How To Create Rubrics: Steps, Examples, Canvas & Blackboard

You spent hours grading student essays only to face a flood of questions about why they received their scores. Some students earned similar grades despite vastly different work quality. Others struggle to understand what they need to improve. Without clear criteria, your feedback feels arbitrary and students miss the chance to learn from their mistakes.

A rubric solves this problem by spelling out exactly what you expect and how you’ll evaluate student work. It breaks down assignments into specific traits with descriptions for each performance level. Students see what excellent work looks like before they start. You grade faster and more consistently. Everyone understands where the grade comes from.

This guide walks you through creating effective rubrics from scratch. You’ll learn the core types of rubrics and when to use each one. We’ll break down the process into three clear steps that help you define criteria, write performance descriptions, and test your rubric before using it. You’ll also see how to build rubrics directly in Canvas and Blackboard, plus find ready to use examples you can adapt for your classroom.

Why rubrics matter and key types

Rubrics transform your grading from subjective to transparent. They save you time during grading because you’re not inventing criteria for each student as you go. Students receive consistent feedback regardless of whether you grade their work first or last in the pile. You also reduce grade disputes since students can see exactly how their work measures up against your stated standards. Beyond grading efficiency, rubrics help students understand your expectations before they start working, which improves the quality of work you receive.

Rubrics ensure every student gets evaluated using the same criteria, making your grading fairer and more defensible.

Three main rubric types

You need to understand three rubric types before you decide how to create rubrics for your assignments. An analytic rubric breaks down assignments into separate traits like thesis, organization, and mechanics, with each trait scored individually using a grid format. A holistic rubric gives one overall score based on a general impression of the work as a whole. The single-point rubric describes only proficient performance for each trait, leaving blank columns where you write customized feedback on what exceeds or falls short of expectations. Each type serves different teaching situations and grading needs.

Choose your rubric type based on these scenarios:

• Analytic rubrics: Use for complex assignments like research papers or projects where you need to evaluate multiple distinct skills and provide detailed feedback on each component
• Holistic rubrics: Use for quick assessments, creative work, or final evaluations when you need a general impression rather than granular analysis of separate traits
• Single-point rubrics: Use for formative assessments where personalized, growth-oriented feedback matters more than numerical scores or when you want flexibility in your comments

Step 1. Clarify goals and rubric requirements

Before you create your rubric, you need to understand what you’re actually evaluating and why. Many teachers skip this planning phase and jump straight to writing criteria, which leads to rubrics that miss important skills or include unnecessary details. Your rubric should directly connect to your learning objectives and match the complexity of your assignment. This preparation step determines whether your rubric will actually help students improve their work or just become another grading checklist.

Define your assignment’s learning outcomes

Start by listing the specific knowledge and skills you want students to demonstrate through this assignment. Your learning objectives should guide every criterion you include in the rubric. Look at your assignment instructions and ask yourself what successful completion looks like beyond just following directions. If you’re evaluating an essay, for example, you might want students to construct clear arguments, use credible evidence, organize ideas logically, and write with proper mechanics. Each of these outcomes becomes a potential criterion in your rubric.

The clearer your learning outcomes, the easier it becomes to create rubric criteria that students can understand and meet.

Answer critical planning questions

You need to make several decisions about how to create rubrics that fit your specific teaching situation. Consider these planning questions before drafting criteria:

• What’s the purpose of feedback: formative (to guide improvement) or summative (final evaluation)?
• Will students have the chance to revise based on your rubric, or is this a one-time submission?
• Should you evaluate the assignment as a whole or break it into separate components (holistic vs. analytic)?
• Which skills or elements deserve more weight in the final grade?
• How many performance levels make sense (three, four, or five gradations)?
• Will you share the rubric with students before they begin work (strongly recommended)?

These decisions shape your rubric’s structure and level of detail, so answer them before moving forward.

Step 2. Draft criteria and performance levels

Once you’ve clarified your goals, you’re ready to create the actual rubric structure. This step involves identifying specific traits you’ll evaluate and writing clear descriptions for each performance level. The quality of your criteria and descriptors directly impacts how useful your rubric becomes for both grading and student learning. You want descriptions that distinguish between performance levels without using vague words like "good" or "excellent."

List the traits you’ll evaluate

Start by converting your learning outcomes into observable criteria that you can measure in student work. Each criterion should represent a distinct skill or element of the assignment. For an argumentative essay, your criteria might include thesis clarity, evidence quality, logical organization, and writing mechanics. Keep your list focused on essentials because too many criteria dilute your feedback and overwhelm students. Aim for three to six main traits that capture the most important aspects of successful work.

Your criteria should meet these standards:

• Use clear, student-friendly language without academic jargon
• Focus on observable qualities you can actually see in the work
• Align directly with your stated learning objectives
• Address skills that significantly impact the assignment’s success
• Avoid trivial details like font size or margin width

Write descriptors for each performance level

Now you need to describe what student work looks like at each point on your scale. When learning how to create rubrics, this step causes the most trouble because you’re used to describing ideal outcomes but struggle to articulate the differences between average and below-average work. Start with the highest performance level and write what excellent work demonstrates for each criterion. Then describe the lowest acceptable level and fill in the middle gradations. Use parallel language structure across all levels so your rubric reads smoothly.

Strong descriptors focus on what’s present in the work rather than what’s missing, helping students understand concrete steps for improvement.

Here’s what effective performance descriptors look like for one criterion:

Replace generic terms with specific qualities you’re looking for. Instead of "good use of evidence," write "supports each main point with at least two credible, relevant sources that are properly cited." Instead of "well organized," write "includes clear topic sentences that connect to the thesis and smooth transitions between paragraphs." This specificity helps both you and your students understand exactly what each grade level requires.

Step 3. Pilot, refine, and build in Canvas or Blackboard

Your rubric isn’t finished just because you’ve written criteria and performance levels. Testing your rubric on actual student work reveals problems you won’t spot during the drafting phase. You might discover that your descriptors don’t clearly distinguish between performance levels, or that your criteria overlap in confusing ways. Piloting catches these issues before you use the rubric for real grading, saving you from inconsistent scores and student complaints about unclear expectations.

Test your rubric before full use

Apply your draft rubric to three to five samples of student work from previous semesters if you have them. Grade each sample and note where you struggle to decide which performance level fits. If you can’t easily match student work to your descriptors, your students won’t understand them either. Ask a colleague or teaching assistant to grade the same samples using your rubric and compare results. Significant differences in your scores signal that your rubric needs clearer language or more distinct performance levels.

Testing your rubric with sample work ensures your criteria actually work in practice, not just in theory.

Look for these warning signs during testing:

• You consistently score most traits at the same level instead of seeing variation across criteria
• You struggle to choose between two adjacent performance levels because descriptions sound too similar
• Your rubric doesn’t address an important element you notice while grading
• You find yourself writing extensive comments because the rubric doesn’t capture what you need to say

Revise your rubric based on what you discover, then test it again before using it with your current students.

Build rubrics in Canvas

Canvas allows you to create analytic rubrics directly within assignments. Navigate to your course, click Assignments, then select the assignment where you want to add a rubric. Scroll to the bottom and click Add Rubric under the rubric section. Click Create New Rubric and give it a descriptive title. Add your criteria as rows and performance levels as columns, typing your descriptors into each cell. You can assign point values to each performance level and even link criteria to course learning outcomes for assessment tracking.

Build rubrics in Blackboard

Blackboard’s rubric builder works similarly to Canvas but requires a different navigation path. Go to Course Tools, select Rubrics, then click Create Rubric. Enter your rubric name and choose between percentage or points for scoring. Add rows for each criterion and columns for performance levels. Type your performance descriptors into the grid cells. Blackboard lets you weight certain criteria more heavily than others by adjusting the point distribution. Once you save the rubric, you can attach it to any assignment, discussion, or test in your course.

Additional rubric examples and ideas

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you learn how to create rubrics for your classroom. Looking at sample rubrics from other educators gives you a starting point that you can adapt to your specific assignment. You can borrow structure, criteria, and even performance descriptors, then modify them to match your learning objectives and student level. The key is customizing borrowed rubrics rather than using them exactly as you find them, since your assignments have unique requirements that generic templates won’t fully address.

Ready-to-adapt templates for common assignments

Start with these basic structures and adjust the criteria to fit your needs. A simple three-column format works well for most assignments when you’re first learning the rubric creation process.

This template gives you a single-point variation that focuses on proficient work while leaving space for personalized feedback on both sides.

Quick tips for specific subjects

Adapt your rubric criteria to match your content area and the skills students need to demonstrate. Math rubrics should evaluate problem-solving approach, calculation accuracy, and explanation of reasoning. Science rubrics need criteria for hypothesis quality, experimental design, data analysis, and conclusions. English rubrics focus on thesis strength, evidence use, organization, and mechanics. Each subject requires different priorities in your criteria selection, so choose traits that align with discipline-specific skills rather than using generic descriptors for every assignment.

Putting your rubric into practice

Your rubric becomes a teaching tool the moment you share it with students before they start working. Distribute it alongside the assignment instructions so students understand your expectations from day one. This proactive transparency reduces confusion and helps students focus their efforts on the skills that matter most. Walk through the rubric in class and explain what each performance level means using concrete examples from past student work if you have them.

After grading, use the rubric to guide your feedback conversations with students who want to improve. Point to specific descriptors they didn’t meet and discuss concrete steps for reaching the next performance level. Keep refining your rubric based on what you learn each time you use it, adjusting criteria that don’t quite capture what you’re looking for.

Learning how to create rubrics is just one part of becoming a more efficient educator. Discover more practical teaching strategies at The Cautiously Optimistic Teacher that help you save time while improving student outcomes.