Let's clear up some common misconceptions about rubrics.

Whatever your experience may be, we all come to the table with some preconceived notions

A little useless trivia because you just never know. Rubric literally means "ruber," which is Latin for red. In ancient times, instructive, legal documents were written in red. Feel free to ignore this trivia.

Rubrics should not just be grids for checking off the directions for the assignment.

Rubrics should be focused on the actual understandings, not just following instructions for a task that you have assigned.

Ask yourself, does the grade reflect direction following or authentic demonstrations of real understandings?

(Hand out p. 19 in Bookhart's book - Example of a Poor Rubric)

For example, if students were creating a board game to demonstrate their understanding of the importance of rules in society and governments, the focus of the rubric should be on the UNDERSTANDING that rules are important and why they are important- not just on the actual product.

If a rubric is just a scale, it misses being descriptive. Rubrics need to be descriptive to be helpful and authentic. Rubrics go deeper.

(refer back to Example of a Poor Rubric, p. 19 of Brookhart's book, and point out frequency rating of Grammar)