Making a Virtue of Necessity
Using Assessment Rubrics in the
Classroom
The Virtues of Rubrics
• Make program objectives transparent to
students
• Inform instructional decision-making
History Program Objectives
1. Historical Knowledge
• Explain the historical development and
significance of important events, institutions,
and ideas in United States and world history
• Understand the diversity of human experience
in other cultures and eras
• Recognize different approaches to and
methods of historical study [Historiography]
History Program Objectives
Historical Reasoning and Research
• Think critically about the past and its social,
political, and ethical significance
• Locate, explain, evaluate, and utilize
information from and about the past
• Propose and evaluate interpretations of
events, artifacts, documents, and images
[Interpretation]
History Program Objectives
Communication
• Perceptive reading
• Effective expression
• Literate use and consumption of Web-based
materials
HIST 2000 - Historical Methods
Introduces students to historical inquiry, interpretation, and writing
Major Writing Assignment:
“Opening Up the Textbook”
Task: Assess a high school or college history textbook’s coverage
of a subject of your choice, research the subject, and write a
historical narrative grounded in primary sources and informed by
historical scholarship that complicates and enriches the
textbook’s coverage.
Process:
1. Annotated Bibliography (interpretive exercise)
2. Comparative Book Review (historiographical
exercise)
3. Historical Narrative
Comprehensively
follows assignment
directions.
Student
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Selection of
secondary sources
indicates attention to
relevance to the topic
and an effort to
identify important
works in the field.
Books are published
by a university or
other reputable
scholarly press;
articles are from peerreviewed journals.
Selection of primary
sources indicates
attention to relevance
to the topic an an
effort to identify items
essential to
understanding the
topic.
Annotations
comprehensively
follow Rampolla's
guidelines (3b-2).
Annotations
comprehsensively
follow the 5 Cs for
sourcing, describing,
contextualizing, and
corroborating primary
sources.
Complete
bibliographic
information is
provided for all
sources and
properly
formatted using
the Chicago style
(see Rampolla 7c).
Writing is free of
sentence-level
errors, formatting
errors, and
stylistic problems.
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Percentage of
students performing
at an acceptable or
exemplary level
83.33%
100.00%
83.33%
61.11%
66.67%
22.22%
27.78%
88.89%
Five Cs of Primary Source Analysis
An alliterative guide for describing, contextualizing, and corroborating primary sources
•
CITATION: What is this source? Who created it, when, and why? For whom
(audience)?
•
CONTENT: Describe in detail what you read, see, or hear. You should consider this
at two levels: surface appearance (literal meaning), and subtext (implied
meanings).
•
CONTEXT— BIOGRAPHICAL & HISTORICAL: What do you know about the author’s
life, values, presumptions, and perspective? What do you know about the time
period and place? How might these details shape the meaning of the source?
•
CORROBORATION: What do you already know about this topic? Link the source to
other things that you already know or have learned about. Is this source credible?
•
CONCLUSIONS: Based on the evidence and reasoning, what can you conclude
about the source’s meaning? Consider both what the source reveals about its
author, and what we can learn from it about the subject (whether because of, or in
spite of, the author’s intentions).