Printable rubric template

Lay out the criteria and levels of a scoring rubric, print it with room to write descriptors, and turn the scores into a grade without guesswork.

How to make your sheet

1. Choose the general or writing preset and edit the criteria.
2. Rename the performance levels if your school uses other wording.
3. Pick paper size and orientation; landscape suits six or more criteria.
4. Press Print or save as PDF, then write descriptors in the cells by hand.

What a rubric needs

An analytic rubric is a grid. Each row is one criterion, the thing you are judging, and each column is a performance level with a short description of what work at that level looks like. This template gives you four levels, Exemplary, Proficient, Developing and Beginning, scored 4 to 1, and a Points column on the right where you circle or write the score for each row. Four levels is a common choice because there is no middle option to fall back on; you have to decide whether the work is closer to strong or to weak.

General versus writing criteria

The General project preset starts with Content, Organization, Evidence and Presentation, which fit posters, slide talks, lab reports and most projects. The Writing assignment preset uses Thesis and ideas, Organization, Evidence and support, Voice and style, and Conventions, a split close to the trait-based approach many writing teachers use. Both are starting points. Edit the Criteria box to match your task, separated by commas, and change the level names in the Columns box if your school uses different wording such as Exceeds, Meets, Approaching and Not yet.

Writing descriptors that students can use

Each cell is tall on purpose so you can write the descriptor by hand. Good descriptors describe the work, not the student, and change one thing at a time between levels. For an Evidence row, Exemplary might read “every claim is supported by a relevant, cited source”, Proficient “most claims are supported”, Developing “some claims are supported or sources are not cited” and Beginning “claims are unsupported”. Avoid words like good or poor on their own; they do not tell anyone what to fix. Hand the blank rubric out with the assignment, not after it, so students can check their own work against it.

Turning rubric points into a grade

Add the points and divide by the maximum. With five criteria at 4 points each the maximum is 20, so a total of 16 is 80%. Be careful with very low scores: on a 4-to-1 scale the lowest possible total is 5 out of 20, or 25%, even for work that barely meets any criterion, while a 2 on every row already gives 50%. Some teachers prefer to map totals to grades with a table instead, for example 18–20 as an A and 15–17 as a B. Whichever you choose, write the rule at the bottom of the sheet before you start marking.

If some criteria matter more than others, give them a weight and combine them in the weighted grade calculator; the rubric score then becomes one entry in your printable gradebook, and final letter grades can be checked in the GPA calculator.

Printing tips

Four or five criteria fit comfortably on a portrait page. With six or more, or with long level names, choose landscape so the descriptor cells stay wide. Print one copy per student and staple it to the work, or print a single copy, slide it into a plastic sleeve and mark it with a dry-erase pen when you conference with each student.

Analytic or holistic?

This template is analytic: one score per criterion. A holistic rubric gives a single overall score from one list of level descriptions. Holistic rubrics are faster to mark, but they tell the student less about what to improve. For drafts and practice work, analytic feedback is usually worth the extra minute.

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