GRADING USING A RUBRIC 1

Grading Using a Rubric

Analysis Using Common Core Standards

Cori Camelia

California State University, Dominguez Hills

GRADING USING A RUBRIC 2

Grading Using a Rubric

Analysis Using Common Core Standards

In response to the need for American educational reform, the Common Core State

Standards (CCSS) were created to enable success and equal opportunities for students around the

country and to allow educators to teach and evaluate their students abilities more efficiently. The

CCSS provide teachers with a Generic 4-point Opinion Writing Rubric that can be used to

critique a students essay according to their grade level. The Grade 3-5 rubric evaluates the

students writing based on three major categories in which students can score a 0-4 in each

section. Using this 4-Point rubric, 4th graders John Blacks and Maria Mendozas essays were

evaluated based on the students statement of purpose/focus, organization, and use of

conventions throughout their essays.

When applying the CCSS Rubrics category Statement of Purpose/Focus, John

received a score of 2.8 and Maria received a 3. To enumerate, due to Johns continual use of the

word they as a pronoun when addressing both Native Americans and Spaniards, the reader can

be easily confused about what John is trying to convey throughout his essay. Although John

expresses a strong opinion when answering the prompt, he struggles with clarity when

supporting his response. Because he maintains a strong opinion throughout his paper, John

addresses the main idea of the prompt successfully, bumping his score up to a high 2.8. Similarly,

Marias score of a 3 was determined by the presence of a strong opinion about the treatment of

Natives. Also, in accordance with the 4-point rubric, her response is adequately sustained and

generally focused, as seen in her conclusion paragraph when she reiterates that life was more

negative for the California Indians. Teaching students how to prewrite, brainstorm, and outline

their papers can aid in making sure they stay on track while writing.
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The second score that these students were given focuses on the students organization

throughout their essay. In this category, John received a score of 2.2 and Maria, a 2.5. This is

because John does not include transitional words within his body paragraphs. Additionally,

Johns introduction gets the prompts message across and his body paragraphs provide

explanations, yet he is lacking a strong conclusion paragraph. Likewise, Maria received a 2.5

based on her use of transitions (although sometimes misused) and an underwhelming conclusion.

Teaching these students the importance of transitional words and how the organization of an

essay can enhance or hinder an audiences understanding would be helpful in correcting these

problems.

Lastly, these students were graded on their attention to conventions. John makes several

spelling errors and frequent sentence structure mistakes throughout his paper. Despite his

considerable spelling errors, John shows that he is bridging towards an adequate command of

conventions (based off of the rubric), in which he received a score of 2.5. Conversely, Maria

makes nearly a dozen spelling errors all through her paper, affecting the general readability of the

paper. Although Marias lack of command of conventions is apparent, she is still able to get her

ideas across in her writing. For this, she received a 1.8. Lessons for students on how to self-edit

and peer-edit may be beneficial to both students essays.

In summary, I found that there are many benefits to using a generic rubric in evaluating

students, not only for the teachers sake, but also for the students and the parents. The CCSS

provide solid guidelines of evaluation within the rubric, and this makes it easier for students to

chart their mistakes, their progress, and the things that they are expected to include in their

writings. All in all, I believe these standards are beneficial to student progress.