Even though I have officially left the classroom and begun a new journey as a literacy instructional coach, I have decided to post the rubrics I was using in my final year as a language arts teacher. Deciding which writing rubric to use seems to be one of the most arduous tasks of elementary school teachers. I’m almost embarrassed to admit the countless hours spent creating, tweaking, and searching for the “best” rubric. And then– don’t even get me started on how many hours were spent trying to agree on ONE rubric as a grade level team…Ick. My toes curl just thinking about it.
*I must mention that I hesitated to post this one because I have been studying the value and effectiveness of rubrics and/or scoring guides (semantics, in my opinion) that I’m not sure if I would have augmented my rubric yet again. However, this was one of the rubrics that I felt did a sufficient job providing specific feedback to the students. So if other teachers can use this to enhance the quality of writing feedback they provide to their students, so be it.
As an instructional coach that is specifically working with writing at the moment, I have been comparing three rubrics: the SBAC rubric (4 pt.), Step Up to Writing 4th Edition’s rubric (4 pt.), and our writing software program’s rubric (MyAccess-4 or 6pt.). See Below
If you notice, all 3 rubrics have a different number of domains/writing traits. For example, the MyAccess rubric is broken up into 5 domains i.e. focus and meaning, content and development, organization, etc. Step Up to Writing is divided into 4 different domains i.e. organization, ideas/content, language/style, etc. And finally, the biggie-SBAC. This is broken up into only 3 areas: purpose/organization, evidence/elaboration, and conventions. So the golden question asked by every teacher at every training given: Which rubric do I use? And the answer is not a direct one, but it’s not that complicated either.
My thoughts are this-as long as a teacher intentionally selects a rubric where all the domains of quality writing are accounted for (meaning not simply a holistic score) and the students find it accessible as a learning tool to develop as a writer, it really doesn’t matter. It becomes a matter of preference for the teacher. Which rubric will be most easily understood by parents and students that you serve and is also efficient for you?
This is why I chose to post the rubrics created by my partner teacher and me. If it’s something you feel will enhance your writing program, I’m a happy person. If not, what tool do use to assess writing? Please share as we’re all in the same boat.
