CollegeWriting.info: "Alternate Grading & Scoring Methods"

A “rubric” is a set of guidelines used for clear, consistent evaluation. It also is an explanation offered to those being evaluated. The four rubrics on this sheet represent four systems for evaluating formal written papers. They may be used as they are, or as examples to help you develop your own.

A “Qualifiable KPI [Key Performance Indicator]” Rubric --Brenda Wentworth

(Wentworth, Brenda, Assessment Coordinator, College
of Fine Arts and Humanities. St. Cloud State University . 2003.)

· In writing the student will have one voice that unifies the writing style of the document.

· The document presents a clear, concrete, focused, narrow hypothesis or assertion.

· Students will support assertions with direct evidence from disciplinary sources, mostly primary source readings (give examples), from secondary sources (give examples), and from a few tertiary sources (give examples or exclude tertiary sources if appropriate)

· The audience for the document will be (clearly identify the appropriate audience).

· The organizational structure is clear (introduction-body-conclusion or problem-solution or question-answer or explanatory outline with links, etc.).

“The high achieving or excellent student will be able to accomplish everything in the rubric that is at the level of magazines or journals in the discipline (give examples). They will be prepared for graduate level work or research but not able to write above master’s degree level. Their work may contain some new knowledge or draw new conclusions based on the knowledge.

“The average student will be able to accomplish all but one or two of the standards. Their work will not be at a publishable level in disciplinary magazines or journals. Their research will be adequate but will contain no new knowledge or reach any new conclusions.

“The low achieving student will be able to accomplish at least four of the standards adequately. They will minimally accomplish the other standards but their work will be below the average of most college students. Their writing will be technically imperfect, may contain mechanical errors, and their conclusions may be weak.”

“Individual Criteria: Using a Grid”
Peter Elbow

(Elbow, Peter. “Grading Student Writing….” Writing to Learn: Strategies for. .. Writing Across the Disciplines. Ed. Mary Deane Sorcinelli and Peter Elbow. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. 136-7.)

“There is a traditional and crude distinction between form and content that many teachers use…. Teachers sometimes break out these two broad criteria into four more explicit ones [below]. Yet of course, we can work out our own criteria according to our own tastes—perhaps changing them on different papers….

“CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF COURSE MATERIAL

”GOOD IDEAS AND INTERESTING THINKING

“CLARITY

”MECHANICS….”

“Scoring Guide”
Minnesota Community Colleges

(Minnesota Community Colleges. Community of Classrooms: A Handbook for Preparing Students for Reading and Writing in College. St. Paul: Minnesota Community College System, 1994. 104.)

[The following rubric was developed as a guide for evaluating developmental writing.]

“FOCUS: The writing presents a clear focus.”

“COHERENCE/UNITY: The information is presented in a logical manner and develops the focus.”

“SUPPORT: Ample details create a picture, inform or persuade….”

“CORRECTNESS: The writing adheres to Academic English with only minor distractions.”

“AUDIENCE: …[T]he reader is moved [and] the writing generally succeeds in meeting the needs of its…targeted audience.”

1. CONTENTS: Are ideas well developed and applied? Are the ideas sufficiently original? Is there a central purpose? Are concepts and terminology appropriate and clear? Are the critical thinking functions of the field or discipline used well?

2. SUPPORTING DETAILS: Are there adequate and appropriate details (e.g., quotations, paraphrases, examples, stories, statistics, graphics, or a bibliography)? Do they support the paper’s central concepts? Are the details well explained and connected to the concepts?

3. AUDIENCE/STYLE: Does the paper show evidence of consideration of its audience? Does it use an appropriate academic or professional tone? Does it speak in an appropriate voice to its audience?

4. ORGANIZATION: Does the paper have a central subject or argument? Are there clear, separate topics and/or sections that start with appropriate topic sentences or subtitles? Are there clear, developed paragraphs?

5. PROFESSIONAL APPEARANCE: Are mechanics—e.g., grammatical usage, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, graphics/illustrations, and typing—sufficiently correct?

You may offer the above to students as general guidelines, or you may score each guideline using letters or points with equal weighting (e.g., “C B A C A” or “2 3 4 2 4” = overall “B”) or unequal weighting (e.g., “C C C” for #1, “B B” for #2, and “A C A” for #3-5 = overall B-). The best-case scenario is to use guidelines such as these to develop your own specific rubric.

-----