II. The WRIT Rubric

When learning how to write clearly and concisely, whether a formal research project or a short, argumentative, non-research essay,  it is useful to have a clear guide to help you understand what makes a piece of writing effective.  We use a grading rubric in the WRIT curriculum to help students understand the components of a good piece of writing.

So, What is a Rubric?

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into different parts and provides descriptions of the characteristics associated with each part at different levels of mastery. Educators use rubrics for various assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. They use rubrics as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both.^[1]

You’ll quickly become familiar with the reason and writing rubric in WRIT. It’s a document your instructor will use to assess your writing and provide you with feedback on how to improve.

You should always review your rubric feedback to track how you have improved or locate where you may need more help in some areas of your writing.

WRIT Grading Rubric 

Below is the WRIT Grading Rubric used to evaluate your writing. The categories you see also reflect the organization of this textbook (Content, Organization, Style and Mechanics).

• Download a PDF version of the interactive rubric below.