Making a good rubric is something that has given me lots of anxiety has a future teacher. I am constantly worried that it won’t be comprehensive enough or I just won’t be able to understand anything because I didn’t write a section correctly. What I didn’t realize is that there are so many different kinds of rubrics that you can use, they don’t have to be extremely specific to each assignment. One rubric that I really liked was the life skills rubric, which is one that would be used very well in a social studies class. The life skill you are grading could be about using evidence to back up a claim, which is pretty specific to the social studies discipline. Instead of having a rubric for every big assignment that is due, another great way to do it is having a rubric for each of those inquiry skills. That way, especially if you are teaching a thematic class, you won’t have to keep cycling through different rubrics.
I share this sentiment completely! I get anxious about creating proper rubrics, as well, and I agree that the life skills rubric would likely be the most productive to use in the context of the classes we will be teaching. Students being able to understand content is important, but being able to understand the “why” behind everything they’re learning and the skills they’re utilizing will keep students engaged. I’ve seen it happen in my own classes before–student performance drastically declines when students don’t think the skills they’re practicing will be useful in the future. Good job!