Scott in Kokomo, Indiana, noticed his daughter’s school using rubric for a grading grid. The word goes back to a Latin word for “red,” and to red ochre used in manuscripts for headings and directions that needed to stand out. In Christian texts, rubric also came to mean directions for conducting services, often printed in red. A classroom grading rubric fits that older sense of written rules: a scorecard-like grid of criteria and achievement levels, a use that gained momentum in the 1970s. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Rubric” Once Pointed to Red Church Directions; Now It Scores Schoolwork”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Scott. I’m calling from Kokomo, Indiana.
Hello, Scott.
Hey, Scott. Welcome to the program. What can we help you with?
Well, I’m having a little trouble with a nice little word that I’ve used over the years, and the word is rubric.
Rubric.
R-U-B-R-I-C.
Well, I’ve always thought it was a nice little word, and I’ve used it as if it were a category or a heading. I would say, file that under the rubric, using a fancy word to convey an ordinary idea.
Exactly.
But lately, my daughter’s bringing home things. I’m looking at a picture that says grading rubric. And it seems that teachers are using the word rubric to, well, this is how you’re getting your grade. These are the procedures and systems we’re using to figure out what kind of grade we’re going to give you.
How old is your daughter?
She’s 13.
So she’s in the eighth grade?
Yes, that’s correct.
In the eighth grade. And so when you were in school, you didn’t have this sort of thing, a rubric by which you were measured.
Well, as a matter of fact, the last time I was taking college courses was 1993, and they weren’t using it then. But I went back in 2002 to take a refresher course, and that’s when I first heard it. And I thought, rubric, really? Are you sure? But I didn’t say anything, you know, because this person was going to give me a grade.
It really matches almost perfectly some of the older meanings of rubric because there are a bunch of them. Of course, Martha knows this because she’s an etymological expert, but rubric comes from the color red, I believe.
Right, the Latin word for red.
Related to the word rubius, right?
Yeah, it’s related to the word ruby. It was a name of red ochre, right?
Right, the color, and you would put that in a manuscript to make things stand out. Right, so you’d use it for a headline, the headings or the chapter headings or the section headings, right?
Right, right.
And then now on another path, Scott, we have in religious studies or in religious dogma, they also have a rubric, which are kind of the guidelines, the rules for the religion. Am I portraying that correctly, Martha?
Yeah, I think so.
But again, you mean in religious texts?
Well, I’m talking even beyond the color. I’m just talking about the content. So the color, the importance of the headline became transferred to the importance of the text, right?
So a rubric, I’m looking at the Collins Dictionaries right now. It’s one of the definitions is a set of directions for the conduct of Christian church services often printed in red. And so you can see the natural extension there. And I feel like the educational use of rubric in this way is kind of a natural extension of the religious use of rubric, you know. And maybe it came into educational circles from religious education circles. I don’t really know.
From the parochial school.
Possibly. It’s interesting. And when you look this up in the historical record, you find that it really starts to gain inertia in the 1970s. And there’s not much use of it in educational circles before that.
Right. I don’t remember anything like that. I didn’t have it in any of the schooling I ever did, in any of the schools that I went to. And it’s completely new to me. But when I talk to friends and colleagues now who have children in school or else they are themselves teachers, they know it perfectly well.
What’s really interesting is it’s – tell me if I’m portraying this correctly, Scott. It’s a document. They’re kind of like a scorecard for bowling. You have columns and rows, right?
Right.
Yeah, it’s a grid.
Yeah, it’s a grid. And so on the left-hand side, you’ll have a list of categories or responsibilities of the types of things the student is supposed to be learning. And then across the top is a ranking or a scoring of, say, 1 to 5 from bad to good or A through F or a variety of different levels, say, beginning through accomplished or basic through advanced, right?
And then where the columns meet the rows, then we have a square. And if a student is in that square, it means that they’ve met these criteria for that particular category under that particular level of advancement, right?
Right.
Right. Yeah, that’s how they’re using it. And, you know, it was a new use to me, but I guess if enough people are using it, then that’s the way it’s going to be.
Well, thank you for your help. I appreciate that.
Thanks for calling.
Take care.
You’re welcome.
Okay, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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