Classroom Research:  Writing Skills

Rubric for Intellectual Growth

Cognitive Development vis-à-vis overarching course goal (comparison between assigns. 1 and 4)

A positive score (+) will indicate the student has made significant cognitive development vis-à-vis the main course goal (to critique the way the capitalist-consumerist business world constitutes society’s values).  The growth in cognitive development will be measured by comparing assignments one and four, which ask the student to write on essentially the same topic.  Papers that demonstrate intellectual/cognitive growth will represent a complication of thought regarding the topic of the course.  In other words, what seemed relatively easy to explain in paper one will appear to be considerably more complex and determined, influenced, or impacted by more factors in paper four.  Successful growth will likely manifest in three main ways:

• Intensification of same core idea:  Some students will evidence growth by moving from observation-centered explanations to more analytical discussions that recognize and probe the complexity of the issue in greater depth.  Paper four will show a deepening of understanding and a probing into some of the whys and wherefores underlying the idea from the first paper.  In many instances, paper four will take an idea explored and discussed in paper one as its point of departure, building on that assumption and attempting to explain why that phenomenon occurs or how it came to be that way. 
• Reversal of core idea or opinion:  Some students will evidence growth by changing directions in their thoughts entirely, arguing in paper 4 for a point they seemed to reject in paper 1.  Although intellectual growth may seem a foregone conclusion in these instances, a plus should nevertheless only be rewarded if the student’s writing reveals a growth in sophistication and complexity of thought.   In paper four, readers should look for deeper insights and attempts to explain the whys and wherefores behind assertions that were absent or only faintly sketched in paper one.
• Change in topics entirely:  Some students may discuss entirely different topics in papers one and four.  In these instances, just as with opinion reversal, the marker of intellectual growth is not merely the newness of thought, but thought that is more complex and sophisticated than in paper one; the reader should be able to see growth in the writer’s reasoning; the writer should probe deeper in paper four than in paper one.

A neutral score (0) will indicate no growth in the student’s engagement toward the main goal of the course.  Whether the student discusses the same point or an opposite or different point, the sign of no growth would be a failure to demonstrate an increase of sophistication, complexity, or insight vis-à-vis the main goal of the course (explained lines 2 and 3 above).  The thesis will remain at essentially the same level from paper one to paper four and it will fail to probe the whys and wherefores of its observation.  Since paper four is significantly more demanding than paper one, a neutral score does necessarily equate to student failure, but only to lack of intellectual growth concerning the main goal of the course.

A negative score (-) will indicate negative growth, evidenced by a decrease in insight and sophistication from paper one to paper four.  Students who receive this mark will show they have not engaged the topic of the course in a meaningful way or that they gave up on their success in the course for whatever reason.