scoring rubric for writing assignment

Writing Rubrics [Examples, Best Practices, & Free Templates]

Writing rubrics are essential tools for teachers.

Rubrics can improve both teaching and learning. This guide will explain writing rubrics, their benefits, and how to create and use them effectively.

What Is a Writing Rubric?

Table of Contents

A writing rubric is a scoring guide used to evaluate written work.

It lists criteria and describes levels of quality from excellent to poor. Rubrics provide a standardized way to assess writing.

They make expectations clear and grading consistent.

Key Components of a Writing Rubric

• Criteria : Specific aspects of writing being evaluated (e.g., grammar, organization).
• Descriptors : Detailed descriptions of what each level of performance looks like.
• Scoring Levels : Typically, a range (e.g., 1-4 or 1-6) showing levels of mastery.

Example Breakdown

Benefits of using writing rubrics.

Writing rubrics offer many advantages:

• Clarity : Rubrics clarify expectations for students. They know what is required for each level of performance.
• Consistency : Rubrics standardize grading. This ensures fairness and consistency across different students and assignments.
• Feedback : Rubrics provide detailed feedback. Students understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
• Efficiency : Rubrics streamline the grading process. Teachers can evaluate work more quickly and systematically.
• Self-Assessment : Students can use rubrics to self-assess. This promotes reflection and responsibility for their learning.

Examples of Writing Rubrics

Here are some examples of writing rubrics.

Narrative Writing Rubric

Persuasive writing rubric, best practices for creating writing rubrics.

Let’s look at some best practices for creating useful writing rubrics.

1. Define Clear Criteria

Identify specific aspects of writing to evaluate. Be clear and precise.

The criteria should reflect the key components of the writing task. For example, for a narrative essay, criteria might include plot development, character depth, and use of descriptive language.

Clear criteria help students understand what is expected and allow teachers to provide targeted feedback.

Insider Tip : Collaborate with colleagues to establish consistent criteria across grade levels. This ensures uniformity in expectations and assessments.

2. Use Detailed Descriptors

Describe what each level of performance looks like.

This ensures transparency and clarity. Avoid vague language. Instead of saying “good,” describe what “good” entails. For example, “Few minor grammatical errors that do not impede readability.”

Detailed descriptors help students gauge their performance accurately.

Insider Tip : Use student work samples to illustrate each performance level. This provides concrete examples and helps students visualize expectations.

3. Involve Students

Involve students in the rubric creation process. This increases their understanding and buy-in.

Ask for their input on what they think is important in their writing.

This collaborative approach not only demystifies the grading process but also fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility in students.

Insider Tip : Conduct a workshop where students help create a rubric for an upcoming assignment. This interactive session can clarify doubts and make students more invested in their work.

4. Align with Objectives

Ensure the rubric aligns with learning objectives. This ensures relevance and focus.

If the objective is to enhance persuasive writing skills, the rubric should emphasize argument strength, evidence quality, and persuasive techniques.

Alignment ensures that the assessment directly supports instructional goals.

Insider Tip : Regularly revisit and update rubrics to reflect changes in curriculum and instructional priorities. This keeps the rubrics relevant and effective.

5. Review and Revise

Regularly review and revise rubrics. Ensure they remain accurate and effective.

Solicit feedback from students and colleagues. Continuous improvement of rubrics ensures they remain a valuable tool for both assessment and instruction.

Insider Tip : After using a rubric, take notes on its effectiveness. Were students confused by any criteria? Did the rubric cover all necessary aspects of the assignment? Use these observations to make adjustments.

6. Be Consistent

Use the rubric consistently across all assignments.

This ensures fairness and reliability. Consistency in applying the rubric helps build trust with students and maintains the integrity of the assessment process.

Insider Tip : Develop a grading checklist to accompany the rubric. This can help ensure that all criteria are consistently applied and none are overlooked during the grading process.

7. Provide Examples

Provide examples of each performance level.

This helps students understand expectations. Use annotated examples to show why a particular piece of writing meets a specific level.

This visual and practical demonstration can be more effective than descriptions alone.

Insider Tip : Create a portfolio of exemplar works for different assignments. This can be a valuable resource for both new and experienced teachers to standardize grading.

How to Use Writing Rubrics Effectively

Here is how to use writing rubrics like the pros.

1. Introduce Rubrics Early

Introduce rubrics at the beginning of the assignment.

Explain each criterion and performance level. This upfront clarity helps students understand what is expected and guides their work from the start.

Insider Tip : Conduct a rubric walkthrough session where you discuss each part of the rubric in detail. Allow students to ask questions and provide examples to illustrate each criterion.

2. Use Rubrics as a Teaching Tool

Use rubrics to teach writing skills. Discuss what constitutes good writing and why.

This can be an opportunity to reinforce lessons on grammar, organization, and other writing components.

Insider Tip : Pair the rubric with writing workshops. Use the rubric to critique sample essays and show students how to apply the rubric to improve their own writing.

3. Provide Feedback

Use the rubric to give detailed feedback. Highlight strengths and areas for improvement.

This targeted feedback helps students understand their performance and learn how to improve.

Insider Tip : Instead of just marking scores, add comments next to each criterion on the rubric. This personalized feedback can be more impactful and instructive for students.

4. Encourage Self-Assessment

Encourage students to use rubrics to self-assess.

This promotes reflection and growth. Before submitting their work, ask students to evaluate their own writing against the rubric.

This practice fosters self-awareness and critical thinking.

Insider Tip : Incorporate self-assessment as a mandatory step in the assignment process. Provide a simplified version of the rubric for students to use during self-assessment.

5. Use Rubrics for Peer Assessment

Use rubrics for peer assessment. This allows students to learn from each other.

Peer assessments can provide new perspectives and reinforce learning.

Insider Tip : Conduct a peer assessment workshop. Train students on how to use the rubric to evaluate each other’s work constructively. This can improve the quality of peer feedback.

6. Reflect and Improve

Reflect on the effectiveness of the rubric. Make adjustments as needed for future assignments.

Continuous reflection ensures that rubrics remain relevant and effective tools for assessment and learning.

Insider Tip : After an assignment, hold a debrief session with students to gather their feedback on the rubric. Use their insights to make improvements.

Check out this video about using writing rubrics:

Common Mistakes with Writing Rubrics

Creating and using writing rubrics can be incredibly effective, but there are common mistakes that can undermine their effectiveness.

Here are some pitfalls to avoid:

1. Vague Criteria

Vague criteria can confuse students and lead to inconsistent grading.

Ensure that each criterion is specific and clearly defined. Ambiguous terms like “good” or “satisfactory” should be replaced with concrete descriptions of what those levels of performance look like.

2. Overly Complex Rubrics

While detail is important, overly complex rubrics can be overwhelming for both students and teachers.

Too many criteria and performance levels can complicate the grading process and make it difficult for students to understand what is expected.

Keep rubrics concise and focused on the most important aspects of the assignment.

3. Inconsistent Application

Applying the rubric inconsistently can lead to unfair grading.

Ensure that you apply the rubric in the same way for all students and all assignments. Consistency builds trust and ensures that grades accurately reflect student performance.

4. Ignoring Student Input

Ignoring student input when creating rubrics can result in criteria that do not align with student understanding or priorities.

Involving students in the creation process can enhance their understanding and engagement with the rubric.

5. Failing to Update Rubrics

Rubrics should evolve to reflect changes in instructional goals and student needs.

Failing to update rubrics can result in outdated criteria that no longer align with current teaching objectives.

Regularly review and revise rubrics to keep them relevant and effective.

6. Lack of Examples

Without examples, students may struggle to understand the expectations for each performance level.

Providing annotated examples of work that meets each criterion can help students visualize what is required and guide their efforts more effectively.

7. Not Providing Feedback

Rubrics should be used as a tool for feedback, not just scoring.

Simply assigning a score without providing detailed feedback can leave students unclear about their strengths and areas for improvement.

Use the rubric to give comprehensive feedback that guides students’ growth.

8. Overlooking Self-Assessment and Peer Assessment

Self-assessment and peer assessment are valuable components of the learning process.

Overlooking these opportunities can limit students’ ability to reflect on their own work and learn from their peers.

Encourage students to use the rubric for self and peer assessment to deepen their understanding and enhance their skills.

What Is a Holistic Scoring Rubric for Writing?

A holistic scoring rubric for writing is a type of rubric that evaluates a piece of writing as a whole rather than breaking it down into separate criteria

This approach provides a single overall score based on the general impression of the writing’s quality and effectiveness.

Here’s a closer look at holistic scoring rubrics.

Key Features of Holistic Scoring Rubrics

• Single Overall Score : Assigns one score based on the overall quality of the writing.
• General Criteria : Focuses on the overall effectiveness, coherence, and impact of the writing.
• Descriptors : Uses broad descriptors for each score level to capture the general characteristics of the writing.

Example Holistic Scoring Rubric

Advantages of holistic scoring rubrics.

• Efficiency : Faster to use because it involves a single overall judgment rather than multiple criteria.
• Flexibility : Allows for a more intuitive assessment of the writing’s overall impact and effectiveness.
• Comprehensiveness : Captures the overall quality of writing, considering all elements together.

Disadvantages of Holistic Scoring Rubrics

• Less Detailed Feedback : Provides a general score without specific feedback on individual aspects of writing.
• Subjectivity : Can be more subjective, as it relies on the assessor’s overall impression rather than specific criteria.
• Limited Diagnostic Use : Less useful for identifying specific areas of strength and weakness for instructional purposes.

When to Use Holistic Scoring Rubrics

• Quick Assessments : When a quick, overall evaluation is needed.
• Standardized Testing : Often used in standardized testing scenarios where consistency and efficiency are priorities.
• Initial Impressions : Useful for providing an initial overall impression before more detailed analysis.

Free Writing Rubric Templates

Feel free to use the following writing rubric templates.

You can easily copy and paste them into a Word Document. Please do credit this website on any written, printed, or published use.

Otherwise, go wild.

Expository Writing Rubric

Descriptive writing rubric, analytical writing rubric, final thoughts: writing rubrics.

I have a lot more resources for teaching on this site.

Check out some of the blog posts I’ve listed below. I think you might enjoy them.

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Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

• Workshop Recording (Fall 2022)
• Workshop Registration

Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

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15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects

In the end, they actually make grading easier.

When it comes to student assessment and evaluation, there are a lot of methods to consider. In some cases, testing is the best way to assess a student’s knowledge, and the answers are either right or wrong. But often, assessing a student’s performance is much less clear-cut. In these situations, a scoring rubric is often the way to go, especially if you’re using standards-based grading . Here’s what you need to know about this useful tool, along with lots of rubric examples to get you started.

What is a scoring rubric?

In the United States, a rubric is a guide that lays out the performance expectations for an assignment. It helps students understand what’s required of them, and guides teachers through the evaluation process. (Note that in other countries, the term “rubric” may instead refer to the set of instructions at the beginning of an exam. To avoid confusion, some people use the term “scoring rubric” instead.)

A rubric generally has three parts:

• Performance criteria: These are the various aspects on which the assignment will be evaluated. They should align with the desired learning outcomes for the assignment.
• Rating scale: This could be a number system (often 1 to 4) or words like “exceeds expectations, meets expectations, below expectations,” etc.
• Indicators: These describe the qualities needed to earn a specific rating for each of the performance criteria. The level of detail may vary depending on the assignment and the purpose of the rubric itself.

Rubrics take more time to develop up front, but they help ensure more consistent assessment, especially when the skills being assessed are more subjective. A well-developed rubric can actually save teachers a lot of time when it comes to grading. What’s more, sharing your scoring rubric with students in advance often helps improve performance . This way, students have a clear picture of what’s expected of them and what they need to do to achieve a specific grade or performance rating.

Learn more about why and how to use a rubric here.

Types of Rubric

There are three basic rubric categories, each with its own purpose.

Holistic Rubric

Source: Cambrian College

This type of rubric combines all the scoring criteria in a single scale. They’re quick to create and use, but they have drawbacks. If a student’s work spans different levels, it can be difficult to decide which score to assign. They also make it harder to provide feedback on specific aspects.

Traditional letter grades are a type of holistic rubric. So are the popular “hamburger rubric” and “ cupcake rubric ” examples. Learn more about holistic rubrics here.

Analytic Rubric

Source: University of Nebraska

Analytic rubrics are much more complex and generally take a great deal more time up front to design. They include specific details of the expected learning outcomes, and descriptions of what criteria are required to meet various performance ratings in each. Each rating is assigned a point value, and the total number of points earned determines the overall grade for the assignment.

Though they’re more time-intensive to create, analytic rubrics actually save time while grading. Teachers can simply circle or highlight any relevant phrases in each rating, and add a comment or two if needed. They also help ensure consistency in grading, and make it much easier for students to understand what’s expected of them.

Learn more about analytic rubrics here.

Developmental Rubric

Source: Deb’s Data Digest

A developmental rubric is a type of analytic rubric, but it’s used to assess progress along the way rather than determining a final score on an assignment. The details in these rubrics help students understand their achievements, as well as highlight the specific skills they still need to improve.

Developmental rubrics are essentially a subset of analytic rubrics. They leave off the point values, though, and focus instead on giving feedback using the criteria and indicators of performance.

Learn how to use developmental rubrics here.

Ready to create your own rubrics? Find general tips on designing rubrics here. Then, check out these examples across all grades and subjects to inspire you.

Elementary School Rubric Examples

These elementary school rubric examples come from real teachers who use them with their students. Adapt them to fit your needs and grade level.

Reading Fluency Rubric

You can use this one as an analytic rubric by counting up points to earn a final score, or just to provide developmental feedback. There’s a second rubric page available specifically to assess prosody (reading with expression).

Learn more: Teacher Thrive

Reading Comprehension Rubric

The nice thing about this rubric is that you can use it at any grade level, for any text. If you like this style, you can get a reading fluency rubric here too.

Learn more: Pawprints Resource Center

Written Response Rubric

Rubrics aren’t just for huge projects. They can also help kids work on very specific skills, like this one for improving written responses on assessments.

Learn more: Dianna Radcliffe: Teaching Upper Elementary and More

Interactive Notebook Rubric

If you use interactive notebooks as a learning tool , this rubric can help kids stay on track and meet your expectations.

Learn more: Classroom Nook

Project Rubric

Use this simple rubric as it is, or tweak it to include more specific indicators for the project you have in mind.

Learn more: Tales of a Title One Teacher

Behavior Rubric

Developmental rubrics are perfect for assessing behavior and helping students identify opportunities for improvement. Send these home regularly to keep parents in the loop.

Learn more: Teachers.net Gazette

Middle School Rubric Examples

In middle school, use rubrics to offer detailed feedback on projects, presentations, and more. Be sure to share them with students in advance, and encourage them to use them as they work so they’ll know if they’re meeting expectations.

Argumentative Writing Rubric

Argumentative writing is a part of language arts, social studies, science, and more. That makes this rubric especially useful.

Learn more: Dr. Caitlyn Tucker

Role-Play Rubric

Role-plays can be really useful when teaching social and critical thinking skills, but it’s hard to assess them. Try a rubric like this one to evaluate and provide useful feedback.

Learn more: A Question of Influence

Art Project Rubric

Art is one of those subjects where grading can feel very subjective. Bring some objectivity to the process with a rubric like this.

Source: Art Ed Guru

Diorama Project Rubric

You can use diorama projects in almost any subject, and they’re a great chance to encourage creativity. Simplify the grading process and help kids know how to make their projects shine with this scoring rubric.

Learn more: Historyourstory.com

Oral Presentation Rubric

Rubrics are terrific for grading presentations, since you can include a variety of skills and other criteria. Consider letting students use a rubric like this to offer peer feedback too.

Learn more: Bright Hub Education

High School Rubric Examples

In high school, it’s important to include your grading rubrics when you give assignments like presentations, research projects, or essays. Kids who go on to college will definitely encounter rubrics, so helping them become familiar with them now will help in the future.

Presentation Rubric

Analyze a student’s presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators.

Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr.

Debate Rubric

Debate is a valuable learning tool that encourages critical thinking and oral communication skills. This rubric can help you assess those skills objectively.

Learn more: Education World

Project-Based Learning Rubric

Implementing project-based learning can be time-intensive, but the payoffs are worth it. Try this rubric to make student expectations clear and end-of-project assessment easier.

Learn more: Free Technology for Teachers

100-Point Essay Rubric

Need an easy way to convert a scoring rubric to a letter grade? This example for essay writing earns students a final score out of 100 points.

Learn more: Learn for Your Life

Drama Performance Rubric

If you’re unsure how to grade a student’s participation and performance in drama class, consider this example. It offers lots of objective criteria and indicators to evaluate.

Learn more: Chase March

How do you use rubrics in your classroom? Come share your thoughts and exchange ideas in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, 25 of the best alternative assessment ideas ..

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Reduced grading time? Yes, please! Continue Reading

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Rubric Design

Main navigation, articulating your assessment values.

Reading, commenting on, and then assigning a grade to a piece of student writing requires intense attention and difficult judgment calls. Some faculty dread “the stack.” Students may share the faculty’s dim view of writing assessment, perceiving it as highly subjective. They wonder why one faculty member values evidence and correctness before all else, while another seeks a vaguely defined originality.

Writing rubrics can help address the concerns of both faculty and students by making writing assessment more efficient, consistent, and public. Whether it is called a grading rubric, a grading sheet, or a scoring guide, a writing assignment rubric lists criteria by which the writing is graded.

Why create a writing rubric?

• It makes your tacit rhetorical knowledge explicit
• It articulates community- and discipline-specific standards of excellence
• It links the grade you give the assignment to the criteria
• It can make your grading more efficient, consistent, and fair as you can read and comment with your criteria in mind
• It can help you reverse engineer your course: once you have the rubrics created, you can align your readings, activities, and lectures with the rubrics to set your students up for success
• It can help your students produce writing that you look forward to reading

How to create a writing rubric

Create a rubric at the same time you create the assignment. It will help you explain to the students what your goals are for the assignment.

• Consider your purpose: do you need a rubric that addresses the standards for all the writing in the course? Or do you need to address the writing requirements and standards for just one assignment?  Task-specific rubrics are written to help teachers assess individual assignments or genres, whereas generic rubrics are written to help teachers assess multiple assignments.
• Begin by listing the important qualities of the writing that will be produced in response to a particular assignment. It may be helpful to have several examples of excellent versions of the assignment in front of you: what writing elements do they all have in common? Among other things, these may include features of the argument, such as a main claim or thesis; use and presentation of sources, including visuals; and formatting guidelines such as the requirement of a works cited.
• Then consider how the criteria will be weighted in grading. Perhaps all criteria are equally important, or perhaps there are two or three that all students must achieve to earn a passing grade. Decide what best fits the class and requirements of the assignment.

Consider involving students in Steps 2 and 3. A class session devoted to developing a rubric can provoke many important discussions about the ways the features of the language serve the purpose of the writing. And when students themselves work to describe the writing they are expected to produce, they are more likely to achieve it.

At this point, you will need to decide if you want to create a holistic or an analytic rubric. There is much debate about these two approaches to assessment.

Comparing Holistic and Analytic Rubrics

Holistic scoring .

Holistic scoring aims to rate overall proficiency in a given student writing sample. It is often used in large-scale writing program assessment and impromptu classroom writing for diagnostic purposes.

General tenets to holistic scoring:

• Responding to drafts is part of evaluation
• Responses do not focus on grammar and mechanics during drafting and there is little correction
• Marginal comments are kept to 2-3 per page with summative comments at end
• End commentary attends to students’ overall performance across learning objectives as articulated in the assignment
• Response language aims to foster students’ self-assessment

Holistic rubrics emphasize what students do well and generally increase efficiency; they may also be more valid because scoring includes authentic, personal reaction of the reader. But holistic sores won’t tell a student how they’ve progressed relative to previous assignments and may be rater-dependent, reducing reliability. (For a summary of advantages and disadvantages of holistic scoring, see Becker, 2011, p. 116.)

Here is an example of a partial holistic rubric:

Summary meets all the criteria. The writer understands the article thoroughly. The main points in the article appear in the summary with all main points proportionately developed. The summary should be as comprehensive as possible and should be as comprehensive as possible and should read smoothly, with appropriate transitions between ideas. Sentences should be clear, without vagueness or ambiguity and without grammatical or mechanical errors.

A complete holistic rubric for a research paper (authored by Jonah Willihnganz) can be  downloaded here.

Analytic Scoring

Analytic scoring makes explicit the contribution to the final grade of each element of writing. For example, an instructor may choose to give 30 points for an essay whose ideas are sufficiently complex, that marshals good reasons in support of a thesis, and whose argument is logical; and 20 points for well-constructed sentences and careful copy editing.

General tenets to analytic scoring:

• Reflect emphases in your teaching and communicate the learning goals for the course
• Emphasize student performance across criterion, which are established as central to the assignment in advance, usually on an assignment sheet
• Typically take a quantitative approach, providing a scaled set of points for each criterion
• Make the analytic framework available to students before they write  

Advantages of an analytic rubric include ease of training raters and improved reliability. Meanwhile, writers often can more easily diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of their work. But analytic rubrics can be time-consuming to produce, and raters may judge the writing holistically anyway. Moreover, many readers believe that writing traits cannot be separated. (For a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of analytic scoring, see Becker, 2011, p. 115.)

For example, a partial analytic rubric for a single trait, “addresses a significant issue”:

• Excellent: Elegantly establishes the current problem, why it matters, to whom
• Above Average: Identifies the problem; explains why it matters and to whom
• Competent: Describes topic but relevance unclear or cursory
• Developing: Unclear issue and relevance

A  complete analytic rubric for a research paper can be downloaded here.  In WIM courses, this language should be revised to name specific disciplinary conventions.

Whichever type of rubric you write, your goal is to avoid pushing students into prescriptive formulas and limiting thinking (e.g., “each paragraph has five sentences”). By carefully describing the writing you want to read, you give students a clear target, and, as Ed White puts it, “describe the ongoing work of the class” (75).

Writing rubrics contribute meaningfully to the teaching of writing. Think of them as a coaching aide. In class and in conferences, you can use the language of the rubric to help you move past generic statements about what makes good writing good to statements about what constitutes success on the assignment and in the genre or discourse community. The rubric articulates what you are asking students to produce on the page; once that work is accomplished, you can turn your attention to explaining how students can achieve it.

Works Cited

Becker, Anthony.  “Examining Rubrics Used to Measure Writing Performance in U.S. Intensive English Programs.”   The CATESOL Journal  22.1 (2010/2011):113-30. Web.

White, Edward M.  Teaching and Assessing Writing . Proquest Info and Learning, 1985. Print.

Further Resources

CCCC Committee on Assessment. “Writing Assessment: A Position Statement.” November 2006 (Revised March 2009). Conference on College Composition and Communication. Web.

Gallagher, Chris W. “Assess Locally, Validate Globally: Heuristics for Validating Local Writing Assessments.” Writing Program Administration 34.1 (2010): 10-32. Web.

Huot, Brian.  (Re)Articulating Writing Assessment for Teaching and Learning.  Logan: Utah State UP, 2002. Print.

Kelly-Reilly, Diane, and Peggy O’Neil, eds. Journal of Writing Assessment. Web.

McKee, Heidi A., and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss DeVoss, Eds. Digital Writing Assessment & Evaluation. Logan, UT: Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press, 2013. Web.

O’Neill, Peggy, Cindy Moore, and Brian Huot.  A Guide to College Writing Assessment . Logan: Utah State UP, 2009. Print.

Sommers, Nancy.  Responding to Student Writers . Macmillan Higher Education, 2013.

Straub, Richard. “Responding, Really Responding to Other Students’ Writing.” The Subject is Writing: Essays by Teachers and Students. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Boynton/Cook, 1999. Web.

White, Edward M., and Cassie A. Wright.  Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide . 5th ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. Print.

How to Use Rubrics

A rubric is a document that describes the criteria by which students’ assignments are graded. Rubrics can be helpful for:

• Making grading faster and more consistent (reducing potential bias). 
• Communicating your expectations for an assignment to students before they begin. 

Moreover, for assignments whose criteria are more subjective, the process of creating a rubric and articulating what it looks like to succeed at an assignment provides an opportunity to check for alignment with the intended learning outcomes and modify the assignment prompt, as needed.

Why rubrics?

Rubrics are best for assignments or projects that require evaluation on multiple dimensions. Creating a rubric makes the instructor’s standards explicit to both students and other teaching staff for the class, showing students how to meet expectations.

Additionally, the more comprehensive a rubric is, the more it allows for grading to be streamlined—students will get informative feedback about their performance from the rubric, even if they don’t have as many individualized comments. Grading can be more standardized and efficient across graders.

Finally, rubrics allow for reflection, as the instructor has to think about their standards and outcomes for the students. Using rubrics can help with self-directed learning in students as well, especially if rubrics are used to review students’ own work or their peers’, or if students are involved in creating the rubric.

How to design a rubric

1. consider the desired learning outcomes.

What learning outcomes is this assignment reinforcing and assessing? If the learning outcome seems “fuzzy,” iterate on the outcome by thinking about the expected student work product. This may help you more clearly articulate the learning outcome in a way that is measurable.  

2. Define criteria

What does a successful assignment submission look like? As described by Allen and Tanner (2006), it can help develop an initial list of categories that the student should demonstrate proficiency in by completing the assignment. These categories should correlate with the intended learning outcomes you identified in Step 1, although they may be more granular in some cases. For example, if the task assesses students’ ability to formulate an effective communication strategy, what components of their communication strategy will you be looking for? Talking with colleagues or looking at existing rubrics for similar tasks may give you ideas for categories to consider for evaluation.

If you have assigned this task to students before and have samples of student work, it can help create a qualitative observation guide. This is described in Linda Suskie’s book Assessing Student Learning , where she suggests thinking about what made you decide to give one assignment an A and another a C, as well as taking notes when grading assignments and looking for common patterns. The often repeated themes that you comment on may show what your goals and expectations for students are. An example of an observation guide used to take notes on predetermined areas of an assignment is shown here .

In summary, consider the following list of questions when defining criteria for a rubric (O’Reilly and Cyr, 2006):

• What do you want students to learn from the task?
• How will students demonstrate that they have learned?
• What knowledge, skills, and behaviors are required for the task?
• What steps are required for the task?
• What are the characteristics of the final product?

After developing an initial list of criteria, prioritize the most important skills you want to target and eliminate unessential criteria or combine similar skills into one group. Most rubrics have between 3 and 8 criteria. Rubrics that are too lengthy make it difficult to grade and challenging for students to understand the key skills they need to achieve for the given assignment. 

3. Create the rating scale

According to Suskie, you will want at least 3 performance levels: for adequate and inadequate performance, at the minimum, and an exemplary level to motivate students to strive for even better work. Rubrics often contain 5 levels, with an additional level between adequate and exemplary and a level between adequate and inadequate. Usually, no more than 5 levels are needed, as having too many rating levels can make it hard to consistently distinguish which rating to give an assignment (such as between a 6 or 7 out of 10). Suskie also suggests labeling each level with names to clarify which level represents the minimum acceptable performance. Labels will vary by assignment and subject, but some examples are: 

• Exceeds standard, meets standard, approaching standard, below standard
• Complete evidence, partial evidence, minimal evidence, no evidence

4. Fill in descriptors

Fill in descriptors for each criterion at each performance level. Expand on the list of criteria you developed in Step 2. Begin to write full descriptions, thinking about what an exemplary example would look like for students to strive towards. Avoid vague terms like “good” and make sure to use explicit, concrete terms to describe what would make a criterion good. For instance, a criterion called “organization and structure” would be more descriptive than “writing quality.” Describe measurable behavior and use parallel language for clarity; the wording for each criterion should be very similar, except for the degree to which standards are met. For example, in a sample rubric from Chapter 9 of Suskie’s book, the criterion of “persuasiveness” has the following descriptors:

• Well Done (5): Motivating questions and advance organizers convey the main idea. Information is accurate.
• Satisfactory (3-4): Includes persuasive information.
• Needs Improvement (1-2): Include persuasive information with few facts.
• Incomplete (0): Information is incomplete, out of date, or incorrect.

These sample descriptors generally have the same sentence structure that provides consistent language across performance levels and shows the degree to which each standard is met.

5. Test your rubric

Test your rubric using a range of student work to see if the rubric is realistic. You may also consider leaving room for aspects of the assignment, such as effort, originality, and creativity, to encourage students to go beyond the rubric. If there will be multiple instructors grading, it is important to calibrate the scoring by having all graders use the rubric to grade a selected set of student work and then discuss any differences in the scores. This process helps develop consistency in grading and making the grading more valid and reliable.

Types of Rubrics

If you would like to dive deeper into rubric terminology, this section is dedicated to discussing some of the different types of rubrics. However, regardless of the type of rubric you use, it’s still most important to focus first on your learning goals and think about how the rubric will help clarify students’ expectations and measure student progress towards those learning goals.

Depending on the nature of the assignment, rubrics can come in several varieties (Suskie, 2009):

Checklist Rubric

This is the simplest kind of rubric, which lists specific features or aspects of the assignment which may be present or absent. A checklist rubric does not involve the creation of a rating scale with descriptors. See example from 18.821 project-based math class .

Rating Scale Rubric

This is like a checklist rubric, but instead of merely noting the presence or absence of a feature or aspect of the assignment, the grader also rates quality (often on a graded or Likert-style scale). See example from 6.811 assistive technology class .

Descriptive Rubric

A descriptive rubric is like a rating scale, but including descriptions of what performing to a certain level on each scale looks like. Descriptive rubrics are particularly useful in communicating instructors’ expectations of performance to students and in creating consistency with multiple graders on an assignment. This kind of rubric is probably what most people think of when they imagine a rubric. See example from 15.279 communications class .

Holistic Scoring Guide

Unlike the first 3 types of rubrics, a holistic scoring guide describes performance at different levels (e.g., A-level performance, B-level performance) holistically without analyzing the assignment into several different scales. This kind of rubric is particularly useful when there are many assignments to grade and a moderate to a high degree of subjectivity in the assessment of quality. It can be difficult to have consistency across scores, and holistic scoring guides are most helpful when making decisions quickly rather than providing detailed feedback to students. See example from 11.229 advanced writing seminar .

The kind of rubric that is most appropriate will depend on the assignment in question.

Implementation tips

Rubrics are also available to use for Canvas assignments. See this resource from Boston College for more details and guides from Canvas Instructure.

Allen, D., & Tanner, K. (2006). Rubrics: Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and Learners. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 5 (3), 197-203. doi:10.1187/cbe.06-06-0168

Cherie Miot Abbanat. 11.229 Advanced Writing Seminar. Spring 2004. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

Haynes Miller, Nat Stapleton, Saul Glasman, and Susan Ruff. 18.821 Project Laboratory in Mathematics. Spring 2013. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

Lori Breslow, and Terence Heagney. 15.279 Management Communication for Undergraduates. Fall 2012. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

O’Reilly, L., & Cyr, T. (2006). Creating a Rubric: An Online Tutorial for Faculty. Retrieved from https://www.ucdenver.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/center-for-faculty-development/Documents/Tutorials/Rubrics/index.htm

Suskie, L. (2009). Using a scoring guide or rubric to plan and evaluate an assessment. In Assessing student learning: A common sense guide (2nd edition, pp. 137-154 ) . Jossey-Bass.

William Li, Grace Teo, and Robert Miller. 6.811 Principles and Practice of Assistive Technology. Fall 2014. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

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• AACU VALUE Rubrics

Using rubrics

A rubric is a type of scoring guide that assesses and articulates specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics can be used for a variety of assignments: research papers, group projects, portfolios, and presentations.  

Why use rubrics? 

Rubrics help instructors: 

• Assess assignments consistently from student-to-student. 
• Save time in grading, both short-term and long-term. 
• Give timely, effective feedback and promote student learning in a sustainable way. 
• Clarify expectations and components of an assignment for both students and course teaching assistants (TAs). 
• Refine teaching methods by evaluating rubric results. 

Rubrics help students: 

• Understand expectations and components of an assignment. 
• Become more aware of their learning process and progress. 
• Improve work through timely and detailed feedback. 

Considerations for using rubrics 

When developing rubrics consider the following:

• Although it takes time to build a rubric, time will be saved in the long run as grading and providing feedback on student work will become more streamlined.  
• A rubric can be a fillable pdf that can easily be emailed to students. 
• They can be used for oral presentations. 
• They are a great tool to evaluate teamwork and individual contribution to group tasks. 
• Rubrics facilitate peer-review by setting evaluation standards. Have students use the rubric to provide peer assessment on various drafts. 
• Students can use them for self-assessment to improve personal performance and learning. Encourage students to use the rubrics to assess their own work. 
• Motivate students to improve their work by using rubric feedback to resubmit their work incorporating the feedback. 

Getting Started with Rubrics 

• Start small by creating one rubric for one assignment in a semester.  
• Ask colleagues if they have developed rubrics for similar assignments or adapt rubrics that are available online. For example, the  AACU has rubrics  for topics such as written and oral communication, critical thinking, and creative thinking. RubiStar helps you to develop your rubric based on templates.  
• Examine an assignment for your course. Outline the elements or critical attributes to be evaluated (these attributes must be objectively measurable). 
• Create an evaluative range for performance quality under each element; for instance, “excellent,” “good,” “unsatisfactory.” 
• Avoid using subjective or vague criteria such as “interesting” or “creative.” Instead, outline objective indicators that would fall under these categories. 
• The criteria must clearly differentiate one performance level from another. 
• Assign a numerical scale to each level. 
• Give a draft of the rubric to your colleagues and/or TAs for feedback. 
• Train students to use your rubric and solicit feedback. This will help you judge whether the rubric is clear to them and will identify any weaknesses. 
• Rework the rubric based on the feedback. 

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Teaching excellence & educational innovation, grading and performance rubrics, what are rubrics.

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both.

Advantages of Using Rubrics

Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria that is designed to reflect the weighted importance of the objectives of the assignment helps ensure that the instructor’s grading standards don’t change over time. Grading consistency is difficult to maintain over time because of fatigue, shifting standards based on prior experience, or intrusion of other criteria. Furthermore, rubrics can reduce the time spent grading by reducing uncertainty and by allowing instructors to refer to the rubric description associated with a score rather than having to write long comments. Finally, grading rubrics are invaluable in large courses that have multiple graders (other instructors, teaching assistants, etc.) because they can help ensure consistency across graders and reduce the systematic bias that can be introduced between graders.

Used more formatively, rubrics can help instructors get a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their class. By recording the component scores and tallying up the number of students scoring below an acceptable level on each component, instructors can identify those skills or concepts that need more instructional time and student effort.

Grading rubrics are also valuable to students. A rubric can help instructors communicate to students the specific requirements and acceptable performance standards of an assignment. When rubrics are given to students with the assignment description, they can help students monitor and assess their progress as they work toward clearly indicated goals. When assignments are scored and returned with the rubric, students can more easily recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their work and direct their efforts accordingly.

Examples of Rubrics

Here are links to a diverse set of rubrics designed by Carnegie Mellon faculty and faculty at other institutions. Although your particular field of study and type of assessment activity may not be represented currently, viewing a rubric that is designed for a similar activity may provide you with ideas on how to divide your task into components and how to describe the varying levels of mastery.

Paper Assignments

• Example 1: Philosophy Paper This rubric was designed for student papers in a range of philosophy courses, CMU.
• Example 2: Psychology Assignment Short, concept application homework assignment in cognitive psychology, CMU.
• Example 3: Anthropology Writing Assignments This rubric was designed for a series of short writing assignments in anthropology, CMU.
• Example 4: History Research Paper . This rubric was designed for essays and research papers in history, CMU.
• Example 1: Capstone Project in Design This rubric describes the components and standard of performance from the research phase to the final presentation for a senior capstone project in the School of Design, CMU.
• Example 2: Engineering Design Project This rubric describes performance standards on three aspects of a team project: Research and Design, Communication, and Team Work.

Oral Presentations

• Example 1: Oral Exam This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing performance on an oral exam in an upper-division history course, CMU.
• Example 2: Oral Communication
• Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing group presentations in a history course, CMU.

Class Participation/Contributions

• Example 1: Discussion Class This rubric assesses the quality of student contributions to class discussions. This is appropriate for an undergraduate-level course, CMU.
• Example 2: Advanced Seminar This rubric is designed for assessing discussion performance in an advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar. 

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Creating and using rubrics.

A rubric describes the criteria that will be used to evaluate a specific task, such as a student writing assignment, poster, oral presentation, or other project. Rubrics allow instructors to communicate expectations to students, allow students to check in on their progress mid-assignment, and can increase the reliability of scores. Research suggests that when rubrics are used on an instructional basis (for instance, included with an assignment prompt for reference), students tend to utilize and appreciate them (Reddy and Andrade, 2010).

Rubrics generally exist in tabular form and are composed of:

• A description of the task that is being evaluated,
• The criteria that is being evaluated (row headings),
• A rating scale that demonstrates different levels of performance (column headings), and
• A description of each level of performance for each criterion (within each box of the table).

When multiple individuals are grading, rubrics also help improve the consistency of scoring across all graders. Instructors should insure that the structure, presentation, consistency, and use of their rubrics pass rigorous standards of validity , reliability , and fairness (Andrade, 2005).

Major Types of Rubrics

There are two major categories of rubrics:

• Holistic : In this type of rubric, a single score is provided based on raters’ overall perception of the quality of the performance. Holistic rubrics are useful when only one attribute is being evaluated, as they detail different levels of performance within a single attribute. This category of rubric is designed for quick scoring but does not provide detailed feedback. For these rubrics, the criteria may be the same as the description of the task.
• Analytic : In this type of rubric, scores are provided for several different criteria that are being evaluated. Analytic rubrics provide more detailed feedback to students and instructors about their performance. Scoring is usually more consistent across students and graders with analytic rubrics.

Rubrics utilize a scale that denotes level of success with a particular assignment, usually a 3-, 4-, or 5- category grid:

Figure 1: Grading Rubrics: Sample Scales (Brown Sheridan Center)

Sample Rubrics

Instructors can consider a sample holistic rubric developed for an English Writing Seminar course at Yale.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities also has a number of free (non-invasive free account required) analytic rubrics that can be downloaded and modified by instructors. These 16 VALUE rubrics enable instructors to measure items such as inquiry and analysis, critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, quantitative literacy, teamwork, problem-solving, and more.

Recommendations

The following provides a procedure for developing a rubric, adapted from Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning :

• Define the goal and purpose of the task that is being evaluated - Before constructing a rubric, instructors should review their learning outcomes associated with a given assignment. Are skills, content, and deeper conceptual knowledge clearly defined in the syllabus , and do class activities and assignments work towards intended outcomes? The rubric can only function effectively if goals are clear and student work progresses towards them.
• Decide what kind of rubric to use - The kind of rubric used may depend on the nature of the assignment, intended learning outcomes (for instance, does the task require the demonstration of several different skills?), and the amount and kind of feedback students will receive (for instance, is the task a formative or a summative assessment ?). Instructors can read the above, or consider “Additional Resources” for kinds of rubrics.
• Define the criteria - Instructors can review their learning outcomes and assessment parameters to determine specific criteria for the rubric to cover. Instructors should consider what knowledge and skills are required for successful completion, and create a list of criteria that assess outcomes across different vectors (comprehensiveness, maturity of thought, revisions, presentation, timeliness, etc). Criteria should be distinct and clearly described, and ideally, not surpass seven in number.
• Define the rating scale to measure levels of performance - Whatever rating scale instructors choose, they should insure that it is clear, and review it in-class to field student question and concerns. Instructors can consider if the scale will include descriptors or only be numerical, and might include prompts on the rubric for achieving higher achievement levels. Rubrics typically include 3-5 levels in their rating scales (see Figure 1 above).
• Write descriptions for each performance level of the rating scale - Each level should be accompanied by a descriptive paragraph that outlines ideals for each level, lists or names all performance expectations within the level, and if possible, provides a detail or example of ideal performance within each level. Across the rubric, descriptions should be parallel, observable, and measurable.
• Test and revise the rubric - The rubric can be tested before implementation, by arranging for writing or testing conditions with several graders or TFs who can use the rubric together. After grading with the rubric, graders might grade a similar set of materials without the rubric to assure consistency. Instructors can consider discrepancies, share the rubric and results with faculty colleagues for further opinions, and revise the rubric for use in class. Instructors might also seek out colleagues’ rubrics as well, for comparison. Regarding course implementation, instructors might consider passing rubrics out during the first class, in order to make grading expectations clear as early as possible. Rubrics should fit on one page, so that descriptions and criteria are viewable quickly and simultaneously. During and after a class or course, instructors can collect feedback on the rubric’s clarity and effectiveness from TFs and even students through anonymous surveys. Comparing scores and quality of assignments with parallel or previous assignments that did not include a rubric can reveal effectiveness as well. Instructors should feel free to revise a rubric following a course too, based on student performance and areas of confusion.

Additional Resources

Cox, G. C., Brathwaite, B. H., & Morrison, J. (2015). The Rubric: An assessment tool to guide students and markers. Advances in Higher Education, 149-163.

Creating and Using Rubrics - Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and & Educational Innovation

Creating a Rubric - UC Denver Center for Faculty Development

Grading Rubric Design - Brown University Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Moskal, B. M. (2000). Scoring rubrics: What, when and how? Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 7(3).

Quinlan A. M., (2011) A Complete Guide to Rubrics: Assessment Made Easy for Teachers of K-college 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Andrade, H. (2005). Teaching with Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. College Teaching 53(1):27-30.

Reddy, Y. M., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(4), 435-448.

Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning , Brown University

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Writing Rubrics

Samples of Basic, Expository, and Narrative Rubrics

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How to score a rubric, basic writing rubric, narrative writing rubric, expository writing rubric.

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An easy way to evaluate student writing is to create a rubric . A rubric is a scoring guide that helps teachers evaluate student performance as well as a student product or project. A writing rubric allows you, as a teacher, to help students improve their writing skills by determining what areas they need help in.

To get started in creating a rubric, you must:

• Read through the students' writing assignment completely.
• Read each criterion on the rubric and then reread the assignment, this time focusing on each feature of the rubric .
• Circle the appropriate section for each criterion listed. This will help you score the assignment at the end.
• Give the writing assignment a final score.

To learn how to turn a four-point rubric into a letter grade, use the basic writing rubric below as an example. The four-point rubric uses four potential points the student can earn for each area, such as 1) strong, 2) developing, 3) emerging, and 4) beginning. To turn your rubric score into a letter grade, divide the points earned by the points possible.

Example: The student earns 18 out of 20 points. 18/20 = 90 percent; 90 percent = A

Suggested Point Scale :

88-100 = A 75-87 = B 62-74 = C 50-61 = D 0-50 = F

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Assessment and Curriculum Support Center

Creating and using rubrics.

Last Updated: 4 March 2024. Click here to view archived versions of this page.

On this page:

• What is a rubric?
• Why use a rubric?
• What are the parts of a rubric?
• Developing a rubric
• Sample rubrics
• Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration
• Suggestions for using rubrics in courses
• Equity-minded considerations for rubric development
• Tips for developing a rubric
• Additional resources & sources consulted

Note:  The information and resources contained here serve only as a primers to the exciting and diverse perspectives in the field today. This page will be continually updated to reflect shared understandings of equity-minded theory and practice in learning assessment.

1. What is a rubric?

A rubric is an assessment tool often shaped like a matrix, which describes levels of achievement in a specific area of performance, understanding, or behavior.

There are two main types of rubrics:

Analytic Rubric : An analytic rubric specifies at least two characteristics to be assessed at each performance level and provides a separate score for each characteristic (e.g., a score on “formatting” and a score on “content development”).

• Advantages: provides more detailed feedback on student performance; promotes consistent scoring across students and between raters
• Disadvantages: more time consuming than applying a holistic rubric
• You want to see strengths and weaknesses.
• You want detailed feedback about student performance.

Holistic Rubric: A holistic rubrics provide a single score based on an overall impression of a student’s performance on a task.

• Advantages: quick scoring; provides an overview of student achievement; efficient for large group scoring
• Disadvantages: does not provided detailed information; not diagnostic; may be difficult for scorers to decide on one overall score
• You want a quick snapshot of achievement.
• A single dimension is adequate to define quality.

2. Why use a rubric?

• A rubric creates a common framework and language for assessment.
• Complex products or behaviors can be examined efficiently.
• Well-trained reviewers apply the same criteria and standards.
• Rubrics are criterion-referenced, rather than norm-referenced. Raters ask, “Did the student meet the criteria for level 5 of the rubric?” rather than “How well did this student do compared to other students?”
• Using rubrics can lead to substantive conversations among faculty.
• When faculty members collaborate to develop a rubric, it promotes shared expectations and grading practices.

Faculty members can use rubrics for program assessment. Examples:

The English Department collected essays from students in all sections of English 100. A random sample of essays was selected. A team of faculty members evaluated the essays by applying an analytic scoring rubric. Before applying the rubric, they “normed”–that is, they agreed on how to apply the rubric by scoring the same set of essays and discussing them until consensus was reached (see below: “6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration”). Biology laboratory instructors agreed to use a “Biology Lab Report Rubric” to grade students’ lab reports in all Biology lab sections, from 100- to 400-level. At the beginning of each semester, instructors met and discussed sample lab reports. They agreed on how to apply the rubric and their expectations for an “A,” “B,” “C,” etc., report in 100-level, 200-level, and 300- and 400-level lab sections. Every other year, a random sample of students’ lab reports are selected from 300- and 400-level sections. Each of those reports are then scored by a Biology professor. The score given by the course instructor is compared to the score given by the Biology professor. In addition, the scores are reported as part of the program’s assessment report. In this way, the program determines how well it is meeting its outcome, “Students will be able to write biology laboratory reports.”

3. What are the parts of a rubric?

Rubrics are composed of four basic parts. In its simplest form, the rubric includes:

• A task description . The outcome being assessed or instructions students received for an assignment.
• The characteristics to be rated (rows) . The skills, knowledge, and/or behavior to be demonstrated.
• Beginning, approaching, meeting, exceeding
• Emerging, developing, proficient, exemplary 
• Novice, intermediate, intermediate high, advanced 
• Beginning, striving, succeeding, soaring
• Also called a “performance description.” Explains what a student will have done to demonstrate they are at a given level of mastery for a given characteristic.

4. Developing a rubric

Step 1: Identify what you want to assess

Step 2: Identify the characteristics to be rated (rows). These are also called “dimensions.”

• Specify the skills, knowledge, and/or behaviors that you will be looking for.
• Limit the characteristics to those that are most important to the assessment.

Step 3: Identify the levels of mastery/scale (columns).

Tip: Aim for an even number (4 or 6) because when an odd number is used, the middle tends to become the “catch-all” category.

Step 4: Describe each level of mastery for each characteristic/dimension (cells).

• Describe the best work you could expect using these characteristics. This describes the top category.
• Describe an unacceptable product. This describes the lowest category.
• Develop descriptions of intermediate-level products for intermediate categories.

Important: Each description and each characteristic should be mutually exclusive.

Step 5: Test rubric.

• Apply the rubric to an assignment.
• Share with colleagues.

Tip: Faculty members often find it useful to establish the minimum score needed for the student work to be deemed passable. For example, faculty members may decided that a “1” or “2” on a 4-point scale (4=exemplary, 3=proficient, 2=marginal, 1=unacceptable), does not meet the minimum quality expectations. We encourage a standard setting session to set the score needed to meet expectations (also called a “cutscore”). Monica has posted materials from standard setting workshops, one offered on campus and the other at a national conference (includes speaker notes with the presentation slides). They may set their criteria for success as 90% of the students must score 3 or higher. If assessment study results fall short, action will need to be taken.

Step 6: Discuss with colleagues. Review feedback and revise.

Important: When developing a rubric for program assessment, enlist the help of colleagues. Rubrics promote shared expectations and consistent grading practices which benefit faculty members and students in the program.

5. Sample rubrics

Rubrics are on our Rubric Bank page and in our Rubric Repository (Graduate Degree Programs) . More are available at the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center in Crawford Hall (hard copy).

These open as Word documents and are examples from outside UH.

• Group Participation (analytic rubric)
• Participation (holistic rubric)
• Design Project (analytic rubric)
• Critical Thinking (analytic rubric)
• Media and Design Elements (analytic rubric; portfolio)
• Writing (holistic rubric; portfolio)

6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration

When using a rubric for program assessment purposes, faculty members apply the rubric to pieces of student work (e.g., reports, oral presentations, design projects). To produce dependable scores, each faculty member needs to interpret the rubric in the same way. The process of training faculty members to apply the rubric is called “norming.” It’s a way to calibrate the faculty members so that scores are accurate and consistent across the faculty. Below are directions for an assessment coordinator carrying out this process.

Suggested materials for a scoring session:

• Copies of the rubric
• Copies of the “anchors”: pieces of student work that illustrate each level of mastery. Suggestion: have 6 anchor pieces (2 low, 2 middle, 2 high)
• Score sheets
• Extra pens, tape, post-its, paper clips, stapler, rubber bands, etc.

Hold the scoring session in a room that:

• Allows the scorers to spread out as they rate the student pieces
• Has a chalk or white board, smart board, or flip chart
• Describe the purpose of the activity, stressing how it fits into program assessment plans. Explain that the purpose is to assess the program, not individual students or faculty, and describe ethical guidelines, including respect for confidentiality and privacy.
• Describe the nature of the products that will be reviewed, briefly summarizing how they were obtained.
• Describe the scoring rubric and its categories. Explain how it was developed.
• Analytic: Explain that readers should rate each dimension of an analytic rubric separately, and they should apply the criteria without concern for how often each score (level of mastery) is used. Holistic: Explain that readers should assign the score or level of mastery that best describes the whole piece; some aspects of the piece may not appear in that score and that is okay. They should apply the criteria without concern for how often each score is used.
• Give each scorer a copy of several student products that are exemplars of different levels of performance. Ask each scorer to independently apply the rubric to each of these products, writing their ratings on a scrap sheet of paper.
• Once everyone is done, collect everyone’s ratings and display them so everyone can see the degree of agreement. This is often done on a blackboard, with each person in turn announcing his/her ratings as they are entered on the board. Alternatively, the facilitator could ask raters to raise their hands when their rating category is announced, making the extent of agreement very clear to everyone and making it very easy to identify raters who routinely give unusually high or low ratings.
• Guide the group in a discussion of their ratings. There will be differences. This discussion is important to establish standards. Attempt to reach consensus on the most appropriate rating for each of the products being examined by inviting people who gave different ratings to explain their judgments. Raters should be encouraged to explain by making explicit references to the rubric. Usually consensus is possible, but sometimes a split decision is developed, e.g., the group may agree that a product is a “3-4” split because it has elements of both categories. This is usually not a problem. You might allow the group to revise the rubric to clarify its use but avoid allowing the group to drift away from the rubric and learning outcome(s) being assessed.
• Once the group is comfortable with how the rubric is applied, the rating begins. Explain how to record ratings using the score sheet and explain the procedures. Reviewers begin scoring.
• Are results sufficiently reliable?
• What do the results mean? Are we satisfied with the extent of students’ learning?
• Who needs to know the results?
• What are the implications of the results for curriculum, pedagogy, or student support services?
• How might the assessment process, itself, be improved?

7. Suggestions for using rubrics in courses

• Use the rubric to grade student work. Hand out the rubric with the assignment so students will know your expectations and how they’ll be graded. This should help students master your learning outcomes by guiding their work in appropriate directions.
• Use a rubric for grading student work and return the rubric with the grading on it. Faculty save time writing extensive comments; they just circle or highlight relevant segments of the rubric. Some faculty members include room for additional comments on the rubric page, either within each section or at the end.
• Develop a rubric with your students for an assignment or group project. Students can the monitor themselves and their peers using agreed-upon criteria that they helped develop. Many faculty members find that students will create higher standards for themselves than faculty members would impose on them.
• Have students apply your rubric to sample products before they create their own. Faculty members report that students are quite accurate when doing this, and this process should help them evaluate their own projects as they are being developed. The ability to evaluate, edit, and improve draft documents is an important skill.
• Have students exchange paper drafts and give peer feedback using the rubric. Then, give students a few days to revise before submitting the final draft to you. You might also require that they turn in the draft and peer-scored rubric with their final paper.
• Have students self-assess their products using the rubric and hand in their self-assessment with the product; then, faculty members and students can compare self- and faculty-generated evaluations.

8. Equity-minded considerations for rubric development

Ensure transparency by making rubric criteria public, explicit, and accessible

Transparency is a core tenet of equity-minded assessment practice. Students should know and understand how they are being evaluated as early as possible.

• Ensure the rubric is publicly available & easily accessible. We recommend publishing on your program or department website.
• Have course instructors introduce and use the program rubric in their own courses. Instructors should explain to students connections between the rubric criteria and the course and program SLOs.
• Write rubric criteria using student-focused and culturally-relevant language to ensure students understand the rubric’s purpose, the expectations it sets, and how criteria will be applied in assessing their work.
• For example, instructors can provide annotated examples of student work using the rubric language as a resource for students.

Meaningfully involve students and engage multiple perspectives

Rubrics created by faculty alone risk perpetuating unseen biases as the evaluation criteria used will inherently reflect faculty perspectives, values, and assumptions. Including students and other stakeholders in developing criteria helps to ensure performance expectations are aligned between faculty, students, and community members. Additional perspectives to be engaged might include community members, alumni, co-curricular faculty/staff, field supervisors, potential employers, or current professionals. Consider the following strategies to meaningfully involve students and engage multiple perspectives:

• Have students read each evaluation criteria and talk out loud about what they think it means. This will allow you to identify what language is clear and where there is still confusion.
• Ask students to use their language to interpret the rubric and provide a student version of the rubric.
• If you use this strategy, it is essential to create an inclusive environment where students and faculty have equal opportunity to provide input.
• Be sure to incorporate feedback from faculty and instructors who teach diverse courses, levels, and in different sub-disciplinary topics. Faculty and instructors who teach introductory courses have valuable experiences and perspectives that may differ from those who teach higher-level courses.
• Engage multiple perspectives including co-curricular faculty/staff, alumni, potential employers, and community members for feedback on evaluation criteria and rubric language. This will ensure evaluation criteria reflect what is important for all stakeholders.
• Elevate historically silenced voices in discussions on rubric development. Ensure stakeholders from historically underrepresented communities have their voices heard and valued.

Honor students’ strengths in performance descriptions

When describing students’ performance at different levels of mastery, use language that describes what students can do rather than what they cannot do. For example:

• Instead of: Students cannot make coherent arguments consistently.
• Use: Students can make coherent arguments occasionally.

9. Tips for developing a rubric

• Find and adapt an existing rubric! It is rare to find a rubric that is exactly right for your situation, but you can adapt an already existing rubric that has worked well for others and save a great deal of time. A faculty member in your program may already have a good one.
• Evaluate the rubric . Ask yourself: A) Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being assessed? (If yes, success!) B) Does it address anything extraneous? (If yes, delete.) C) Is the rubric useful, feasible, manageable, and practical? (If yes, find multiple ways to use the rubric: program assessment, assignment grading, peer review, student self assessment.)
• Collect samples of student work that exemplify each point on the scale or level. A rubric will not be meaningful to students or colleagues until the anchors/benchmarks/exemplars are available.
• Expect to revise.
• When you have a good rubric, SHARE IT!

10. Additional resources & sources consulted:

Rubric examples:

• Rubrics primarily for undergraduate outcomes and programs
• Rubric repository for graduate degree programs

Workshop presentation slides and handouts:

• Workshop handout (Word document)
• How to Use a Rubric for Program Assessment (2010)
• Techniques for Using Rubrics in Program Assessment by guest speaker Dannelle Stevens (2010)
• Rubrics: Save Grading Time & Engage Students in Learning by guest speaker Dannelle Stevens (2009)
• Rubric Library , Institutional Research, Assessment & Planning, California State University-Fresno
• The Basics of Rubrics [PDF], Schreyer Institute, Penn State
• Creating Rubrics , Teaching Methods and Management, TeacherVision
• Allen, Mary – University of Hawai’i at Manoa Spring 2008 Assessment Workshops, May 13-14, 2008 [available at the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center]
• Mertler, Craig A. (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 7(25).
• NPEC Sourcebook on Assessment: Definitions and Assessment Methods for Communication, Leadership, Information Literacy, Quantitative Reasoning, and Quantitative Skills . [PDF] (June 2005)

Contributors: Monica Stitt-Bergh, Ph.D., TJ Buckley, Yao Z. Hill Ph.D.

• Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
• Instructional Guide
• Rubrics for Assessment

A rubric is an explicit set of criteria used for assessing a particular type of work or performance (TLT Group, n.d.) and provides more details than a single grade or mark. Rubrics, therefore, will help you grade more objectively.

Have your students ever asked, “Why did you grade me that way?” or stated, “You never told us that we would be graded on grammar!” As a grading tool, rubrics can address these and other issues related to assessment: they reduce grading time; they increase objectivity and reduce subjectivity; they convey timely feedback to students and they improve students’ ability to include required elements of an assignment (Stevens & Levi, 2005). Grading rubrics can be used to assess a range of activities in any subject area

Elements of a Rubric

Typically designed as a grid-type structure, a grading rubric includes criteria, levels of performance, scores, and descriptors which become unique assessment tools for any given assignment. The table below illustrates a simple grading rubric with each of the four elements for a history research paper. 

Criteria identify the trait, feature or dimension which is to be measured and include a definition and example to clarify the meaning of each trait being assessed. Each assignment or performance will determine the number of criteria to be scored. Criteria are derived from assignments, checklists, grading sheets or colleagues.

Examples of Criteria for a term paper rubric

• Introduction
• Arguments/analysis
• Grammar and punctuation
• Internal citations

Levels of performance

Levels of performance are often labeled as adjectives which describe the performance levels. Levels of performance determine the degree of performance which has been met and will provide for consistent and objective assessment and better feedback to students. These levels tell students what they are expected to do. Levels of performance can be used without descriptors but descriptors help in achieving objectivity. Words used for levels of performance could influence a student’s interpretation of performance level (such as superior, moderate, poor or above or below average).

Examples to describe levels of performance

• Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor
• Master, Apprentice, Beginner
• Exemplary, Accomplished, Developing, Beginning, Undeveloped
• Complete, Incomplete

Levels of performance determine the degree of performance which has been met and will provide for consistent and objective assessment and better feedback to students.

Scores make up the system of numbers or values used to rate each criterion and often are combined with levels of performance. Begin by asking how many points are needed to adequately describe the range of performance you expect to see in students’ work. Consider the range of possible performance level.

Example of scores for a rubric

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 2, 4, 6, 8

Descriptors

Descriptors are explicit descriptions of the performance and show how the score is derived and what is expected of the students. Descriptors spell out each level (gradation) of performance for each criterion and describe what performance at a particular level looks like. Descriptors describe how well students’ work is distinguished from the work of their peers and will help you to distinguish between each student’s work. Descriptors should be detailed enough to differentiate between the different level and increase the objectivity of the rater.

Descriptors...describe what performance at a particular level looks like.

Developing a Grading Rubric

First, consider using any of a number of existing rubrics available online. Many rubrics can be used “as is.” Or, you could modify a rubric by adding or deleting elements or combining others for one that will suit your needs. Finally, you could create a completely customized rubric using specifically designed rubric software or just by creating a table with the rubric elements. The following steps will help you develop a rubric no matter which option you choose.

• Select a performance/assignment to be assessed. Begin with a performance or assignment which may be difficult to grade and where you want to reduce subjectivity. Is the performance/assignment an authentic task related to learning goals and/or objectives? Are students replicating meaningful tasks found in the real world? Are you encouraging students to problem solve and apply knowledge? Answer these questions as you begin to develop the criteria for your rubric.

Begin with a performance or assignment which may be difficult to grade and where you want to reduce subjectivity.

• List criteria. Begin by brainstorming a list of all criteria, traits or dimensions associated task. Reduce the list by chunking similar criteria and eliminating others until you produce a range of appropriate criteria. A rubric designed for formative and diagnostic assessments might have more criteria than those rubrics rating summative performances (Dodge, 2001). Keep the list of criteria manageable and reasonable.
• Write criteria descriptions. Keep criteria descriptions brief, understandable, and in a logical order for students to follow as they work on the task.
• Determine level of performance adjectives.  Select words or phrases that will explain what performance looks like at each level, making sure they are discrete enough to show real differences. Levels of performance should match the related criterion.
• Develop scores. The scores will determine the ranges of performance in numerical value. Make sure the values make sense in terms of the total points possible: What is the difference between getting 10 points versus 100 points versus 1,000 points? The best and worst performance scores are placed at the ends of the continuum and the other scores are placed appropriately in between. It is suggested to start with fewer levels and to distinguish between work that does not meet the criteria. Also, it is difficult to make fine distinctions using qualitative levels such as never, sometimes, usually or limited acceptance, proficient or NA, poor, fair, good, very good, excellent. How will you make the distinctions?

It is suggested to start with fewer [score] levels and to distinguish between work that does not meet the criteria.

• Write the descriptors. As a student is judged to move up the performance continuum, previous level descriptions are considered achieved in subsequent description levels. Therefore, it is not necessary to include “beginning level” descriptors in the same box where new skills are introduced.
• Evaluate the rubric. As with any instructional tool, evaluate the rubric each time it is used to ensure it matches instructional goals and objectives. Be sure students understand each criterion and how they can use the rubric to their advantage. Consider providing more details about each of the rubric’s areas to further clarify these sections to students. Pilot test new rubrics if possible, review the rubric with a colleague, and solicit students’ feedback for further refinements.

Types of Rubrics

Determining which type of rubric to use depends on what and how you plan to evaluate. There are several types of rubrics including holistic, analytical, general, and task-specific. Each of these will be described below.

All criteria are assessed as a single score. Holistic rubrics are good for evaluating overall performance on a task. Because only one score is given, holistic rubrics tend to be easier to score. However, holistic rubrics do not provide detailed information on student performance for each criterion; the levels of performance are treated as a whole.

• “Use for simple tasks and performances such as reading fluency or response to an essay question . . .
• Getting a quick snapshot of overall quality or achievement
• Judging the impact of a product or performance” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 21)

Each criterion is assessed separately, using different descriptive ratings. Each criterion receives a separate score. Analytical rubrics take more time to score but provide more detailed feedback.

• “Judging complex performances . . . involving several significant [criteria] . . .
• Providing more specific information or feedback to students . . .” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 22)

A generic rubric contains criteria that are general across tasks and can be used for similar tasks or performances. Criteria are assessed separately, as in an analytical rubric.

• “[Use] when students will not all be doing exactly the same task; when students have a choice as to what evidence will be chosen to show competence on a particular skill or product.
• [Use] when instructors are trying to judge consistently in different course sections” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 30)

Task-specific

Assesses a specific task. Unique criteria are assessed separately. However, it may not be possible to account for each and every criterion involved in a particular task which could overlook a student’s unique solution (Arter & McTighe, 2001).

• “It’s easier and faster to get consistent scoring
• [Use] in large-scale and “high-stakes” contexts, such as state-level accountability assessments
• [Use when] you want to know whether students know particular facts, equations, methods, or procedures” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 28) 

Grading rubrics are effective and efficient tools which allow for objective and consistent assessment of a range of performances, assignments, and activities. Rubrics can help clarify your expectations and will show students how to meet them, making students accountable for their performance in an easy-to-follow format. The feedback that students receive through a grading rubric can help them improve their performance on revised or subsequent work. Rubrics can help to rationalize grades when students ask about your method of assessment. Rubrics also allow for consistency in grading for those who team teach the same course, for TAs assigned to the task of grading, and serve as good documentation for accreditation purposes. Several online sources exist which can be used in the creation of customized grading rubrics; a few of these are listed below.

Arter, J., & McTighe, J. (2001). Scoring rubrics in the classroom: Using performance criteria for assessing and improving student performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

Stevens, D. D., & Levi, A. J. (2005). Introduction to rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group (n.d.). Rubrics: Definition, tools, examples, references. http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/flashlight/rubrics.htm

Selected Resources

Dodge, B. (2001). Creating a rubric on a given task. http://webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/rubrics.html

Wilson, M. (2006). Rethinking rubrics in writing assessment. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rubric Builders and Generators

eMints.org (2011). Rubric/scoring guide. http://www.emints.org/webquest/rubric.shtml

General Rubric Generator. http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/

RubiStar (2008). Create rubrics for your project-based learning activities. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Suggested citation

Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2012). Rubrics for assessment. In Instructional guide for university faculty and teaching assistants. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide

• Active Learning Activities
• Assessing Student Learning
• Direct vs. Indirect Assessment
• Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Formative and Summative Assessment
• Peer and Self-Assessment
• Reflective Journals and Learning Logs
• The Process of Grading

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