Introducing Rubrics for WriQ!
Over the Summer last year Texthelp started about creating a new vision for writing support software. We wanted to develop a product that would allow teachers to easily assess student writing, track progress over time, and eventually provide access to a new writing metric that could help teachers identify how well a student’s writing is progressing, and be able to easily compare it to others in the school, district, or even state.
Shortly after this announcement WriQ was released for Google Docs. WriQ allows teachers to quickly analyze students’ writing in Google Docs and provides useful metrics like:
- Word and sentence count
- Words per sentence
- Correct word sequences
- Incorrect word sequences
- Time spent writing
- Grammar, punctuation and spelling errors
Teachers can review and adjust this information as needed, then provide it (along with written feedback) to students directly in their Google Doc. One thing missing however, has been the ability to measure the quality the writing in addition to all of the quantitative measurements WriQ provides. Until now…
Starting today, WriQ will include rubrics for each grade level and writing genre. Each rubric was designed by University researchers and is aligned to common grade level objectives.
The importance of rubrics in writing instruction should not be underestimated. Rubrics allow teachers to have consistency when grading student work. When entire schools or districts use similar rubrics, it also allows for an apples to apples comparison when determining how students are progressing. Rubrics are also great for students as they clearly identify what is required for an assignment.
For these reasons, we’ve created a single set of rubrics for all educators to use. This consistency will later allow you to compare students’ progress across the classroom, school, and district level.
If you’re not familiar WriQ, check out the short video below that demonstrates how to quickly install the add-on, score a document, and provide feedback to the author.
What do you think about the new rubrics? If you would like to try WriQ, add our new extension from the Chrome Web Store.