Articulating grading criteria for the purpose of assessing writing can be challenging, even for experienced teachers. John Bean, a noted professor of writing and author of the book, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, notes:

“Because we teachers have little opportunity to discuss grading practices with colleagues, we often develop criteria that seems universal to us but may appear idiosyncratic or even eccentric to others” (268).

In response to these idiosyncratic grading criteria, students often write what they think the teacher wants to hear, thereby missing an opportunity to develop the kinds of critical thinking skills—about purpose, audience, and genre—that are the whole purpose of college writing.

By providing clear grading criteria, faculty can help students demonstrate their communication skills and their mastery of course content in written assignments. Clear grading criteria can help students understand how their work will be evaluated, which elements of their projects will need sustained attention, and how to manage the stages of an assignment. The more clearly students understand these criteria beforehand, the more successful they can be with an assignment.

When designing grading criteria for writing assignments, the following reminders can be helpful:

Make Your Grading Criteria Task-Specific
The more specific the criteria are, the more specific the feedback can be, and the greater the likelihood of student success.

As you develop grading criteria, ask yourself: What knowledge and skills do I want my students to demonstrate after completing this assignment? What writing conventions do readers of this genre expect? Your grading criteria should reflect these values, with details specific to both your course and the assignment.

For example, if you were to assign students a writing project in which they must research the use of technology in the classroom and write reports to an audience of educational technology company representatives, task-specific grading criteria for that assignment might include the following:

When I grade your report, I will be looking for writing that:

• Engages an audience of educational technology company representatives.
• Describes specific uses technology in the classroom.
• Analyzes the successes and failures of educational technology.
• Propose recommendations for improving the use of technology in the classroom.
• Uses appropriate professional language.
• Demonstrates college-level proofreading and editing skills.

Weight Your Grading Criteria
Weighting your grading criteria helps students to understand how their writing will be assessed, and assigns levels of importance to various components. For example, consider the following weighting:

Dividing categories equally would lead a student to conclude that

A.) Correct punctuation will be just as valuable as research.

B.) Research Integration is not of high value because it is last in the list.

In contrast, the weighting below prioritizes quality of argument and integration of research:

Develop Criteria within the Weighted Columns
Weighting your grading criteria helps students to understand how their writing will be assessed,

Each grading criterion area should also include descriptions of high, middle, and low achievement (Bean 269), so students have a clear understanding of how assessment will occur:

The example above displays a basic map for students to understand what expectations are for an “A” project versus a “B,” “C,” and “Below C” project.

Design Grading Criteria to Reflect Assignment Goals and Course Outcomes
Successful completion of your assignment should mirror successful demonstration of your assignment goals and course outcomes. For instance, if your course outcomes require “a clearly developed, complex understanding of X,” then use that language in your assessment criteria:

Make Your Grading Criteria Available in Advance
Including your assessment criteria as part of your written assignment sheet and making the whole document available to students in hard copy or online allows students to refer to the assessment criteria in all stages of the writing process. Also, spending some class time actively reviewing your criteria with students allows them the opportunity to ask questions and to better understand what successful, complete projects should look like.

Be Aware of the Limitations of Rubrics
No rubric will be the perfectly objective answer to the assessment of writing, but rubrics can help clarify your expectations, help make your assessment measurable, and provide a map for students to follow for successful completion of your assignments.

Other Helpful Resources
Here are some helpful resources from the FIU Office of Academic Planning and Accountability for disciplinary rubrics and curriculum maps:

http://apa.fiu.edu/resources_assessment_rubric.html#

Source
Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom.