Laurie Martin uses rubrics and other tools to help her eighth-grade students remain on task, especially when the project takes place over several days. She recognizes, though, that this age group often needs both verbal and written structures if she’s going to get the quality product she’s seeking. She begins each class revisiting the rubric to ensure the students have followed through with specific steps. This helps them walk through the project successfully. She also emphasizes partner reviews. While the students might think her selection of partners is random, she thoughtfully considers which students provide the strongest feedback to another. This also relates back to the social-emotional needs of her students. Laurie knows she needs to provide a firm structure from which the students can work when providing feedback to one another; otherwise, they can become distracted from the task and more interested in socializing and the selection process she goes through to create those teams.
