YPAR documentary production helps students develop a range of artistic, technical and critical thinking skills integrated throughout the project. These rubrics are a tool for students to name the knowledge, skills and sub-skills they are developing and self-assess their growth along the way. They include these assumptions about learning:

1) We all learn best in a social environment through observation, conversation, and experience.

2) We develop all skills over time with practice. Like learning to ride a bike, at first we need "training wheels" -- help from others who are more experienced, then we try to do it on our own, then we know it so well we can help others learn.