Simplify your Life with a Single-Point Rubic

When we talk about rubrics, usually what comes to mind is one of these two things:

Analytic Rubric
Jennifer Gonzalez "Know Your Terms"

Holistic Rubric
Jennifer Gonzalez "Know Your Terms" 

These have names.  The first is an "Analytic Rubric."  The benefits include it's use in helping students know how they performed on a wide-variety of tasks and, honestly, in justifying grades.  If it's well created, it also shows students "next steps" they might take.  The drawbacks of these include the fact that they're hard to create (some rows seem to lend themselves to four level (or more!) of quality, while others often only have a couple meaningful differences. Writing 25 or more different descriptions is a chore.     I find holistic rubrics a challenge because I'm always torn between two levels of success and find myself circling the line between two categories. Because of this, I spend so much time arguing back and forth with myself on each row.   More importantly, kids don't use them at all, except when they want to earn one more point to get to an "A" so they ask you to justify your points.  And whenever a student doesn't put your feedback to use, it has been a waste of your time.  Still, these rubrics are good when you want to be comprehensive.

The "Holistic Rubric" is familiar as the "AP-Style" rubric, the "SAT writing" rubric,  and what most of us use for the SLO.  The big benefit is in saving time in grading.  When I'm using a holistic rubric, I find it much easier to think "well, we could quibble about the use of evidence in some parts, but generally, this is an above average piece of writing, but not highly successful... so, it's a 3."  The biggest negative is in showing "next steps" for students.  Still, for summative tasks and when "whole class feedback" will be your main form of feedback, they're a good, quick choice.


I recently learned about a third type of rubric, the "Single-Point Rubric."  

Single-Point Rubric

 

A single-point rubric outlines the standards a student has to meet to complete the assignment; however, it leaves the categories outlining success or shortcoming open-ended.  The main disadvantage that I see in this rubric is that it might require more writing on the teacher's part; having said that, when I see teachers in the department office grading on analytic rubrics, I often see a teachers writing novellas to the students in the margins.  Still, there are a number of distinct advantages.  Danah Hashem in Edutopia outlines what she finds to be the 6 advantages of the rubric.  My favorites are #1 and #2 and #6 (kids are more likely to use it!).

1. It gives space to reflect on both strengths and weaknesses in student work. Each category invites teachers to meaningfully share with students what they did really well and where they might want to consider making some adjustments.

2. It doesn’t place boundaries on student performance. The single-point rubric doesn’t try to cover all the aspects of a project that could go well or poorly. It gives guidance and then allows students to approach the project in creative and unique ways. It helps steer students away from relying too much on teacher direction and encourages them to create their own ideas.

3. It works against students’ tendency to rank themselves and to compare themselves to or compete with one another. Each student receives unique feedback that is specific to them and their work, but that can’t be easily quantified.

4. It helps take student attention off the grade. The design of this rubric emphasizes descriptive, individualized feedback over the grade. Instead of focusing on teacher instruction in order to aim for a particular grade, students can immerse themselves in the experience of the assignment.

5. It creates more flexibility without sacrificing clarity. Students are still given clear explanations for the grades they earned, but there is much more room to account for a student taking a project in a direction that a holistic or analytic rubric didn’t or couldn’t account for.

6. It’s simple! The single-point rubric has much less text than other rubric styles. The odds that our students will actually read the whole rubric, reflect on given feedback, and remember both are much higher.

Here are two more  examples of a single-point rubric to make it more general, then more specific.

Jennifer Gonzalez "Your Rubric is a Mess"

(add edutopia image here)



Sources
Jennifer Hashem in Edutopia "6 Reasons to Try a Single-Point Rubric."

Jennifer Gonzalez in Brilliant or Insane? Education on the Edge "Your Rubric is a Hot Mess.  Here's How to Fix It."

See also:  Jennifer Gonzalez, in her Cult of Pedagogy blog, writes a "Know Your Terms" post about different types of rubrics.