By Gerry Hess from Gonzaga University School of Law
Sophie Sparrow, Describing the Ball: Improve Teaching by Using Rubrics – Explicit Grading Criteria, 2004 Michigan State Law Review 1 [Read at HeinOnline]
Carnegie and Best Practices emphasize the importance of assessment. In this excellent article, Sophie Sparrow explains how detailed, written grading criteria describing what students should learn and how they will be evaluated should be a central part of law teachers’ assessment plans. The article details how rubrics can improve law student learning, and contains both detailed, step-by-step directions on creating rubrics and examples of rubrics from many different law school courses.