A. Language Usage

5 Writing uses concrete language to render its subject.

4 Although writing may demonstrate facility with language, it also contains clichés, vagaries, or abstractions that call for more revision.

3 Writing demonstrates the writer’s attempt at facing the blank page. The writer has attempted an assignment, and experimented with the elements of poetry or story.

2 Writing represents a cursory attempt at using language.

1 Blank page or missed assignment.

B. Human Connection

5 Whatever the approach—realistic, expressionistic, surrealistic, etc.—the writing offers the reader a human connection through intelligible language.

4 Writing rises to moments of poetic or dramatic interest but reveals that the writer needs to engage more frequently with his or her writing process and reconsider the work by cutting or transforming expository passages into poetry or narrative.

3 The writer finished a rough draft but through sloth or ego never advanced the writing further.

2 The writer’s draft is minimal and lacks a human connection.

1 Blank page or missed assignment.

C. Revision

5 Writing reveals the strengths of a considered revision and the development of a voice when considered with other drafts by the same writer.

4 Although poem or story demonstrates some understanding of the basic elements of creative writing, characterization lacks human verisimilitude in that plot restrains character(s) from taking action, thus making the poem’s persona or story’s character a passive victim to whom things happen without consequence.

3 Writing needs revision for clarity, such as scene or point of view is muddled or missing.

2 The writer’s draft is minimal and revision is not evident.

1 Blank page or missed assignment.