By Lynda Van Kuren
Summary: Patti West-Smith, a pedagogy expert at Turnitin, explains that with clear upfront guidance, rubrics help students become self-directed learners by showing them exactly how to improve before submitting a paper or assignment.
When Rachel received a mediocre grade on a paper she had worked hard on for her freshman writing class, she was initially crushed. The rubric her professor provided, however, revealed the specific areas where her work fell short. Using that targeted feedback, Rachel sought help on those precise issues and earned an A on her next assignment.
Rachel’s experience illustrates a vital point: rubrics are powerful assessment tools, but they are equally valuable as teaching and learning tools—especially in writing, STEM, and other areas that demand critical thinking and analysis. Well-designed rubrics give students a clear path to improve their performance and develop self-directed learning habits, says Patti West-Smith, senior manager of teaching and learning innovations at Turnitin.
“Rubrics are a communication device that sets transparent performance expectations and helps students take ownership of their learning,” West-Smith explains. “They turn vague expectations into concrete criteria.”
With some initial teacher guidance to introduce and model their use, rubrics become practical instruments that students can use repeatedly to guide work, measure progress, and know precisely what to improve before submitting assignments.
Rubrics as Teaching Tools
To serve as both a valid assessment instrument and a teaching tool, a rubric must clearly list each element of the assignment to be scored and describe what performance looks like at each level of mastery. Educators can build rubrics themselves or adapt and customize templates from providers such as Turnitin to meet their class and student needs.
Below is an example of a well-constructed rubric used as a teaching tool.
Courtesy of the 12th grade English team at Vista del Lago High School in Folsom, CA. Thank you!
Rubrics let instructors score assignments consistently and provide students with actionable feedback on the exact skills they need to develop. If Rachel had only received a single low grade without criterion-specific feedback, she would not have known where to focus her efforts. The rubric spelled out four areas needing improvement and described how her performance failed to meet the criteria in each area.
That specificity is especially helpful when a student’s work sits on the border between two scores. Instructors can point to the rubric language and give concrete examples, helping students understand what is required to reach the next level of mastery.
“The professor is literally using a rubric to help students understand what they must do to demonstrate mastery of a particular skill,” West-Smith says. “That is the essence of effective formative assessment.”
Preparing Students to Use Rubrics
To make rubrics effective teaching tools, educators must teach students how to use them. West-Smith recommends active classroom activities that engage students with the rubric: have students self-assess their draft, then hold peer conferences where each writer explains their scoring choices. When disagreements arise, writers should articulate why they disagree and provide evidence to support their assessment.
“We teach students the thinking process of being critical writers or mathematicians,” West-Smith notes. “We build the rubric into the workflow so students learn to use it as part of the process.”
Importantly, instructors should distribute rubrics before assignments are handed out so students can plan their work with clear criteria in mind.
A GPS for Student Learning
Rubrics function like detailed road maps. Major projects and papers can overwhelm students—especially those with learning disabilities, executive function challenges, or limited experience with complex tasks. Rubrics remove ambiguity, identify priorities, and show where students should invest time and energy.
With a rubric, students can choose the performance level they want to achieve and follow explicit steps to get there. They can compare their work to examples and ensure each criterion is met. If gaps remain, the rubric points to the specific skills that need remediation so students can seek targeted help from instructors, writing centers, or tutors before turning in the assignment.
“When students work with a rubric, they have a document that acts like a GPS for the assignment,” West-Smith says. “They know the tasks, the expected skill levels, and can self-check. That clarity empowers students to prioritize and take control.”
Even after an assignment is returned, rubrics clarify where to focus future learning. They give students and tutors a shared language for targeted follow-up. Rachel, for example, used the rubric to explain exactly which aspects of her writing needed attention; her tutor then provided focused exercises that Rachel applied in her next paper, resulting in a much higher grade.
Rubrics also demonstrate that achievement exists on a continuum. Students learn they can move between performance levels by taking specific actions—a critical philosophical insight that encourages growth mindset and strategic effort.
Addressing Long-Term Weaknesses
When rubric elements are used consistently across assignments, students can identify patterns in their performance. They see where they consistently score well and where persistent weaknesses remain. This diagnostic data enables students to reflect and create personal action plans to address recurring problems.
“Rubrics become an information tool,” West-Smith explains. “Students can use feedback to spot trends and make strategic decisions about what to prioritize and which resources to use.”
Encouraging students to collect their rubric feedback over time and outline concrete steps for improvement helps them build lasting skills across multiple assignments, not just within a single task.
A Tool for Self-Advocacy
Rubrics give students the objective foundation they need to advocate for themselves. Instead of subjective debates about grades, students can point to rubric criteria and examples to justify their assessments or requests for revision. That shared framework elevates classroom conversations and makes feedback actionable rather than vague.
Internalizing Quality Performance
By comparing examples and meeting rubric criteria, students learn to recognize quality work. Over time, these standards become part of their mindset and metacognition—helping them understand the component parts of high-quality research papers, lab reports, or other assignments and adopt higher standards across their work.
Engaged, Motivated Learners
When students know exactly what actions will earn the score they want, motivation and engagement increase. They set clear goals for individual assignments and for long-term achievement, and they put focused effort into meeting those goals. “Rubrics give students a sense of agency in learning,” says West-Smith. “They improve because they believe they can.”
About the Author:
Lynda Van Kuren is a freelance education writer based in North Carolina. She covers K–12, higher education, and educational technology.