’s Engaging Ideas, 2nd edition
a. A list of sites on the next two slides, with discipline specific guides to rubric
construction—and explanations of the general types:
analytical and holistic (and everything in-between)
c. One example—part of our landscape—of the AAC&U “LEAP” Value Rubrics
addresses “Written Communication” from the point of view of graduation
expectations (on pp. 29-30 of the LEAP Value Rubric piece).
d. The chance for discussion about discipline and assignment-specific rubric
construction
e. The possibility of—if there’s interest—workshops for developing rubrics—
an enterprise which, in turn, would have us look carefully at the
internal construction of our assignments, and the accessibility (explicitness?) of
their goals and objectives.
URLS helpful to RUBRICS
Two general observations—
1. What is the purpose of the rubric—to evaluate an assignment holistically or
to provide an analysis of how students’ work addresses delineated criteria.
Answers to this question will result in a holistic rubric or an analytical one.
Those are two points at either ends of a spectrum, so it is likely that as you
look at examples of rubrics you will see not only examples of those two
categories, but also a range of hybrids—as our own UDWPE scoring guide is:
http://www.csun.edu/udwpe/scoring.htm
2. The most useful rubrics are assignment specific and reflect the goals that
we have for that assignment. That means that as we design an assignment and
prepare it for students, its companion rubric should be developing along with
it.
3. These are what I thought were helpful sites; they provide direction and
insight—as well as some useful rubric examples
University of Wisconsin: “Learn More: ‘Rubrics’”
https://learnuw.wisc.edu/learnMore/Rubrics.html
More…
Colorado State University (also the home of the WAC clearinghouse)
“What makes a good rubric?”
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/commenting/rubric.cfm
George Mason Departmental Rubrics
http://wac.gmu.edu/assessing/assessing_student_writing.php#rubrics
Ohio State University: Developing Rubrics
https://carmenwiki.osu.edu/display/osuwacresources/How+to+Develop+a+Rubric
University of Baltimore—Business centered
http://www.ubalt.edu/merrick/student-resources/rubrics.cfm
Some helpful overviews from Minnesota State University
http://web.mnstate.edu/instrtech/scmodules/Rubrics/rubrics/rubrics_print.html
This site, from SDSU, provides not only justification, but an “exercise” providing for
rubric construction (John Bean does this, as well, in his chapter)
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/weblessons.htm