1. Making a Virtue of Necessity
Using Assessment Rubrics in the Classroom

2. The Virtues of Rubrics Make program objectives transparent to students
Inform instructional decision-making

3. 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]

4. 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]

5. History Program Objectives
Communication
Perceptive reading
Effective expression
Literate use and consumption of Web-based materials

6. HIST Historical Methods Introduces students to historical inquiry, interpretation, and writing

7. 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:
Annotated Bibliography (interpretive exercise)
Comparative Book Review (historiographical exercise)
Historical Narrative

9. Percentage of students performing at an acceptable or exemplary level
Comprehensively follows assignment directions.
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 peer-reviewed 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.
Student 1 3 4 1
Student 2
Student 3 2
Student 4
Student 5
Student 6
Student 7
Student 8
Student 9
Student 10
Student 11
Student 12
Student 13
Student 14
Student 15
Student 16
Student 17
Student 18
Percentage of students performing at an acceptable or exemplary level
83.33%
100.00%
61.11%
66.67%
22.22%
27.78%
88.89%

10. 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).

11. Map of Chicago, 1916.