Journal 6: "The Trouble With Rubrics"

Kohn, A. (2006, March). The Trouble With Rubrics. Retrieved December 10, 2009, from English Journal.


I found it very interesting what Kohn had to say about grades, and rubrics. Kohn wrote in the article that research has been conducted that students who are doing an assignment or assessment that they know is going to be graded perform much worse or to a much lesser level that they are capable of reaching due to the stress of knowing they are getting a grade. Superficial thinking can be triggered. Students are less likely to take risks or feel free to perform how they would under the spotlight because they want to impress their teachers. I can’t agree more with this! Rubrics are great ways to take the stress off students. Students can refer to a rubric to make sense of ideas instead of trying to perform to the standards of a good letter grade.

How can rubrics be seen in a positive light?

Students know ahead of time how they are going to be evaluated. They have expectations and ways to organize assessments or assignments before beginning working on them. Using rubrics teachers can much easier grade every student fairly and equally. Rubrics trigger the question from students “how am I doing?” This is a great sign from a student because they are curious on their progression unlike on a grade scale where expectations can be unclear.

What else can be said about rubrics and how they can be more useful?

Rubrics are organized and neatly written and drawn out in a way that can show way more than a simple letter grade. A rubric can be learned from by a student because there is a lot of feedback that can be written on a rubric. Students can see how they met expectations or didn’t in a clear and easy to read manner. Rubrics are the future for student’s evaluation through my eyes.