By Clay Shumate · Updated September 2026
A rubric can do two very different jobs. It can tell students what you're looking for before they start, or it can explain a score after the fact. The rubrics that help students learn are the ones that do the first job well.
In a standards-based classroom that difference matters even more, because the rubric is the scale. If the descriptions are vague, the grades will be too.
Susan Brookhart, one of the most cited writers on classroom assessment, defines a rubric as "a coherent set of criteria for student work that describes levels of performance quality." (1)
Two words in that definition do most of the work. Criteria are the qualities you're looking for. Levels describe what those qualities look like at different stages of learning. A checklist of assignment requirements, such as "has a title" or "is two pages long," isn't a rubric in this sense, because it describes the task, not the learning.
Start with the standard. Rewrite it in student language. If a 13-year-old can't read the target, the rubric won't help them.
Describe the target level first. Write what "meets the standard" looks like before anything else. The other levels are built around it.
Describe what's present, not just what's missing. "Uses two relevant pieces of evidence" tells a student what to do. "Lacks evidence" only tells them what went wrong.
Change one thing between levels. Each step up should add independence, complexity or accuracy. If you can't say what's different between a 2 and a 3, students can't either.
Test it on real work. Score three or four pieces of old student work. If you hesitate between levels, rewrite the descriptors.
A general rubric describes a skill that shows up in many assignments, like making an argument with evidence. A task-specific rubric describes one assignment's correct answers. General rubrics are more useful in standards-based grading because students see the same criteria across the whole unit and can track their growth.
A rubric handed out with the graded work is a report. A rubric handed out with the assignment is a guide. Ask students to score a sample, then their own draft, before you score the final version. That's where most of the learning happens.
If you'd rather not start from scratch, Elevate the Norm offers free standards-based grading rubrics and a starter pack with a four-level proficiency scale and teacher responses for each level.
Four is common. It's enough to show growth without forcing you to make distinctions you can't defend.
It can, but score each standard separately. A single combined score hides which standard a student has met and which one they haven't.
Once they're familiar with the format, yes. Co-writing the target level with students is a good way to check whether they understand the standard.
Brookhart, S. M. (2013). How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading, Chapter 1. ASCD.
Clay Shumate
Clay Shumate is a certified secondary Social Studies teacher in the public schools of West Alabama, with seven years of classroom experience, a B.A. in History, and an M.Ed. in Secondary Education. He writes about project-based learning, student responsibility, respect, and practical ways to hold young people to a higher standard while giving them room to learn from mistakes.