Routine Writing Rubric

For years I muddled through grading routine writing in my classroom.  You know, all of those short creative writing prompts, starter activities, journal activities and the like?  If you've had the chance to dive into Common Core, you know that basically anything that isn't an essay is labeled as "routine writing".  Since routine writing is going to be a section of my students' writing portfolios this year, I finally decided to create a Routine Writing Rubric.

I wanted to create something that targeted the basics - formatting, punctuation, capitalization, avoiding fragments and run-ons, fully answering the prompt, as well as strong introductions and conclusions.  I also wanted it to be something fairly quick and easy to grade.  I added a comments box at the bottom of the rubric for teacher commentary, which can also be a great place to comment on skills not listed on the rubric.

I have 10 different criteria that I am looking for and 3 scores for each criteria - No Errors, Few Errors, and Many Errors.  I hesitated to put an actual number of errors for each score possible because this allows me the freedom to change what "few errors" means from one assignment to the next.

The Many Errors column still awards students with 4 points, which I believe allows for room for growth instead of complete defeat.  However, if a student had significant errors you could always leave that row without a score and award them zero points.

I made the document so that you get two rubrics per page, which will make your paper supply last longer!

I've used this for three different assignments this week and love it.  I feel like I can grade quicker, while also insuring that each student is getting a fair grade.  I hope that you feel like it might be helpful to you, too!  I've uploaded it to my TPT store.  HERE is the direct link to the rubric.