The Use of Rubrics and Writing

        As a pre-service teacher, I have spent plenty of time learning how to write rubrics and what makes a "good rubric". It was not until last semester when I spent time with the rubrics in my SED and MLED class and used them to grade my peers work. I began to realize how the rubric was not satisfying me in terms of grading work in a fair way. While I was not grading essay writing with this rubric, it was work that consisted of a fair amount of writing. I noticed that I always leaned toward the middle of two numbers if the rubric was scaled on a numerical scale from say, 1-4 (1 being unsatisfactory and 4 being satisfactory). Grading was not enjoyable because I stressed over the fact that I was unhappy with picking one number and moving on. My point here is that it is easy to create a rubric as an assignment and move on, but actually implementing that rubric to students is completely different.
       My viewpoint on rubrics has shifted since I had practice with implementing them rather than strictly creating them. One rubric cannot possibly cater to each student in the classroom and this is what Wilson discusses in her article on rubrics. A rubric also does not speak explicitly to the work of the student. Wilson states, "No matter how elaborate or eloquent the phrases I was invited to circle, the feedback they offered to students was still generic because they weren’t uttered in reaction to the students’ actual work" (63). A rubric is created to assess an assignment and therefore, each student is graded based off the same scale which is why Wilson states that it is not a form of personal feedback to each student. Written feedback from the teacher is a better way of speaking to the student about their writing. The feedback should be specific to each student and to offer feedback on their writing which a rubric cannot achieve. Students will learn the most from meaningful written feedback as opposed to a rubric with numbers that will essentially end up defining them. I think about what I am going to do as a future teacher who is handed a curriculum rubric that I am expected to implement in the classroom. In this case, I think it will make the most sense that I offer written feedback along with the rubric to my students so that they know my personal thoughts on their work.

       I was taught to follow the sandwich outline when writing essays which is known as the five paragraph format. Three paragraphs to explain the idea of the paper was always a struggle for me. I was the student in high school who had to always cut my essay down to meet the paragraph and page limit. My peers would sometimes make fun of me that I was a nerd because I wrote too much but I did my best to just ignore them and be happy with the fact that I could write that much rather than struggle with not having enough to write about.
       I want my students to know that I care more about the words of their essay and their ideas rather than if they met the paragraph requirement. In fact, I do not want to provide a paragraph limit. I want the students to focus on their topic and produce strong and coherent writing. Michelle Kenney, author of The Politics of the Paragraph, shares her experience with this in the classroom. She states, "It’s important to develop a strong argument, no matter how many paragraphs or sentences it takes" (Kenney). She believes, as she told her student Erica, that she cares less about the amount of writing she produces and more about the topic she writes about. For Kenney, it is quality over quantity, which is how it should be. 


      As I read Christensen chapter 2, I connected her thoughts on responding to student work to the conversation of rubrics as discussed in the above paragraphs and by Wilson's article on "Why I Won't be Using Rubrics to Respond to Student's Writing". I discussed above how written feedback is more beneficial to the student and Christensen makes note of this as well in her work. She states, " I try to make my notes a conversation to the writer" (66). While offering feedback for improvement to the students, Christensen tries to maintain a balance of conversing with the student while pointing them to areas of improvement. This is so much more important than a rubric.

     Implementing narrative into multiple units is something that I want to practice in my future classroom. I think it is beneficial to give students the time to write narratives in relation to the specific topic we will be covering in the class. Christensen discusses how she teaches about injustice while connecting it to the current text they are reading. She states, "Students write about times when they were allies, perpetrators, targets, or bystanders during a critical moment in their lives" (61). Through narrative, she will discuss injustice with her students and allow them to think critically on a time where they witnessed or were affected by injustice. This can help the students become more aware of their social worlds, their identities, and who they want to be in their society. I think that narrative writing can be useful in a multitude of ways in the classroom and is a way to break up the typical essay writing that is required of the students.