This exercise was developed by Dr. Katherine Rogers-Carpenter, a lecturer in the Division of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Media and the Department of English, College of Arts &s Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Rogers-Carpenter uses a similar version of this exercise primarily as an in-class group activity in her course, WRD 110: Composition and Communication (or “C&C”) I. ].
A required course in the University's general education program, UK Core, C&C I students are expected to demonstrate competent written, oral, and visual communication skills both as producers and consumers of information. Emphasizing critical inquiry and research, C&C instructors at UK encourage students to explore their place in the broader community and take a stance on issues of public concern—that is, to view themselves as engaged citizens. Students work independently, with a partner, or with a small group of classmates to investigate, share findings, and compose presentations through appropriate media, as well as to practice and evaluate interpersonal and team dynamics in action. Download the area description that provides more information about the goals and purposes of the UK’s C&C courses at the UK Core website.
A rubric is a way to communicate the way a piece of writing or digital media should look like in its final form, and then evaluate the resulting work. It is basically a description of the task that is laid out on a grid. A good rubric divides up a writing assignment into its different components and gives a detailed description of what are acceptable (or unacceptable) levels of performance for each.
If you agree with at least one of the following statements, you need to start using rubrics for your writing assignments:
A rubric has four basic parts:
There are rubrics that work well in all different kinds of disciplines. Check out the rubrics showcased by the different subjects at Rubistar, an online rubric maker. Creating your own rubric based on categories you see in a writing assignment (including assignments resulting in digital media), will help you at both the rough draft and final draft stages.
This rubric is used for assessing the UK Core Program required area in Composition and Communications - faculty are given anonymous versions of randomly selected submissions from students from the UK's Composition & Communication courses.
Source: UK Core Program Assessment, Evaluation Rubrics: http://www.uky.edu/ukcore/Evaluation_Rubrics
A good way to understand how a rubric works is to try it out yourself on a sample student essay. Practice on a sample of a draft of a college student’s response to an assignment to write a 500 word narrative essay. The assignment included these directions:
The essay will show one aspect of your ethics or belief system. The essay should include:
Now read the Student Essay, “Empathy, by Julie Smith” at http://web.gccaz.edu/~mdinchak/101online_new/ethics_example_essay1.htm
Use this rubric to assess the writing and determine how many points you would give it: http://web.gccaz.edu/~mdinchak/101online_new/rubric_narrativeessay.htm
Concentrate on the most important ways the draft could be improved – be sure and keep to the rubric. Now start writing up your own comments about the student’s draft essay with some productive comments. Write down more than what’s on the rubric to include your own ideas about how the sample essay matches a particular dimension of a category (or not). Develop a paragraph of constructive comments you would want to share with that fellow student. First of all, explain what rubric categories the essay satisfies and then, secondly, the categories that don’t seem to be addressed. It helps you be more clear in your own thinking to write with specifics about what you don't understand in the essay or what you suggest for revision -- what is the main point, what's missing, what needs more, what can be cut -- and why.
Creating your own rubric is connected to learning how to analyze, interpret and evaluate messages that are conveyed in a variety of communication contexts: written, oral and visual. Give it a try. Create a rubric that works well for this assignment on writing a whitepaper - download the Word doc for the assignment available on the University of Kentucky's WRD website: https://wrd.as.uky.edu/writing-whitepaper.
Here are the categories that you should use for your rubric: thesis, content, organization, mechanics and diction, documentation and sources. What are the characteristics for each of the dimensions associated with those categories? For example if you had only 3 dimensions, how would you describe an “excellent” thesis – as opposed to an “average” one or a “poor” one?
Below you will find a partially completed rubric using the above categories required for you to write the assigned whitepaper. You will need to write on the rubric the following:
This partial rubric matches well with the WRD 110 whitepaper assignment.
Source: Abridged from the rubric developed by Jessica Holland, "All Purpose Grading Rubric," Writing, Rhetoric & Digital Media, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Kentucky (https://wrd.as.uky.edu/all-purpose-grading-rubric)
The purpose of this exercise is to consider ways to improve future projects in writing and creating digital media projects. Take a few minutes to reflect on the rubric you created:
By completing this exercise, you have discovered that writing can be assessed fairly and that you can contribute to conversations that constructively resolve differing viewpoints. Ultimately, you should be able to produce better writing.
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