How Rubrics Help Students Learn

Some history professors at Utah State have mapped out learning objectives, creating a detailed scoring guide for student papers. Here is how three seniors who are history majors say they have used the rubrics, which spell out how the professor will judge their mastery of specific skills and knowledge.

Aurora Wallis Durfee

In a course about the United States in the Age of Jefferson and Jackson, Ms. Durfee says she frequently referred to the scoring guide’s prompts about how to demonstrate “excellent mastery” of historical-thinking skills as she wrote a paper about Alexis de Tocqueville. They say, for instance, that a paper should focus on critical analysis rather than mere description and that the student’s response to historical questions should be conceptually strong, logically formulated, and precisely stated.

“I found that the rubric helped me to narrow my focus and realize what I needed to write in order to have a strong paper,” she says. A lot of the changes she says she found herself making in her work as a result of the rubric were to improve clarity and more directly respond to the question.

Ian Graham

In a senior “capstone” course focused on political culture, Mr. Graham frequently turned to a rubric for help in analyzing sources and determining whether he had supplied enough evidence to make strong arguments in his research paper. He says he particularly relied on the portions of the guide about evaluating and analyzing primary and secondary sources.

The rubric reminded him to demonstrate his knowledge of the origins and context of the primary texts he used and to confront any issues related to the legitimacy of secondary sources head-on. The tool helped him more easily evaluate what he was reading and how he would apply it in an argument. “It made me a better writer and made me a better thinker,” he says.

Casey Thacker

In a course on ancient Greek history, Ms. Thacker says using a rubric helped her be more deliberate in thinking about what she wanted to accomplish with the series of short papers she wrote and where she wanted to take her arguments in each one. The guide helped her improve on reading comprehension, she says, because she was asked to be so specific in her writing.

She says she found the guidance on secondary sources particularly useful. On that point, the rubric fully identified the writing goals she was expected to meet, including the need for careful evaluation of scholarly literature. The specificity of the rubric helped her figure out how to improve. “This is a continuing process,” she says. “It’s not just that you’ve learned a rubric and you know how to write better. But you are better able to develop your own writing skills and reading comprehension.”