Introduction chapter I elements of assesing writing

Readability	Awkward phrasing, unskillful or inappropriate voice/tone, and unsophisticated and/or imprecise vocabulary hinder understanding.	Awkward phrasing, unskillful or inappropriate voice/tone, and unsophisticated and/or imprecise vocabulary distract from the paper’s ideas.	Phrasing is generally effective; voice/tone and vocabulary are generally suitable for the paper’s ideas and only occasionally work against its ideas.	Clear phrasing, appropriate management of voice and tone, and vocabulary enhance the paper’s ideas.
Skillful phrasing, adept management of voice and tone, and apt word choice create an inviting paper.
Conventions	Numerous errors in grammar, usage, spelling and punctuation seriously impede meaning. Necessary documentation is missing.	Several errors in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation distract the reader and impede meaning. Problems with needed documentation exist	Errors in grammar usage, spelling, and punctuation are noticeable, but do not seriously impede the reader. Documentation is usually correct.	There are occasional errors in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation that do not impede the reader. Documentation of sources is correct.	There are very few or no mechanical errors in the paper. Documentation of sources is correct.
Overall Impression	The writer struggles in constructing and presenting a significant position. Paragraphing and overall organization hinder effectiveness. Ideas are asserted rather than developed or are largely underdeveloped. Language suffers from distracting errors at the sentence level. Falls short of college-level writing.	The writer presents a significant position that falls shy of being convincing. Overall organization and support need significant development. Frequent though not pervasive problems at the sentence-level. Paragraphing is inconsistent. Marginal college-level writing.	The writer presents a significant position that is generally convincing, but has some weaknesses. Paragraphs are typically organized and add to the development of ideas. Support is good, but sometimes inadequate. Organization is evident but sometimes undeveloped. There are occasional but not overly distracting, sentence-level errors. Acceptable college-level writing.	The writer presents a significant and thoughtful position that is for the most part convincing. Paragraphs are well organized and contribute to the development of ideas. Support is good with infrequent weak areas. Organization is clear. Sentence-level errors are infrequent. Good college-level writing.	The writer presents a significant and interesting position that is convincing and thought provoking. Paragraphs are skillfully organized and add to the development of ideas. Support is sound with rare or no weak areas. Sentence-level errors are rare to non-existent. Exemplary college-level writing.

In this section, we present a few examples of educational technologies for you to explore and consider their affordances and limitations in relation to your learning goals. Making decisions about educational technologies can be tricky. Faculty sometimes ask if a specific technology will enhance student learning. Whether low tech (a chalkboard) or high tech (a 3-D interactive visualization), a tool’s learning benefits depend on when, where, how, and why you use it. We can help you find a tool or set of tools that aligns with your goals, and provide you support as you select and integrate technology effectively into your teaching.

What is a rubric?
A rubric is a great tool for teachers because it is a simple way to set up a grading criteria for assignments. Not only is this tool useful for teachers, it is helpful for students as well. A rubric defines in writing what is expected of the student to get a particular grade on an assignment.
Heidi Goodrich Andrade, a rubrics expert, defines a rubric as "a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work or 'what counts.' " For example, a rubric for an essay might tell students that their work will be judged on purpose, organization, details, voice, and mechanics.
A good rubric also describes levels of quality for each of the criteria. These levels of performance may be written as different ratings (e.g., Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement) or as numerical scores (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1) Under mechanics, for example, the rubric might define the lowest level of performance as "7-10 misspellings, grammar, and punctuation errors," and the highest level as "all words are spelled correctly; your work shows that you understand subject-verb agreement, when to make words possessive, and how to use commas, semicolons and periods."
Why use rubrics?
According to Heidi Goodrich Andrade:
Rubrics help students and teachers define "quality."
When students use rubrics regularly to judge their own work, they begin to accept more responsibility for the end product. It cuts down on the "am I done yet?" questions.
Rubrics reduce the time teachers spend grading student work and makes it easier for teachers to explain to students why they got the grade they did and what they can do to improve.
Parents usually like the rubrics concept once they understand it, and they find rubrics useful when helping with homework. As one teacher says: "They know exactly what their child needs to do to be successful."
Involve your students
Understanding a Rubric: Arrange the students into groups of four or more and give them the rubric you will be using for a particular task. Tell the students to discuss the task you have given them and create quick samples of papers which would receive marks in each of the categories. The groups will then present their results to the whole class.
Creating a Rubric: It is a good idea to involve your students in creating their own rubrics for classroom assignments. A student who can write the rubric for a math problem knows the whole process inside and out, and he/she can apply the knowledge and skills learned from the process to future assignments.
How do I create a good rubric?
Sometimes it's not possible to find an appropriate existing rubric to use or modify. To create your own rubric, follow these steps.
1. List the criteria that will be used in assessing performance in the first column.

The criteria you use should be related to the learning outcome(s) that you are assessing. For example, a musical performance might be rated for intonation, rhythmic accuracy, and tone quality and an oral presentation might be rated for content, organization, delivery and language. Be sure that your criteria are explicit. "Neatness" would not be a good criterion because the term "neat" is not explicit enough. What is neatness?You may want to look at some actual examples of student work to see if you have omitted any important criteria.

2. Determine your performance ratings / levels in the first row.
Examples of performance ratings may be:
Descriptors (In Progress, Basic, Proficient, Advanced)
Numbers (1,2,3,4)
3. Write a description for each performance level.

Describe the different levels of performance that match each criterion. You may want to start with the best and worst levels of quality, and then fill in the middle levels based on your knowledge of common problems. It may be helpful to sort examples of actual student work into three piles: the very best, the poorest and those in between. Try to articulate what makes the good assignments good and the poor assignments poor.

2.2 METHOD AND ANALYSIS CRITERIA

An important goal of schooling is teaching students how to write. Teachers need access to effective writing practices to meet this goal. For close to 40 years, meta-analyses of writing intervention studies have been used to identify evidence-based practices in writing. Most of the research included in these reviews involved studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe. The current meta-analysis included 77 experimental studies examining the effectiveness of writing interventions conducted in schools in Turkey with 4,891 students in primary grades through college. The writing outcome in all of these studies was quality of students’ writing. The average weighted effect size for teaching writing across all 77 studies was 1.39. The average weighted effect sizes for the five writing treatments tested in four or more studies were 0.92 for peer assistance, 1.55 for pre-writing activities, 1.30 for the process approach to writing, and 1.28 for strategy instruction. Directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.