In this popular model, teachers assign students a grade in the following six areas: voice, ideas and content, sentence fluency, word choice, organizations and conventions. Grades from one to six are given to student in each of these areas, with six being the highest. By using such a rubric, students will see how an extremely high or low score in one particularly area can affect the outcome of their papers as a whole.
Instead of assigning a grade to each category, consider making a checklist that corresponds to conventions, fluency, organization, punctuation, word choice, ideas or other crucial areas of writing. Include statements under each category such as, "My paragraphing is intentional and assists the reader" and "I used brainstorming or a story map to create and organize ideas." Have students check off which boxes apply to their papers or check them off as you read their papers.
Give students a grade that covers their paper as a whole. They will receive a Q for quality, A for acceptable and a NA for not acceptable. However, each of this letters corresponds to different components of writing. For example, a Q paper will have met all of the requirements without having more than three mechanical errors, while an NA paper will have more than seven errors and will not have adhered to the directions.
Use a self-assessment tool in conjunction with or in place of another evaluative method. Distribute rubrics to students and have them rate their own papers. Another suggestion is to line up different statements about an appropriate paper, such as creating an appropriate thesis and using at least a certain number of sources. Have students write whether or not they did that. Have them give themselves a certain number of points for each area that they completed.