Teachers use two types of rubrics to assess student writing: holistic and analytic. Of the two rubrics, the analytical rubric offers both teachers and students much more to work with to improve student writing. Holistic rubrics are fine for quick overviews and are the staples of performance-based standardized tests, such as the SAT®; however, they serve little instructional purpose. Check out What’s Wrong with Holistic Rubrics for more.
Let’s start with a brief definition: An analytical rubric is a criterion-referenced writing assessment. In other words, a student’s writing is assessed according to a pre-determined set of criteria. Unlike holistic rubrics, the criteria in analytical rubrics have been separated into discreet writing tasks.
Analytical rubrics have two basic components: 1. the specific writing tasks 2. the numeric levels of performance. For each of the Common Core State Standard essays in my Teaching Essay Strategies curriculum, I add columns for diagnostic, formative, and summative scoring, as well as one column for a response checklist and one column for a revision checklist.
Five Reasons Why Analytical Rubrics Are Helpful
1. Differentiated Instruction
As in the example above, the rubric can serve as diagnostic and formative assessment to enable the teacher to differentiate instruction. Charting these assessments on whole class recording matrices can help the teacher group students for efficient instruction, such as mini-lessons, or assign individual worksheet practice to help students master and apply writing skills.
2. Progress Monitoring
Because analytical rubrics isolate discreet writing tasks that are components of different writing assignments, performance level data can be charted on Recording Matrix from one writing assignment to the next. These data can be analyzed by class and individual performance and serve as progress monitoring.
3. Student Involvement
Analytical rubrics provide road maps for student writers to follow. Specific expectations are set at the beginning of the writing assignment. As in the example above, students can complete peer response checklists on each writing task and then use the revision checklist to respond to the teacher’s diagnostic assessment and/or the peer response.
4. Flexibility
Analytical rubrics allow the teacher to assess parts of a student writing assignment and not have to grade each writing task. Examples: A teacher might choose to assign an on-demand timed writing and then diagnostically assess and record levels of performance on variety of evidence. A teacher might choose to have a reader or parent assess and record levels of performance on spelling, punctuation, and citation format. A teacher might choose to work with colleagues in a read-a-round, with each colleague assessing a different set of writing tasks.
5. Language of Instruction and the Writing Process
Analytical rubrics provide the language of instruction for writers, peers, parents, and teachers to discuss each writing task throughout the steps of the writing process. These specific writing tasks help students and teachers plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish their writing.
Check out this complete writing process essay to see a sample of the resources provided in Teaching Essay Strategies. The download includes writing prompt, paired reading resource, brainstorm activity, prewriting graphic organizer, rough draft directions, response-editing activity, and analytical rubric.
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Find essay strategy worksheets, on-demand writing fluencies, sentence revision and rhetorical stance “openers,” remedial writing lessons, posters, and editing resources to differentiate essay writing instruction in the comprehensive writing curriculum, Teaching Essay Strategies.
Looking for a full set of analytical rubrics to match the Common Core State Standards essays? Find 42 essay strategy worksheets corresponding to the Common Core State Standards, the Essay e-Comments download of 438 writing response comments, 8 on-demand writing fluencies, 8 writing process essays (4 Common Core informative/explanatory and 4 Common Core persuasive), 64 sentence revision and 64 rhetorical stance “openers,” remedial writing lessons, writing posters, and editing resources to differentiate essay writing instruction in the comprehensive writing curriculum, Teaching Essay Strategies, at www.penningtonpublishing.com. And, now, purchase The Pennington Manual of Style and the same bank of 438 Essay e-Comments found in Teaching Essay Strategies. Save time and do a better job responding to student writing with this practical writing reference guide. Sorry, Mac users. PCs only…
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