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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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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.

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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.

Essay Rubric

About this printout

This rubric delineates specific expectations about an essay assignment to students and provides a means of assessing completed student essays.

Teaching with this printout

More ideas to try.

Grading rubrics can be of great benefit to both you and your students. For you, a rubric saves time and decreases subjectivity. Specific criteria are explicitly stated, facilitating the grading process and increasing your objectivity. For students, the use of grading rubrics helps them to meet or exceed expectations, to view the grading process as being “fair,” and to set goals for future learning. In order to help your students meet or exceed expectations of the assignment, be sure to discuss the rubric with your students when you assign an essay. It is helpful to show them examples of written pieces that meet and do not meet the expectations. As an added benefit, because the criteria are explicitly stated, the use of the rubric decreases the likelihood that students will argue about the grade they receive. The explicitness of the expectations helps students know exactly why they lost points on the assignment and aids them in setting goals for future improvement.

• Routinely have students score peers’ essays using the rubric as the assessment tool. This increases their level of awareness of the traits that distinguish successful essays from those that fail to meet the criteria. Have peer editors use the Reviewer’s Comments section to add any praise, constructive criticism, or questions.
• Alter some expectations or add additional traits on the rubric as needed. Students’ needs may necessitate making more rigorous criteria for advanced learners or less stringent guidelines for younger or special needs students. Furthermore, the content area for which the essay is written may require some alterations to the rubric. In social studies, for example, an essay about geographical landforms and their effect on the culture of a region might necessitate additional criteria about the use of specific terminology.
• After you and your students have used the rubric, have them work in groups to make suggested alterations to the rubric to more precisely match their needs or the parameters of a particular writing assignment.
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7.2: Rubrics

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WHAT IS A RUBRIC?

A rubric communicates expectations and creates consistent criteria and standards by which to evaluate a performance or project. In writing, a rubric allows teachers and students to evaluate an activity which can be complex and subjective. A rubric is aimed at accurate and fair assessment, fostering understanding, and indicating a way to proceed with subsequent learning and teaching. A rubric can also provide a basis for self-evaluation, reflection, and peer review.

WHY ARE RUBRICS IMPORTANT?

Rubrics help to…

• bring objectivity to subjective scoring.
• take away the “guessing game” by providing students with consistent standards the teacher will be using to evaluate their writing.
• teach students to set learning goals and take the responsibility for their learning into their own hands by knowing what skills make up a desired performance so they can strive to achieve it.
• assist students in developing their personal ability to judge excellence, or the lack thereof, in their work and the work of others.
• assure students that there is equality in grading and standardized expectations.
• praise students’ strengths and identify their weaknesses because rubrics provide visual representations of areas of excellence and under-performance allowing easy identification of what areas to work on at a glance.
• provide a clear means for students to monitor their progress on specific criteria over a given period of instruction or time.
• ensure for teachers that they are evaluating student work fairly, clearly and thoroughly.

HOW DO I DO IT?

The English professors at Skyline College have worked together to create a shared rubric so that regardless of English class or instructor, students will be evaluated according to a consistent set of criteria based on a shared understanding of writing fundamentals. All of the materials designed to instruct, evaluate and comment on student writing in this Rhetoric are based on that departmental rubric. Contained here are three different approaches using Skyline College’s English Departmental rubric to evaluate and comment on writing. These rubrics can be used by students to evaluate one another, and they can be used by instructors to evaluate students. This provides further consistency and shared expectations as the students and the instructor use the same evaluating tool.

Composition Essay Rubric with Explanations

How to : Check the appropriate rubric boxes and provide explanations afterwards of the ratings. Using the information : For areas where a writer receives “needs work” or “adequate,” review that area in the Rhetoric associated with that topic and use the advice when revising.

Comments: further explanations behind the scoring choices along with revision advice (for more commenting space, insert electronically or attach additional page)

Literature Essay Rubric with Explanations

Composition essay rubric.

How to : Check the appropriate rubric boxes and provide explanations afterwards of the ratings. Using the information : For areas where a writer receives “needs work” or “adequate,” review that area in the Rhetoric associated with that topic (link below) and use the advice when revising.

Literature Essay Rubric

Composition essay rubric with integrated comments.

How to : Check the appropriate rubric box and provide an explanation of the ratings by answering the questions below. Fill out each section thoroughly to provide thoughtful and comprehensive feedback. Using the information : For areas where a writer receives “needs work” or “adequate,” review that area in the Rhetoric associated with that topic (link below) and use the advice when revising.

Literature Essay Rubric with Integrated Comments

Sample Essay Rubric for Elementary Teachers

• Grading Students for Assessment
• Lesson Plans
• Becoming A Teacher
• Assessments & Tests
• Elementary Education
• Special Education
• Homeschooling
• M.S., Education, Buffalo State College
• B.S., Education, Buffalo State College

An essay rubric is a way teachers assess students' essay writing by using specific criteria to grade assignments. Essay rubrics save teachers time because all of the criteria are listed and organized into one convenient paper. If used effectively, rubrics can help improve students' writing .

How to Use an Essay Rubric

• The best way to use an essay rubric is to give the rubric to the students before they begin their writing assignment. Review each criterion with the students and give them specific examples of what you want so they will know what is expected of them.
• Next, assign students to write the essay, reminding them of the criteria and your expectations for the assignment.
• Once students complete the essay have them first score their own essay using the rubric, and then switch with a partner. (This peer-editing process is a quick and reliable way to see how well the student did on their assignment. It's also good practice to learn criticism and become a more efficient writer.)
• Once peer-editing is complete, have students hand in their essay's. Now it is your turn to evaluate the assignment according to the criteria on the rubric. Make sure to offer students examples if they did not meet the criteria listed.

Informal Essay Rubric

Formal essay rubric.

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Persuasive Essay Rubric: Grading Template for Excellent Papers

6 July 2023

last updated

Learning institutions require writers to complete different types of essays. In particular, persuasive essays convince the audience to accept a specific point of view as the most acceptable format. Basically, an argumentative essay rubric helps writers and lecturers to express their ideas adequately. Also, this guide provides specific rules for preparing adequate essays. Then, guidelines show that the introduction invites readers, states the goal or thesis, and offers an overview of the issue. Moreover, an outstanding paper contains a clear and consistent structure. In this case, writers ensure that persuasive compositions comprise a hypothesis that clearly states a personal opinion and relates to the evidence presented. Further on, the content provides specific and well-elaborated support for central positions. Besides, such papers use transitions to connect ideas smoothly. In turn, a persuasive essay rubric offers grades that one may achieve to meet specific guidelines for the organization, format, thesis, content, reasons, and adequate support. Hence, both students and lecturers should use this persuasive essay rubric to ensure that academic papers achieve the necessary quality.  

Generals Aspects of a Persuasive Essay Rubric

Persuasive essays refer to a piece of academic writing where essayists rely on logic and reason to show that a specific point of view is legitimate than others. Basically, a persuasive essay rubric for such papers remains unique since it reveals if arguments can convince readers. In turn, both writers and lecturers can use such a rubric to ensure that persuasive papers contain compelling arguments.

Example of a Persuasive Essay Rubric

1. organization.

Excellent/4 points: The introduction captures the reader’s attention, includes a clear thesis statement , and summarizes the issue. The essay contains information presented in a logical order and maintains the audience’s interest. Besides, the conclusion reveals a personal opinion.

Good/3 points: The introduction part includes a clear thesis statement and provides an overview of the issue. The writer presents the information in a logical order but fails to maintain the interest of the audience. The conclusion contains a personal opinion.

Average/2 points: The introduction part includes a clear thesis statement and provides an overview of the issue. The writer presents the information in a logical order but fails to maintain the interest of the audience. The conclusion contains a personal opinion.

Poor/1 point: The essay does not contain a clear introduction, structure, or conclusion.

Grade: ___ .

Excellent/4 points: The essay contains an introduction, supporting and counter-argument paragraphs. The composition comprises sharp and transition sentences.

Good/3 points: The essay contains an introduction and supporting and counter-argument paragraphs.

Average/2 points: The essay contains an introduction and body paragraphs and a conclusion. However, the paper lacks counter-arguments.

Poor/1 point: The essay contains an introduction, body paragraphs but lacks a definite conclusion. The student fails to meet the requirements of a persuasive essay rubric.

3. Thesis Statement

Excellent/4 points: The essay contains one goal or thesis that firmly and clearly states a personal opinion regarding the topic.

Good/3 points: The essay contains a thesis that states a personal opinion and identifies the issue.

Average/2 points: The thesis fails to state personal opinion clearly. The thesis makes little reference to the issue.

Poor/1 point: The personal opinion presented in the thesis is not understandable. The statement shows little or no reference to the issue.

Excellent/4 points: The content states an arguable claim. The essay proposes a solution, course of action, or a new way to deal with an underlying solution.

Good/3 points: The content reveals an arguable claim but fails to propose a solution or a new approach to a specific topic.

Average/2 points: The content reveals confusing or unclear claims.

Poor/1 point: The content does not show what the argument or claim is. Persuasive essay rubric rules are not followed.

5. Reasons and Support

Excellent/4 points: The content gives precise and accurate claims that support main arguments. The essay reveals logic with facts, statistics, research, and named sources.

Good/3 points: The content gives precise and accurate claims that support main arguments. The essay reveals logic with facts, statistics, research, and named sources.

Average/2 points: The paper contains one or two weak claims that fail to support the argument. The evidence appears irrelevant or confusing.

Poor/1 point: The paper contains one or two weak claims that fail to support the argument. The evidence appears irrelevant or confusing.

6. Use of Language

Excellent/4 points: The writer uses striking, natural, varied, and vivid words.

Good/3 points: The writer makes routine word choices.

Average/2 points: Word choices or usage appears inappropriate. 

Poor/1 point: Writers use the same words throughout the essay. Persuasive essay rubric requirements are missed.

Final Grade: ___ .

Grading Scheme for a Persuasive Essay Rubric:

A+ = 22+ points A = 20-21 points A- = 18-19 points B+ = 16-17 points B = 14-15 points B- = 12-13 points C+ = 10-11 points C = 9-10 points C- = 8 points D = 5-7 points F = less than 4 points

Summing Up on a Persuasive Essay Rubric

Persuasive essays convince the audience to accept a specific point of view. In this case, a persuasive essay rubric helps writers and lecturers to express their ideas adequately. Hence, some tips for writing an outstanding persuasive essay are:

• The introduction invites readers, states the goal or thesis, and offers an overview of the issue.
• The essay contains a clear and consistent structure.
• The paper contains a thesis that firmly states a personal opinion.
• The content provides specific and well-elaborated support for the central position.
• The essay uses transitions to connect ideas smoothly.

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How to Turn Rubric Scores into Grades

August 19, 2015

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I have written several posts  about the different types of rubrics —especially my favorite, the single-point rubric —and over time, many teachers have asked me about the most effective way to convert the information on these rubrics into points. Even if you are moving toward a no grades classroom , as a growing number of educators are, you may still be required to supply points or letter grades for student assignments.

Despite the title of this post, all I can really offer here is a description of my own process. It has been refined over years of trial and error, and the only evidence I have to back up its effectiveness is that in over 10 years of teaching middle school and college, I can only recall one or two times when a student or parent challenged a grade I gave based on a rubric. This is by no means the only way to do it—I’m sure plenty of other processes exist—but this is what has worked for me.

Before I get into the specifics of the scores themselves, I’m going to describe all the things that happen before those points go into the grade book. I’ll do this with an example scenario: Suppose I want my eighth-grade students to write a narrative account of a true story. This will not be a personal narrative, but rather a journalistic piece that illustrates some larger concept, such as the story of one student’s chaotic after-school routine to illustrate the problem of some kids having too many activities and homework after school.

Step 1: Define the Criteria

To start with, I have to get clear on what the final product should look like. Although I have my own opinions of what makes a well-written story, I need to put that into words so my students know what I’m looking for. Ideally, this criteria should be developed with my students. Any project will be more effective if students are part of the conversation from the beginning; I would ask them what makes for a good story, what kind of criteria should be used to judge its quality, and so on. To generate ideas for this discussion, we would first read a few examples from magazines and websites of the type of writing I want them to produce, and we’d figure out what qualities make these stories work. Eventually we’d shape these ideas into a list of attributes for the rubric. (Full disclosure: This is an ideal scenario. I often skipped the step of involving students to save time, but that was ultimately not the best decision.)

I would also consult with my standards and curriculum materials, to make sure I wasn’t missing something relevant and to make sure the language in my rubric is aligned with those standards.

Using the single-point format, my rubric would look something like this:

If you have been working with single-point rubrics, you know that the left-hand column is reserved for indicating how students need to improve. The right-hand column has a different title than what I have used in the past. In earlier versions I titled this column”Exceeds Expectations,” providing space to tell students how they exceeded the standards. I have adapted it here to “Above and Beyond” to make it more open-ended. It can be a place to describe where students have gone beyond the expectations, or it could be a place where the teacher or the student could suggest ways the work could reach even further, a place to set “stretch goals” appropriate to that student’s readiness and the task at hand.

Step 2: Distribute the Points

Once my criteria have been defined, and if I will ultimately be giving points for this assignment, I need to decide how to divide those points across each category. Assuming a total of 100 points for this assignment, I would weigh certain components more heavily than others. Because my main goal is for students to write a robust, well-developed story, I would place more value on the top two categories—structure and idea development. This is an area where subjectivity can take over, and where rubrics can really vary from one teacher to another. So again, keep in mind that this is what it looks like for me.

For a 100-point assignment, I might distribute points as follows, adding them right into the rubric with a space for inserting the student’s score when the task has been graded:

Step 3: Share the Rubric with Students Ahead of Time

This part is crucial. Even if students are not included in the development of the rubric itself, it’s absolutely vital to let them study that rubric before they ever complete the assignment. The rubric loses most of its value if students aren’t aware of it until the work is already done, so let them see it ahead of time. I typically provide students with a printed copy of the rubric when we are in the beginning stages of working on a big assignment like this, along with a prompt that describes the task itself.

Step 4: Score Samples

Another powerful step that makes the rubric even more effective is to score sample products as a class, using the rubric as a guide. I often created these samples myself, building in the kinds of problems I often saw in that type of writing. Occasionally I would use a piece of writing from a previous student with their name removed. Ideally, we would score one or two of these as a whole-class activity, and then I would have students do a few more in pairs. This process really gets students paying attention to the rubric, asking questions about the criteria, and getting a much clearer picture of what quality work looks like. When it comes time to craft their own pieces, they are better at using this tool for peer review and self-assessment.

Step 5: Assess Student Work (Round 1)

After students have been given time to plan, draft, and revise their writing—a time when I am watching their work in progress, advising them, and regularly referring to the rubric as a guide—students submit their “finished” pieces for a grade. My feedback for a student who hit many of the marks, but needed work in some areas, might look like this:

I put a check beside the criteria that has been satisfied in that draft, and add comments to the left of those that need work. In the right-hand column, I add a few suggestions for ways this student might push herself a bit more to make the piece even better.

You’ll notice that the space for scores has been left blank. There’s a reason for that: When students are given both feedback and number or letter grades, their motivation often drops and they tend to ignore the written feedback (Butler & Nisan, 1986). My own experience has proved this to be true; I have often spent hours giving written feedback on student writing, but found they often ignored that. Now I know this was because the feedback also included a grade. No-grades advocate Alfie Kohn, in his piece From Degrading to De-Grading , recommends that teachers who want to avoid this effect “make grades as invisible as possible for as long as possible.” With that in mind, in this round, students only get feedback, not scores.

Keep in mind that much of this feedback could be generated with the student, in a conference. If time permits, you could sit with the student and go through the rubric together, noting places that still need work and considering ways to take what’s already working and improve it further.

Unless the student has satisfied all the criteria on this first try, she will have an opportunity to revise her work and resubmit it, along with the original rubric. Those who did meet all the standards have the option to revise; not for a higher score (since scores haven’t been given), but to simply push the piece to an even higher level of quality.

Step 6: Assess Student Work (Round 2)

When students have improved their work and re-submitted it, if they have gotten much closer to achieving the criteria, this would be an appropriate time to assign points to go into the grade book. If the issues raised in the first round have now been addressed, they are given a check to indicate that they are no longer a problem. In cases where all criteria in a category has been satisfied, the full number of points will be given. If a problem persists, new feedback may be added, and a portion of the points will be deducted. Again, this is the subjective part: I try to consider the work as a whole and deduct only a small percentage of the total points for a small problem. Really, if a problem is significant, the assignment should be reworked until that problem has been resolved. Once each section of the rubric has been scored, the points are totaled and that total is the score that’s entered into the grade book.

Q&A About this Process

Will there be a Round 3? That depends on you and your student. If you feel the student is growing and will put the work in to improve the piece further, and you are willing to assess it again, you should offer another round, and another, if progress is still being made.

Doesn’t this process result in most students getting an A on the assignment? It definitely could. If a student is willing to put the time in to satisfy all the criteria, then she will get the A. Those who are used to getting A’s will have the option to push their skills to a higher level in Round 2 or will have the luxury of moving on to something else. It may bother some people that two students who may have different skill levels could end up with the same grade, but behind the scenes, the effort to reach that grade could be very different from student to student.

Isn’t this time-consuming? Heck yeah it is. Well, sort of. For me, this type of assignment would be given over the course of several weeks. By the time I have to actually give points, I have seen that student’s piece many times. I have given her informal feedback while she writes and more formal feedback in Round 1, so the time I put into all the stages ultimately results in a final product that’s much stronger than it would have been as a quick, one-time thing. And that makes the final assessment process much faster.

Doesn’t this result in students being at different stages at different times? Yes. In many cases, you will find yourself with some students being “done” with an assignment, while others are re-doing it. Most teachers want their students to be learning the same skills at roughly the same time, and unless you are running a very personalized, Montessori-style classroom , you’ll want some kind of consistency from student to student. Consider whether you might be willing to spend only  part of your class doing the more lock-step, everyone-on-the-same-page kind of work, but set aside other times for students to work on improving past assignments or doing independent work like genius hour projects.

Need Ready-Made Rubrics?

My Rubric Pack gives you four different designs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs formats. It also comes with video tutorials to show you how to customize them for any need, plus a Teacher’s Manual to help you understand the pros and cons of each style. Check it out here:

References:

Butler, R. & Nisan, M. (1986). Effects of no feedback, task-related comments, and grades on intrinsic motivation and performance.  Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(3) , 210-216.

Kohn, Alfie. “From Degrading to De-grading.” High School Magazine (1999). Retrieved 19 Aug. 2015 from  www.alfiekohn.org/article/degrading-de-grading/ .

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Categories: Instruction

Tags: assessment , rubrics

28 Comments

Jennifer…I love the way this process lives up to Kohn’s words of keeping the grade “invisible” for as long as possible.

I’ve found that giving lots of feedback makes teaching writing less tedious and more rewarding for me, which I think is antithetical to some teachers’ opinions.

Your system is complementary to mine, where students read each others’ work anonymously in order to set rubric criteria. I described it here if you’re interested:

http://www.gerarddawson.org/how-to-teach-writing-by-doing-less-and-trusting-more/

Thanks for this informative piece! Our school improvement process will focus on formative assessment this year AND we have a new writing curriculum. This post will be going in my folder… 🙂

Thanks so much for sharing this. I’m going to be trying out a “criteria for success” this year–have you heard that term? I was blown away when I learned about the CFS during some summer PD. It’s much simpler to create than a rubric. It looks somewhat similar to your single-point rubric, so reading your thoughts about how to determine points was really helpful for me in allaying my concerns re: moving away from the busy, text-heavy rubrics I’ve used before. Thanks again!

Shari, if you have a link to any CFS materials, I would love to see them, and I’m sure anyone coming to this post would as well. Thank you!!

I can definitely share this one that I created for the course I was taking: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6kDpYerNa0hV3JlMkFRNVlzanM/view?usp=sharing . This one would be used for an original vignette students would write after reading The House on Mango Street.

Credit for introducing me to the Criteria for Success goes to WriteBoston. The course facilitators, who are writing coaches in public schools, explained the CFS as the first column of a rubric. It provides more flexibility for grading, is easier to develop, and is easier for some teachers to use. They reported that students respond positively to the extra white space–which your single-point rubric offers, too.

I am going to implement CFS across the board this year in the senior elective for which I am the only teacher–and plan to propose that my course partners and I adopt it for some of our common 9th grade assessments too. I think it could be tricky to align grading practices, but better in the long run for delivering individualized feedback to students.

Shari– thank you so much for sharing that. I’m creating a rubric for an assignment and that example you linked to is spot-on for what we’re doing. This is my 18th year of teaching and I still feel like I just started learning all of the best techniques!

Gotta reply again– I am having a tough time coming up with stuff for this class (it’s health & fitness, brand new to the school, no textbook, open to whatever I want to teach) and l just finished writing the rubric in CFS style. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I got a tiny bit teary with relief at how easy that was. THANK YOU again!

Abby, I’m so, so glad this was as helpful for you as it was for me! I’m going in to year 5, and I feel so lucky to have found a profession where exploration, reflection, and trying new things are encouraged. I hope we BOTH get to experience the anticipated benefits of this new approach to grading!

Would you be willing to share that rubric?

Thank you for this! Your examples provide a very clear picture of how this could work in a Literacy class. I’m wondering, have you used this single-point format for other subjects? If so, how does it differ from a language-based assignment?

First, I love your blog. I have been using rudimentary forms of single point rubrics for years now. In my old rubrics I gave more space to the points that to the feedback. I have now shifted that. I did not get exposed to this format until I left the classroom. Now that I am working as a Professional Learning Coordinator I have been both using this to give feedback to teachers on their curriculum work and have been pushing it as the format we should use for rubrics district wide. I am going to share this post with my colleagues since you do a far better job of explaining it than I do. I have been using different headings “Consider for revision” “Proficient” and “Area of strength” In the feedback I have been giving I also tend to write something in proficient to either explain why it was proficient or to push the recipient to think about what a next step might be. I have always struggled with balancing the amount of feedback I give. How much can my students take and how much do I have time to write. I don’t think single point rubrics solve this but they do help us be more focused and they do save time over agonizing what box to put the student work in.

Helpful post. Thank you!

Hi Jennifer. After coming across the single-point rubric, it answered a lot of questions for me! I have spread the word in school, and others have taken a real liking to it. This point distribution system also makes a lot of sense as we usually have some kind of “hidden” hierarchy of criteria in our scoring brains. This brings that out into the light. I have experimented using the google docs preferences tool to create comment shortcuts (3-letter/punctuation combinations), so that I can quickly add oft-used comments to either side of a single-point rubric created in google docs. (I got the preferences idea from a post on Google communities.) Thanks for the Blog and the ideas therein!

Initially I wondered why people needed this post but I’m really glad I read it. It hits the formative assessment activity I needed for my classes perfectly. Thank you. Just FYI all of my extended tasks are set with rubrics which translate easily to grades or marks (points) because I generally use a 3 or 5 point category scale. With a 5 point scale each item (which comes from my state syllabus) has criteria for grades from A-E or points 5-1. I usually mark out of 15, but it’s easily adjusted to suit the task.

Shari – I really like the CFS rubric and I’ve used something similar with the scale. I’m curious as to how you would translate that into a grade? If a student was “approaching expectations” in each category (7, 4, 4, 2, 2) they would have 19 out of 30. As a percentage, that’s a 63, which is close to failing (below 60) where I work (university). Do you then take these points and convert them? Thank you!

I am curious about the scoring, too, Shimon. I teach a support-basic skills class, that follows a 7th grade curriculum. We use a district-wide rubric for our writing, and often my “best score” will look something like 19/32, which is a 59%. How do you go about converting them, please?

I suppose you have to ask yourself what does “approaching expectations” mean to you. Where is the understanding level for a student who is approaching expectations? What are your expectations for a student at their level in your class? Then, think about what that means in a grade. If a grade of an “A” means exceeding expectations or going above and beyond. This student fully understands the concept being assessed, they know how to and can demonstrate how it can be translated to a real life situation. They could probably teach it. Then ask yourself what is a “B” and how is it different from an “A”? Personally a “B” can be really misleading and often doesn’t accurately represent the level of knowledge or understanding that a student has. A “C” is easy. We even call it a “C-average”. This is probably what your Expectation should maybe be. They have a general understanding, a solid workable knowledge, but the transfer might still be a little fuzzy. That leaves anything below a “C” approaching expectations. So the calculation of almost failing would be an accurate representation of where they are at. If this student stopped at this place would they have a workable knowledge of the content being assessed? Probably not, they definitely wouldn’t have an understanding, it would be laced with questions or gaps. They definitely couldn’t translate it into real life scenarios without significant prompts and/or explanations. We worry sometimes giving a low grade to students who work hard, as if the grade is a punishment, but when we don’t give accurate assessment and feedback we are doing a disservice to our students, some that can set them back in future studies.

I agree with the observation. Assessment is achallenge. We really need to understand exactly what we assess and how to access or criterion reference

Indeed helpful

Thank you for your great work and sharing. I am from Spain, a Primary teacher. I have a question. I am once of those who think grades shoudn’t be to soon because I expirienced it many times. But at the end we have to. How do you go from a 100 to a grade A, and so on? Sory for the spelling and thank you.

Hi Angela, this is Debbie, a Customer Experience Manager with CoP. Turning rubric scores into letter grades can be challenging. I’m just wondering…are you wanting to know more about how to convert an overall rubric score to a letter grade? For example, what range of scores is an A, what range is a B and so on? Or was it something else we can help with? Thanks for clarifying.

I am really glad I came in and read your piece. I was about to use a rubric structure I’ve used before and I’m going to go to 1 pt w comments for this first assignment of the marking period. I have wanted to make grades as “invisible as possible for as long as possible” for some time and I think this does it better than what I had in mind. It’s less verbose, it puts more energy into the comments than into a rubric that tries to be all things to all people. Thank you!

I ended up on this post after listening to episode 94 of your podcast, and then reading the single-point rubric post. While I have been using a variation of a single-point rubric for some time (though I had never heard of the name), I am struggling with your approach to converting the rubric to a grade.

The way we approach grades at my school is that a C is meeting expectations – which would mean the middle column on a single-point rubric would score at most a 79%. Anything that went “above and beyond” could earn a B or A grade, and anything that doesn’t meet the expectations would earn a D (or F). Generally, how I do this is to create a scale. The middle column would be worth 2 points (or a weighted version, so multiples of 2), not meeting would be worth 1 point and exceeding 3. Adding up the points possible in the entire middle column would give me the middle of my scale, and I calibrate up and down from there.

I’m wondering why there is such a big disconnect in our approaches. If meeting the grade level expectations earns an A, then a student who isn’t meeting expectations in many categories could theoretically still earn a passing grade. Is there research on grading that shows that meeting grade level expectations should earn a grade of A? I really love listening to and reading Cult of Pedagogy, and it has helped me be reflective on my own teaching practice, but I’m curious to hear more from you about this!

I guess the disconnect is really in our definition of a “C.” I have taught in two different states and have been a student in many more, plus I also have 3 kids in the public school system, and at no point have I gotten the impression that a C was really viewed as equivalent to “meeting expectations.” There have always been conversations around the idea that C was originally meant to represent “average,” with B and A representing something above that, but I think I would be hard-pressed to find a teacher who thought a student showing 75% mastery was “meeting expectations.” I think this has more to do with the connotation of a C, rather than whatever definition we’ve given to it.

What I’m presenting in this post is how I used both rubrics in a school that gave percent/letter grades, and how all of that was communicated to students, so they understood the expectations. It was not meant to prescribe a specific course of action for all teachers, but to show the process, if that makes sense. So if everyone in your school agrees on what a C, B, or an A means, and those expectations are outlined clearly ahead of time, then you’re good to go.

For me, this conversation really highlights the fallibility of grades in general, because if we just gave students feedback and didn’t try so hard to define things with letter grades, our students would get what they need and would probably be better off — it’s so difficult for everyone to agree on what grades mean, anyway. In episode 94 (and the post that goes with it), I mention the Teachers Throwing Out Grades Facebook group. I think you’d find their conversations really interesting.

I love this! My rubric is limiting and usually results in inflated grades. I want the rubric to reflect improvement and effort, and I think this revision process is more collaborative. Can’t wait to share with my colleagues.

Hi Britney! So glad this post was helpful. I’m thinking you might also like How Accurate Are Your Grades? If you haven’t already, check it out.

I have enjoyed the example.

I have to use the rubric when grading my students

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