Have you ever heard that a little hard work up front saves time in the end? Well this is definitely true in the case of rubrics. Rubrics are basically a simplified way to grade a complicated assignment. For example, when you are grading an essay, how do you decide whether it gets an A or a B? What about if you are assigning number grades to the essay? What's the difference between a 94 and a 96? The times that I have graded without a rubric I have relied on the subjective method of reading and ranking. Who is better than whom? Why did I do this? Newton's First Law of Motion: Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. It seems much easier not to do the extra work to create a rubric. However, once I'm knee deep in essays I start kicking myself for not taking the time! For one thing, rubrics save time because I simply have to look at my rubric and mark off points. Second, rubrics keep me honest, even when I've had a horrible day and my cat won't leave me alone. I feel much more objective as I sit before my mountain of papers. More important than these two reasons, however, is that when I have created a rubric beforehand and shown it to my students I get better quality work. They know what I want. It saves problems afterwards because they knew what I required, and they can see where they had points taken off.
How to Write a Rubric
Writing a rubric is a fairly easy process even though it takes a little time. However, as I've already explained, the time is worth it. Click here for step-by-step instructions to writing a rubric for any assignment you give.
