As part of the Department’s Strategic Plan, the Undergraduate Curriculum Task Force evaluated majors and courses through student and employer focus groups, course surveys, a faculty retreat and curriculum mapping.  The improvement of writing skills was deemed a high priority. 

To develop skills in assignments already embedded in our courses, the Task Force has worked with Teaching Support Services to create Rubric templates.   These are designed to be teaching aids that outline expectations, foster student self-assessment and serve as grading templates. 

The Task Force has developed sample rubrics for research proposals, lab reports, and term- papers that instructors can modify to suit specific assignments.  A rubric for oral presentations is also included. 

Three versions of the term-paper rubric are presented: complete rubric, condensed grading rubric and numeric grading rubric.  These demonstrate variations in approaches that an instructor may use.  The complete rubric can be given to students in advance as a learning tool, and the instructor may use the condensed or numeric rubric for grading.  Alternatively, an instructor may choose only to work with the complete rubric.

Sample Rubrics (rtf format):