Putting the Pieces Together: The WRIT Rubric

When learning how to writing clearly and concisely,  whether it be 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.  To help students understand the components of a good piece of writing,  we use a grading rubric in the WRIT curriculum.

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 a wide array of 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]

In WRIT, you’ll quickly become familiar with the reason and writing rubric. It’s a document your instructor will use to not only assess your writing but also to provide you with feedback on how to improve.

You should always review your rubric feedback to track how you have improved or to locate where you may need a bit 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.