Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment [Paperback]

Maja Wilson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0325008566 | ISBN-13: 978-0325008561 | Publication Date: January 20, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann (January 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0325008566
• ISBN-13: 978-0325008561
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #637,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Alternative to Standard Rubrics, December 11, 2007

By 

Allison H. (Antelope, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (Paperback)

Although I believe this book was geared toward K-12, it is applicable to all levels of teaching. If you are like me, and feel a bit unsettled trying to quantify and fit students' writing into three or four categories on a rubric, Maja Wilson lets you know you are not alone. Rubrics were supposedly designed to make grading students' papers easier, as well as to justify an instructor's grades. Like Alfie Kohn says in the Foreward, we really should be questioning anything that is designed to make, what I would argue is a very individual process, "easy." Quality is indeed "more than the sum of its rubricized parts," and I think before we, as teachers, look for an easier way to grade, we need to look at the how's and why's of what we are doing. Or think about it this way--what if you were being observed by another faculty member deciding your tenure--would you want them to use a rubric to judge your performance, or would you want them to engage in a conversation with you about your work before deciding your future? I think what Maja Wilson is asking of teachers is similar--that we engage in a dialogue with our students about their work, rather than ending all possible chance of conversation by assigning their work to some "neat" and "tidy" category on a rubric.

I highly recommend this book if you are looking for an alternative to rubrics in writing assessment.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exploring Our Deepest Convictions, November 8, 2006

By 

Samantha Shipman (Mount Pleasant, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (Paperback)

This book is quickly becoming my bible for writing assessment. While it is true that Wilson does not offer in-depth insight into alternatives for content area writing and focuses mainly on creative writing, this is because she is an English teacher and is still struggling with alternatives in her own classroom. What she does do is ask her readers to look at their own "deepest convictions about the complexities of the writing process." What are we doing in the classroom that is violating those convictions? Her analysis by no means applies only to English teachers, but to any teacher who will ever expect her students to write anything in the classroom as well as anyone concerned about the standardized movement toward teaching in general. She helps her readers understand the history of writing assessment and how we came to where we are today. She points out the inconsistency within the pedagogical movement focusing on the writing process (a positive step) that still chooses to use standardized forms of writing assessment. Her writing is engaging as she takes us on a journey exploring her own concerns about writing assessment, sprinkled with personal narratives and examples of excellent student writing that would score poorly on any rubric. This book is not meant to be an ultimate resolution; rather, it forces us to engage in a conversation that challenges traditional teaching practices and encourages us to be subversive in our own classrooms. Buy this book if you have even the slightest suspicion that "something about rubrics violates your deepest convictions about the complexities of the writing process." You won't regret it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Outside of the Box, March 4, 2009

By 

John Schoen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (Paperback)

You have to give it up to a writer who discusses rubrics in writing assessment and Michael Ondaatje in the same text. I dare anyone to name another education theorist who has the intellectual flexibility to do the same.

Maja Wilson recognizes some of the most important features of a writer: we are fallible. We are human. We are given to appraise writing according to our own consciences. Our qualities as a writer and the things we value in writing are not prescriptive, but are derived from different social circumstances and person experiences. Writing values are not universal, and they certainly cannot be canonized and placed in neat boxes, dissected and labeled for professional conveniences.

Wilson is delightfully plainspoken and candid. This is a thoughtful examination of an educational practice not long for this world.