The kid-friendly writing rubric is a free download from Teachers Pay Teachers. The rubric establishes a grading standard for young writers turning in their first pieces of narrative writing. My personal opinion is that rubrics are extremely helpful for any written assignment, and their helpfulness might be especially great for beginning writers.
The rubric offers a guideline to measure a written assignment according to the standards of good writing and the evaluation is presented in a way that kids would like. Points are assigned on a scale of ice cream cones, with the lowest score being a scoop of ice cream that fell off the cone and the highest score being an ice cream cone with whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry. Categories being evaluated include elements of the story like descriptive details and a basic story structure, as well as technical elements like spelling, capitalization, and neatness. As a kid with an intense desire for structure and clear boundaries, I would have loved having this rubric to guide me through my huge second-grade class project: writing and illustrating a story and then having it “published" in a hardback form somehow or other. I still don’t know what exactly went into that project, but somewhere in my mom’s attic there is a little hardbound book with crayon illustrations about an alien and a puppy.
This download is tagged for writers from kindergarten to third grade. While I imagine some kindergarten writers might be a touch too young for creative writing in a length great enough to be evaluated by a rubric, young kids in any classroom would probably be helped a lot by knowing exactly what is expected of them in their writing.
You can download your own copy of the Kid-Friendly Writing Rubric here.
You may also enjoy the following TeachersPayTeachers products:
- Second Grade Writing Prompts for Holidays
- Fifth Grade Writing Prompts for Seasons
- The Writing Prompts Workbook: Grades 9-10
- Fourth Grade Writing Prompts for Holidays
- 50 Writing Prompts for Homeschooling (free)
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Use the above prompts or article as inspiration to write a story or other short piece.
