Note to Maja

Maja, our district superintendent called a faculty meeting yesterday to tell us about a new computer program the district has purchased that will "instantly assess student writing" with a four-point rubric. I held my tongue because I've come to understand that the name of the game (and game it is) is the standards-driven quick fix and I've learned to quietly keep the faith and fight the fight in other ways. When I got home, I started supper, turned on the computer, and found the e-mail notification of your response to my rubric blog. I was thinking to myself, "Maja Wilson, Maja Wilson. The name rings a bell." But, I couldn't place it. I went back to the kitchen to slice onions and mushrooms, and that's when it hit me. You're the author of Rethinking Rubrics. I don't know how you found my blog, but let me tell you this: the first thing I thought was, "Shoot! I hope she doesn't read yesterday's entry and tell Alfie Kohn about my star chart!" The reason I ordered your book from Heinemann is that Alfie Kohn wrote the foreword. Or, at least, that's what caught my eye initially. I probably would've ordered it anyway after reading the description, because this is the time of year I am supposed to introduce the state writing rubric to my first graders so they'll have a jump start on it for second grade, when their writing will be assessed by it. And, consequently, this is the time of year I struggle with my deep conviction that they do not need the cursed thing because they are just becoming fairly adept at the conversational tools that yield deeper and fuller results than the state rubric, which somehow has a dehumanizing effect. Perhaps because it is not, after all, human?

I begin writing instruction in August using "organic vocabulary", or "key vocabulary", as Sylvia Ashton-Warner dubbed it in her New Zealand classroom in the 1960's. I won't go into all of it, but the stories grow from these organic words (hopes, fears, love, sex) and the conversation surrounding them. All of the narrative writing we do stems from these inner thoughts, feelings, and images. "Success" is in how it affected us (laughter, tears, anger, snorts, "wonderings", intense personal connections). Enter the rubric-an intruder, without blood or breath, lacking the ability to laugh/cry/wonder/connect- and suddenly the success of a piece is to be measured against this list? Grade level vocabulary? Their word choice is well beyond grade level vocabulary; it is the vocabulary of their very lives. On topic? Why wouldn't it be? And it is so very easy to get a 4 on this rubric, and so then, even though I absolutely do not indicate to the children in any way that a 4 is what we're shooting for and we should be satisfied with it, suddenly these children with whom I have worked so hard to root out that need for extrinsic motivation that far too many of them have as a result of being alive for six years in our society, are satisfied with less than they should be, because they "topped out" on the rubric.

Recently, I was gathering materials and planning an outline for a study group I am leading on reading like a writer with the six traits in mind, and I took a quick break to check out some discussion forums I frequent. A member of one of the forums, a dyslexic man, had written this:

"I want to write but some one might read it but I want to writemaybe I can write in a code but know no code and some one might break the code and read But I want to write but some one might read it maybe I can write very small but some may enlarge it and then some one might read it I want to write but I can not spell good which would make it hard to read but some one might be able to read it anyway O how fears hold us back from doing what we want to do Now I wrote for fun and games but we all must work to over come our fears"

A powerful piece, and yet it would not score at all well on the six point rubric I'd just been looking over.

I need to get out of here and pick up my daughter from cheerleader practice, but I did want to get a quick response to you. I just remembered that when I went to Heinemann to place an order that day, I was looking for books for our local writing project teacher consultants to discuss on our discussion board. I'm wondering if you would consider facilitating a discussion of Rethinking Rubrics on our board.

And yet, last night I was reading the portfolio entries of two National Board candidates, and I had the rubric beside me the whole time, dissecting the entry for evidence of the key components.