Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment » (1st Edition)

Maja Wilson teaches high school English in Ludington, Michigan, where she lives with her partner and two sons.

The book you're about to read is not only a superb analysis of rubrics but a lesson in how to apply careful thinking to classroom practice.
- Alfie Kohn, Author of The Case Against Standardized Testing

This book will create the conversations educators desperately need-about accurate assessment, quality in writing, and informed teaching.
- Randy Bomer, Author of For a Better World

The conventional wisdom in English education is that rubrics are the best and easiest tools for assessment. But sometimes it's better to be unconventional. In Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment, Maja Wilson offers a new perspective on rubrics and argues for a better, more responsive way to think about assessing writers' progress.

Though you may sense a disconnect between student-centered teaching and rubric-based assessment, you may still use rubrics for convenience or for want of better alternatives. Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment gives you the impetus to make a change, demonstrating how rubrics can hurt kids and replace professional decision making with an inauthentic pigeonholing that stamps standardization onto a notably nonstandard process. With an emphasis on thoughtful planning and teaching, Wilson shows you how to reconsider writing assessment so that it aligns more closely with high-quality instruction and avoids the potentially damaging effects of rubrics.

Stop listening to the conventional wisdom, and turn instead to a compelling new voice to find out why rubrics are often replaceable. Open Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment and let Maja Wilson start you down the path to more sensitive, authentic style of writing assessment.

	Introduction : when best practice and our deepest convictions are at odds
1	My troubles with rubrics	1
2	Is there a cow in our classroom : how rubrics became writing assessment's sacred cow	10
3	The broken promises of rubrics	27
4	The golden rule of assessment : why don't we practice for assessment what we preach for pedagogy	43
5	Agreeing to disagree : the heart of a new writing assessment paradigm	53
6	Making our subjectivity transparent and useful : what response unmediated by rubrics looks like in our classrooms	66
7	But how shall we grade? : investing in process for the sake of product	79
8	How do we make time to make it meaningful? : and other questions about assessment without rubrics	88