Rubrics and mortar

In Engaging Ideas. John C. Bean provides much practical information for rubric design. I was a bit surprised by his own approach to creating rubrics, which happened after the students have turned in their paper. Admitting it seems counter-intuitive, here is his process:

  • Read over small sample to get a sense of the range and what kind of issues will arise, before marking papers individually.
  • Make marginal comments
  • Give paper holistic grade lightly in pencil.
  • Write comments at end of strengths and recommendations for revision.
  • Staple the rubric to the paper and circle number scores but don’t add them up.
  • After grading all the papers this way, go back and add up the number scores.
  • Reconcile the holistic and analytic scores, fudging numbers in comparison with other papers, and reconciling the two methods of evaluation (p. 281 – 282).

Bean claims one of the benefits of this method is that it “lets [Bean] privilege [his?] holistic right brain judgment and de-emphasize the rubric numbers,” claiming fewer questions from students about losing points in a particular category (p. 282).

I am interested in this approach and am curious about how this fits with Bean’s earlier discussion about designing writing assignments according to personality type (he uses Meyer’s-Briggs). If left brain signifies “analytical” and right brain is more associated with “intuitive,” then I wonder about student preference when it comes to rubrics. I could see a more analytical type of student (TJ) preferring to know well in advance how they will be evaluated, while perhaps a more intuitive type (FP) to be more OK with a holistic type of scoring.

Does Bean do the work to give the students what they want from rubrics? Are rubrics serving the students, or serving the teacher more in this scenario?

One thought on “Rubrics and mortar

  1. I think if the rubrics are used as thoroughly as Bean uses them with positive comments, I think both student and teacher are served. However, the teacher who does not provide rationale via comments for rubric scores, does not help the students. If used with as much forethought as Bean, rubrics can be very useful.

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