How to Assess 

Student Performance 

in History: 

Going Beyond 

Multiple-Choice Tests
How to Assess Student 

Performance in History: 

Going Beyond Multiple-Choice Tests 

© SERVE, 2006

PRODUCED BY

The SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

WRITTEN BY

Julie Edmunds

EDITED BY

Donna Nalley

DESIGNED BY

Tracy Hamilton

Jane Houle

This publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the 

Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, nor does 

mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply 

endorsement by the U.S. Government.

This document was originally developed with funding from the Institute of 

Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, under contract no. 

ED-01-CO-0015.

Associated with the 

School of Education,

University of North 

Carolina at Greensboro
Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Introduction and Overview of Assessment ............................... 1

 1 ........Introduction

 2 ........The Purpose of This Manual

 2 ........What is Classroom Assessment?

 4 ........Anatomy of an Assessment

CHAPTER 2: Desired Student Outcomes in History ....................................... 6

 9 ........Articulating Course Objectives

CHAPTER 3: Methods of Assessment .......................................................... 14

16 ........Dialogue and Oral Response

20 ........Essays and Open-ended Responses

26 ........Projects and Investigations 

CHAPTER 4: Establishing Criteria ................................................................ 31

33 ........Checklists

34 ........A Point System 

37 ........Rubrics (Holistic and Analytic) 

CHAPTER 5: Using Assessment Information: Feedback and Grading ....... 47

47 ........Formative Assessment: Providing Feedback

49 ........Summative Assessment: Grading

CHAPTER 6: Some Concluding Thoughts .................................................... 52

52 ........Appropriate Assessments in an Era of Accountability

53 ........Getting Started

References ............................................................................... 57

Resources ................................................................................ 59
iv
1

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction 

and Overview of 

Assessment

Introduction

“When teachers’ classroom assessments become an 

integral part of the instructional process and a central 

ingredient in their efforts to help students learn, the benefits of assessment for both students and teachers will be 

boundless.” (Guskey, 2003, p. 11) 

SERVE, in its role as the federally funded Regional Educational 

Laboratory for the southeast, has worked since 1990 to provide professional development to teachers in the area of assessment. The 

work has focused on translating what is known from the measurement, applied research, and practitioner worlds into concrete ideas 

for teachers to implement to improve their assessment practices. 

The particular focus has been on how to improve the assessments 

teachers use and the way they use them to improve student motivation and learning. SERVE has learned over the years that working on 

assessment in the classroom is best accomplished within the context 

of the content area taught. This publication builds on work SERVE 

has done with districts that are piloting new approaches to professional development in U.S. History through the U.S. Department of 

Education’s Teaching American History grant program. 

How to Assess Student Performance in History: Going Beyond MultipleChoice Tests addresses some real assessment challenges that teachers have identified:

● Figuring out what really is important for students to know and 

be able to do in history. 

● Teaching the skills of “doing history” in a world of testing that 

often seems to value only factual knowledge. 

● Identifying and using assessments that provide teachers with 

better information than only multiple-choice exams. 

● Getting students motivated to do a good job on essays and 

other written work.

● Helping students learn to improve their own work and 

produce quality products. 

● Holding students accountable for quality work as opposed to 

just turning in something. 
2

The Purpose of This Manual

This publication is designed to get you ready to meet those challenges by helping you: 

● Understand the role of assessment in improving student 

learning; 

● Consider different learning outcomes for students in history 

and pick those that are most important for your students; 

● Determine some of the best ways of assessing student 

learning and tracking and evaluating their progress toward 

history outcomes; 

● Develop methods of scoring and grading students’ work that 

will provide information and accountability; and 

● Integrate your assessment program with the statewide testing 

programs currently in place. 

This publication is not intended as a text but as a self-study resource. 

We hope you will interact with it, respond to questions posed, and 

use the manual as an opportunity to reflect on your assessment practices. We suggest you work through this manual with at least one 

other teacher, if possible, because of the valuable sharing of ideas 

that would result. 

What is Classroom Assessment? 

“The aim of assessment is primarily to educate and 

improve student performance, not merely audit it.” 

(Wiggins, 1998, p. 7)

Assessment plays a role at many different layers of education. The 

federal government and many states see assessment as the linchpin 

for educational reform. In this manual, however, we focus on classroom assessment or assessments used by teachers in their own classrooms. Although many other assessments (state-level tests, National 

Assessment of Educational Progress, nationally standardized tests) 

are given to students in classrooms, we do not consider them classroom assessments. 

We see classroom assessment as having four main purposes. The first 

three include:

1. Diagnostic or needs assessment purpose: To determine what 

students already know so teachers can decide the topics 

and approaches to use. 

2. Formative purpose for teacher: To assess student knowledge 

or performance on some key topic or dimension to inform 

instructional plans. 

3. Summative purpose: To judge or evaluate student 

performance (i.e., give a grade). 

In addition, research is increasingly clear that the quality of the 

feedback teachers give students relative to how to improve is an 

absolutely critical aspect of classroom assessment. (Think about how 

feedback shapes performance for musicians or athletes during their 

formative years). 
3

This leads to the fourth purpose:

4. Formative purpose for students: To help students develop the 

skills to reflect critically on their own work. By asking students to 

assess themselves, teachers encourage students to engage in 

the type of higher-order thinking necessary for life today. 

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is focused on improving student motivation 

and learning with the goal of producing higher-quality work or thinking. It’s important to realize that there are two different audiences 

for formative assessment. One audience is the teacher. That is, many 

teachers may check for student understanding by asking questions 

or by observing students as they discuss a topic in small groups. These 

teachers are informally “collecting data” that will help them determine what needs to happen next in instruction. So the teacher is the 

data user. The second audience for formative assessment is the student. Students need to know what would move their essay answer on 

a particular question from a “C” to an “A.” They need to know what it 

means to read content deeply for understanding and how their strategies for studying content can be improved. 

Research shows that providing students with effective feedback can 

increase student achievement significantly (Marzano, Pickering, & 

Pollock, 2001). Feedback is most effective when it:

● Is timely, occurring within one to two days of the work; 

● Provides feedback specific to the student’s work; and

● Is relative to a criterion or standard. 

Summative Assessment

Summative assessment looks at whether a student has achieved the 

desired learning goals or met standards. In the classroom, summative 

assessments usually occur at the end of instruction and document 

what students have learned. Looking at the grades in a teacher’s 

grade book should give an idea of what the key instructional goals 

or outcomes were for a grading period. These grades most likely represent summative assessments (tests, quizzes, projects, reports, written assignments, etc.) that tell the teacher whether the student has 

mastered the skills or learned the content. A key aspect of summative 

assessment is determining the level to which students need to “master” the content and thinking. Tests that define “mastering” content 

at the level of memorizing events, names, and facts are less likely to 

be building students’ thinking skills than tests that ask students to write 

about big conflicts or themes that recur over time. 

Good summative assessments are: 

● Useful. The assessment must provide you with useful 

information about student achievement in the course. 

The assessment must be tied to the learning goals you 

have and those learning goals must be important. If you 

assess unimportant or trivial concepts or just use chapter 

tests without really looking at the items critically in terms of 

whether they reflect your teaching, what have you learned 

about what your students know? 
4

● Valid for your purposes. The assessment must measure what 

it is supposed to measure. For example, if you ask students 

to draw a map reflecting the change in U.S. borders from 

1789-1820, you will need to ensure that the assessment is 

scored based on students’ understanding of the concepts 

not based on their ability to draw. Sometimes, the way the 

test is presented (e.g., small print with lots of complicated or 

confusing directions or too many items) can make it a less 

valid measure of the content being tested. It may be more 

a measure of student persistence than a measure of their 

knowledge of the content. As a teacher, taking a test yourself 

before giving it to your students will help ensure that the items 

reflect content you actually taught. It will also help you to 

decide if there are some aspects of the questions or layout 

that are content irrelevant, representing extraneous hurdles 

for students that could be simplified. 

● Reliable. Reliability has to do with the extent to which the 

score you give a student on a particular assessment is 

influenced by unsystematic factors. These factors are things 

that can fluctuate from one testing or grading situation to 

the next or from one student to the next in ways that are 

unrelated to students’ actual achievement level (e.g., luck 

in guessing the right answer, lack of time to complete the 

assessment on a particular day, teacher bias or inconsistency 

in scoring of essays across students or from one test to the 

next). Thinking about how to reduce these factors such that 

the scores given are likely to be the most accurate reflection 

of students’ true achievement levels on the task or test should 

be an ongoing process for teachers. 

● Fair. The assessment must give the same chance of success 

to all students. For example, a large project that is done at 

home can be biased against low-income students, favoring 

students whose parents have extra time to help them over 

those whose parents need to work. 

We will be revisiting these concepts throughout this publication. The 

important thing to understand is that assessment is much broader 

than tests or grades in a grade-book. As explained above, formative 

assessment is emerging through research as critical to students’ con-

tinued improvement in school but it is often not well-understood or 

used in classrooms.

Anatomy of an Assessment

Each time you use an assessment in your class, you are really answer-

ing four questions:

1. What do you want students to know or be able to do? (the 

purpose or goal of the learning and, hopefully, by extension, 

the purpose of the assessment) 

2. What is the best assessment method to use given your 

instructional goals? (the kind of assessment) 

3. How are you going to evaluate the students’ responses? (the 

analysis of the results)

4. What are you going to do with the information? (predetermined use for the assessments) 
5

Often, teachers answer these four questions based on how they have 

always done things; they have not had the time or resources to think 

them through with colleagues or content experts. For example, the 

most traditional classroom assessment situation is a multiple-choice 

chapter test. In this situation: 

1. The learning goals include the content in the textbook so the 

objects of the assessment are the facts/concepts that someone 

else (textbook developer) has decided are important;

2. The assessment method is a paper and pencil, multiple-choice/

short answer test;

3. The analysis involves taking the number right out of the total number of items and providing the student with a score on a scale of 

100 points; and

4. The test is entered into a grade book and summarized with four 

other tests and homework to provide a grade for the semester. 

It is not to say that this is not a valid way of assessing, but that there 

perhaps could be a much broader set of formative and summative 

assessment tools to use that will provide you and your students with 

better information. 

In the next sections, you will find help in answering these four questions. CHAPTER 2 focuses on the establishment of learning goals that 

are relevant for history. CHAPTER 3 includes an overview of assessment methods and a discussion on matching appropriate methods to different types of learning goals. CHAPTER 4 answers the third 

question as it looks at making sense of the information you get 

from students through checklists and rubrics. CHAPTER 5 examines 

how to use assessment information through providing feedback to 

students and incorporating a variety of assessments into your grading practices. 
6

Desired Student 

Outcomes in History:

WHAT DO WE WANT STUDENTS TO 

KNOW AND BE ABLE TO DO?

“People who have a clear idea about where they’re 

going are more likely to get there. Teachers who have a 

clear idea of the learning outcomes their students should 

achieve will be more likely to help their students attain 

those outcomes.” (Popham, 2001)

The first step in helping students succeed in history is determining 

what we want them to know and be able to do. This principle underlies much of the standards movement today. 

There are many different discussions of what students should know 

and be able to do in history. One representation includes three 

dimensions of historical literacy (Drake and McBride, 1997): 

1. Knowledge of historical facts, themes, and ideas 

2. Historical reasoning—ability to analyze, synthesize, and 

evaluate historical evidence

3. Communication of historical knowledge and reasoning to a 

wider audience

Although other groups may use different terminology, it is clear that 

students in history need to know and understand historical events 

(content) and also be able to apply specific kinds of thinking skills 

commonly used in the study of history. Unfortunately, in many cases, 

the content/thinking skills discussion is set up as a dichotomy as if you 

could only do one or the other. For example, much of history is taught 

traditionally as a collection of isolated historical facts. Sometimes, 

these facts are combined into a narrative to give some context. Yet, 

how often do teachers have their students use this information as 

they engage in the messy, yet rewarding, work of investigating and 

interpreting historical issues and events? If students don’t actually 

use and work with historical information, they won’t remember it far 

beyond the test and they won’t see any purpose behind it. 

In a description of two very different history teachers teaching a civil 

rights unit, one author highlights how having students engage in the 

process of “doing history” results in students who “hold views of history 

that are consistently more thoughtful, nuanced, and complex...(and 

students who) view history as a more vibrant and powerful influence 

on their lives” (Grant, 2003, p. 60). Whereas the first teacher below 

represents a more traditional lecture approach, the second teacher’s 

unit is more experiential. 

Blair’s students experience a seemingly coherent and 

engaging narrative centered on the beginning of the 

civil rights movement. Yet neither that narrative nor the 

ones that Blair presents in other units seem to inspire students’ engagement with or their understanding of history. 

CHAPTER TWO
7

Instead, Blair’s students seem to equate what they learn 

about history to school knowledge...information that helps 

them pass tests but means little to them otherwise...

Strait’s unit is decidedly broader, less storylike and more 

experiential than Blair’s. Her students read, write, listen, 

view, and interact in a range of instructional settings that 

seem far more intellectually open-ended than Blair’s narratives. Strait’s students...unlike Blair’s students...use history as 

a way to make sense of their lives. (pp. 80-81) 

It is critical that teachers of history articulate learning goals for students that include both content and thinking skills. How can they 

establish those goals? For both sets of goals, a state’s curriculum 

standards are a good place to start. In addition, there are national 

standards for history, although these standards do not have the 

same widespread acceptance as standards in other areas such as 

mathematics or science1. Good teachers, however, take standards 

primarily as a starting point; then they prioritize them and integrate 

them with what they know about their students’ interests. (See box on 

“Unpacking State Standards” at the end of the chapter.) 

Teachers may feel that the curriculum standards in their state, or the 

state tests that assess the standards, focus heavily on specific content—facts and themes—while giving short shrift to the thinking skills 

necessary to work effectively with the content. Some teachers may 

follow suit and include only multiple-choice items on their classroom assessments. However, the more recommended approach, 

by state departments and assessment experts, is for teachers to 

clearly identify their instructional goals for students, which should 

include teaching students to reason, analyze and critically evaluate 

historical information, and then match their assessment methods to 

instructional goals. 

Most educators believe that, in order for students to retain information, they need to work with it in some way—far beyond traditional 

lecture or quick reading of a history textbook chapter. A research 

summary reported that having students generate and test hypotheses in history (or other subject areas) was related to achievement 

increases (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Having students 

do more cognitively challenging and interesting work that involves 

using historical thinking skills to consider content may increase 

the retention of that content. Most teachers would agree with 

the need to find ways to 

engage students in critical 

thinking about content, not 

just learning facts. It is often 

the time, leadership, and 

resources for accomplishing this that are missing. 

Hopefully, this document 

will provide some needed 

support.

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1

 When the history standards were released, there was considerable debate 

over the content standards. There was minimal debate over the historical thinking standards. See Stern, 2000 for a discussion of the controversy surrounding the 

history standards. 
8

The successful teaching of history is about much more than just 

having your students do well on the state test. Restricting learning 

goals in history to the memorization of facts or concepts reduces 

the richness of historical learning and perhaps, shortchanges 

students in terms of their long-term understanding of this country’s institutions and our place in the world. The larger purposes 

behind the teaching of history are outlined in the National History 

Standards, which argue that history is critical for three primary reasons: 

1. To maximize the potential of a democratic society. 

“...knowledge of history is the precondition of political 

intelligence...without historical knowledge and the inquiry it 

supports, one cannot move to the informed, discriminating 

citizenship essential to effective participation in the 

democratic processes of governance and the fulfillment for 

all our citizens of the nation’s democratic ideals.”

What does it mean to reason and think historically? 

One of the key goals for history is to help students reason or think “historically.” Different groups stress different aspects of thinking; however, there 

are some commonalities. In particular, researchers and disciplinary organizations stress the ability of students to: 

● Work with historical evidence; 

● Understand the context of historical evidence and the perspective 

the original author(s) brought to bear; and

● Weigh the evidence to produce defensible interpretations of history 

(Van Sledright, 2004; Wineburg, 1999; National Centre for History 

Education, 2004).

The National History Standards presents five specific components of historical thinking. These or similar components are included in many state standards. 

I. Chronological thinking or the ability to understand time in relation 

to history. 

II. Historical comprehension, which includes understanding and 

evaluating historical documents. This includes understanding the 

context behind the document and the perspectives of individuals 

who wrote the document. 

III. Historical analysis and interpretation. This includes students being 

able to use the skills of historical comprehension to analyze 

historical evidence and draw conclusions based on that evidence. 

As part of this, students recognize that written history is tentative and 

changing. 

IV. Historical research capabilities, which includes the ability to 

formulate historical questions, and obtain and interpret historical 

information. 

V. Historical issues-analysis and decision-making, which includes 

the ability to examine issues in the past (and present) and make 

informed decisions about them. 

The standards give specific examples of what each of 

these means. 
9

2. To develop an understanding of the diversity of today’s 

world. “Especially important, an understanding of the 

world’s many cultures can contribute to fostering the kind 

of patience, mutual respect, and civic courage required 

in our increasingly pluralistic society and our increasingly 

interdependent world.”

3. To nurture the individual. “Historical memory is the key to 

self-identity, to seeing one’s place in the stream of time, 

and one’s connectedness with all of humankind.” (National 

Center for History in Schools, 1996, p. 13) 

Samuel Wineburg (1999) builds on the second point about diversity, arguing: “...history holds the potential, only partially realized, of 

humanizing us in ways offered by few other areas in the school curriculum.” He goes on to make the case that true historical understanding helps individuals recognize that people in the past thought and 

did things differently than we do today. “It is for this reason that the 

study of history is so crucial to our present day and age, when issues 

of diversity dominate the national agenda. Coming to know others, 

whether they live on the other side of the tracks or the other side of 

the millennium, requires the education of our sensibilities. This is what 

history, when taught well, gives us practice in doing.” (p. 497) 

Articulating Course Objectives 

Teachers must identify learning goals that are both based in historical content and incorporate historical thinking (see box for discussion on historical thinking). One tool that helps teachers sharpen 

their thinking about this mix of content and thinking objectives is 

a matrix such as the one shown on page 10. (It is similar in concept to a test specifications matrix—a tool used by test developers to ensure that test items reflect all important objectives.) The 

historical thinking skills are listed across the top while the required 

content information is listed down the side. The teacher can use 

a matrix such as this in any number of ways. For example, in each 

cell, the teacher could fill in assessments to be used. Alternately, 

the teacher could describe instructional practices or activities that 

will help students achieve each goal. Each thinking skill may not 

be covered with each specific content area but they should be 

included several times throughout the semester. One way to get 

started in using this tool is by reflecting on a unit you have already 

taught. That is, think about how you taught and tested students in 

a specific history unit you recently completed (including the homework and class work assignments and where they fit). 

Use a matrix like the one below to think about assessments that would 

meet both the content and thinking skills goals you have. Examples of 

different assessment tasks are included in the matrix. As can be seen, 

factual assignments or assessment tasks are the building block for 

each of the five content topics (rows). The historical thinking assignments are varied to fit the particular topic. Sharing such a matrix with 

students at the beginning of a unit may give them a better road map 

for how they will be examining the content.
10

FIGURE 2-1: 

U.S. History—High School Unit 

Learning Goals Matrix 

GOAL*: 

TRACE ECONOMIC, 

POLITICAL 

AND SOCIAL 

DEVELOPMENTS 

FROM 1945-1980 

AND ASSESS THEIR 

SIGNIFICANCE.

DESCRIBE 

CHRONOLOGICAL 

RELATIONSHIPS. 

EVALUATE 

PRIMARY 

SOURCES. 

USE MULTIPLE 

SOURCES OF 

HISTORICAL 

EVIDENCE 

TO DRAW 

CONCLUSIONS.

IDENTIFY, 

INTERPRET, 

AND 

SYNTHESIZE 

APPROPRIATE 

HISTORICAL 

EVIDENCE 

TO ANSWER 

QUESTIONS. 

ARTICULATE 

AND DEFEND 

AN INFORMED 

POSITION 

ABOUT AN 

ISSUE IN 

HISTORY. 

Effects of the 

Cold War

Develop 

timeline of main 

events in USSoviet relations.

Read 

primary 

sources 

concerning 

U-2 incident 

(official 

pronouncements, 

notes from 

embassy). 

Identify the 

reasons 

behind the 

different 

stories 

presented 

by each. 

Research 

and collect 

information 

to answer 

the question: 

“How would 

life today be 

different if 

the Cold War 

had never 

happened?” 

Civil Rights 

movement

Trace key 

developments 

of the Civil 

Rights 

movement. 

Read primary 

accounts of 

first attempts 

to integrate 

schools. 

Create diary 

entry of 

person trying 

to integrate a 

high school. 

Write a 

response to 

the question: 

“How 

successful 

was the 

Civil Rights 

movement?” 

Students 

will defend 

their answers 

using specific 

information 

from the time 

period and 

today. 
11

GOAL*: 

TRACE ECONOMIC, 

POLITICAL 

AND SOCIAL 

DEVELOPMENTS 

FROM 1945-1980 

AND ASSESS THEIR 

SIGNIFICANCE.

DESCRIBE 

CHRONOLOGICAL 

RELATIONSHIPS. 

EVALUATE 

PRIMARY 

SOURCES. 

USE MULTIPLE 

SOURCES OF 

HISTORICAL 

EVIDENCE 

TO DRAW 

CONCLUSIONS.

IDENTIFY, 

INTERPRET, 

AND 

SYNTHESIZE 

APPROPRIATE 

HISTORICAL 

EVIDENCE 

TO ANSWER 

QUESTIONS. 

ARTICULATE 

AND DEFEND 

AN INFORMED 

POSITION 

ABOUT AN 

ISSUE IN 

HISTORY. 

Social movements, 

including women, 

youth, and the 

environment

Develop a flow 

chart for each 

movement, 

highlighting key 

aspects and 

effects. 

Choose 

a specific 

social 

movement. 

Ask a key 

question 

about 

the social 

movement. 

Find 

primary and 

secondary 

sources to 

answer the 

question. 

Vietnam War Create a 

timeline 

describing key 

events during 

Vietnam War. 

Interview 

community 

members 

who were 

alive during 

the war. 

Evaluate 

their 

memories 

relative 

to other 

documents. 

Read multiple 

interpretations 

of causes of 

Vietnam War. 

Participate in 

a debate over 

the causes of 

the war. 

Technological 

innovations

Choose a 

technological 

innovation. 

Trace the 

history of the 

innovation.

Identify 

the most 

important 

technological 

innovation 

from 1945-

1980. Defend 

your choice. 

*This example is based on North Carolina’s eleventh-grade standards for U.S. History

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12

Unpacking State Standards

How do you know what the standards actually mean? 

Wiggins and McTighe (1998) in their work with Understanding 

by Design, suggest “unpacking” the standards. We’ll build 

on their work and apply it specifically to our discussion in this 

chapter of learning goals in U.S. history: 

● Look at your curriculum goal or standard. 

● Circle the nouns and put boxes around the verbs. 

● Identify the “enduring understandings” or main 

concepts represented in the nouns or adjectives. 

(“Enduring understandings” are significant themes 

that appear over and over again. These can help you 

pick out what is really important about this standard. 

You can then frame this enduring understanding as a 

question to address in your lesson planning.) 

● Identify specific historical knowledge students need to 

gain to develop these enduring understandings and 

meet the goal.

● Identify historical thinking skills students need to 

demonstrate to meet the standard. 

● Identify the historical communication skills students 

need to display to meet the goal.

You are then ready to identify assessments that will work to 

assess the knowledge and skills that you want your students 

to gain. Let’s examine this with an eleventh-grade history standard from Alabama. 

Alabama Learning Standard: 11th-grade Social Studies: United 

States History and Geography, 1900 to the present. 

Learning Standard 2.) Evaluate the presidential leadership of 

Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson 

in terms of their effectiveness in obtaining passage of reform 

measures.

Examples: antitrust laws, labor reforms, income tax, stock-market regulation, conservation movement, economic reforms, 

Federal Reserve System

Step 1: Circle the nouns and adjectives and put boxes around 

the verbs. You end up with something that looks like this. 

Evaluate the presidential leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, 

William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson in terms of their 

effectiveness in obtaining passage of reform measures.

Examples: antitrust laws, labor reforms, income tax, 

stock-market regulation, conservation movement, 

economic reforms, Federal Reserve System
13

Step 2: Identify the enduring understandings or large con-

cepts. In this standard, an enduring understanding might 

be “the impact of the president on social and economic 

issues.” A large question arising from this understanding 

might be: “What impact can presidents have on social and 

economic issues facing the United States?” You could use 

this question to organize your lessons concerning the admin-

istrations of these three presidents. 

Step 3: Identify specific historical knowledge. Take a look at 

the nouns and adjectives in the standard. In this case, you 

know students need to look at the leadership of three specific 

presidents. Leadership is defined as the ability to get reform 

measures passed. Thus, you will have to discuss the reform 

measures, whether they passed, and the role of the president 

in getting those measures passed. The Alabama standard is 

helpful in giving specific examples of historical knowledge. 

In this case, that knowledge would include the social and 

economic reforms promoted by these presidents—Theodore 

Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson—such as, 

antitrust laws, labor reforms, income tax, stock-market regu

-

lation, conservation movement, economic reforms, federal 

reserve system. All standards might not be so useful in provid-

ing specifics. If that is the case, you may want to consult other 

standards to identify a consensus on what specific historical 

knowledge is necessary for this enduring understanding during 

this time period.

Step 4: Identify historical thinking skills. Take a look at the verbs 

in the sentence. The primary verb is “evaluate.” Thus, students 

have to be able to take the knowledge about the three presi

-

dents and the economic and social reforms and determine 

how effective each of those presidents were at getting those 

reforms passed. This will involve cognitive skills such as compar-

ing and contrasting different Presidents and their roles with the 

passage of reform measures. Students will also have to syn-

thesize information to develop a specific interpretation (how 

effective each President was) and defend that interpretation 

with factual information on reform measures. 

Step 5: Identify historical communication skills. When stu

-

dents are required to “evaluate” something, they need to 

make a case for a specific decision. For example, historical 

communication skills might include the ability to present a 

clear argument in favor of a particular point of view and 

provide a clear factually accurate defense of the argu-

ment. This could be done as an oral presentation, in a writ-

ten paper, or as part of a multimedia presentation, but it is 

clear that it requires an extended response. 

Unpacking this standard in this way helps you understand how 

to focus on the standards. It makes it correspondingly easier 

to identify the appropriate assessments to use to measure the 

skills and knowledge, which is discussed in CHAPTER 3. 
14

Methods of 

Assessment

In CHAPTER 1, we discussed why assessment is important. CHAPTER 2

focused on the identification of student outcomes in history or what 

students need to be able to do. In CHAPTER 3, we look at important 

assessment methods for history. 

When most people think about assessment, they think of multiplechoice tests. Multiple-choice tests are the most frequent type of 

assessment, primarily because they are easy to grade (although 

good ones are not easy to develop) and presumably because 

they are objective2. However, multiple-choice tests are not good 

for assessing everything. They are very good for some things, such 

as assessing specific factual knowledge, but they will not give you 

all the information you need to make decisions in your classroom. 

In addition, students on too much of a multiple-choice “diet” will 

not develop their writing skills, which they will need in their postsecondary work. 

In order for teachers to have a good understanding of what their 

students know and are able to do, they must use a variety of assessments. The method of assessment depends on the learning goals you 

have for the students. 

Stiggins (1994) suggests that there are four primary types of classroom 

assessments: selected response, essay response, personal communications, and performances. We have adapted these categories to 

make them particularly appropriate for history: 

● Selected response—The most common type of assessment, 

these include multiple-choice, true false, and matching 

questions, as well as short answer questions where students 

select an answer from a word-bank. 

● Dialogue and Oral Responses—This includes conversations, 

seminars, question and answer sessions, and interviews. 

● Essays and open-ended responses—These are extended 

open-ended written responses, such as essays. They also may 

include creation of a graphical organizer or a diagram as 

well as short answers with no word bank. 

● Projects and investigations—Students engage in in-depth 

activities to explore and respond to a particular situation. 

CHAPTER THREE

2

 Some groups today argue that multiple-choice tests may be objective in their 

scoring but they are certainly not objective when they are created (Wiggins, 1990; 

National Center for Fair and Open Testing, n.d.). 
15

FIGURE 3-1 matches up the types of assessments with the historical 

understanding goals described at the beginning of CHAPTER 2.

FIGURE 3-1: 

Matching Desired Student Outcomes with 

Assessment Methods

SELECTED 

RESPONSE

DIALOGUE 

AND ORAL 

RESPONSES

ESSAY AND 

OPENENDED 

RESPONSES

PROJECTS AND 

INVESTIGATIONS 

Knowledge of 

historical facts, 

themes, and ideas

Good match Good match Can be a 

good match, 

depending 

on the type of 

question 

Not a good match 

Historical thinking 

and reasoning 

(chronological 

thinking, 

comprehension, 

analysis and 

interpretation, 

research, issuesanalysis and 

decision-making) 

Can be a 

good match 

depending 

on the type of 

question

Good match Good match Good match

Communication of 

historical knowledge 

to a wider audience

Not a good 

match 

Good match Good match Good match 

Adapted from Stiggins & Knight, 1997.

As the table above shows, selected response assessments are primarily good for assessing specific knowledge, although they may 

be able to assess some levels of historical thinking. Therefore, if you 

want to determine whether students know specific information, a 

multiple-choice or short answer test would be a good way to go. If, 

however, you also want to assess students’ ability to analyze historical 

evidence, a multiple-choice exam would be a poor choice. 

Since multiple-choice tests already abound and are used by many 

teachers, and since the other three methods are actually more flexible at assessing a variety of learning goals, we will focus our discussion on the three most informative assessments for history instruction: 

1. dialogue and oral response, 

2. essays and open-ended responses, and 

3. projects and investigations. 

We discuss each of these types of assessments, their purposes, and 

how to create a quality assessment. CHAPTER 4 focuses on the effective use of checklists and rubrics with these types of assessments. 

Before we focus on each of these in more detail, it is important to highlight one thing. As you read through the description of each assessment, 

you may think that these are really instructional tasks. They may be. The 
16

tie between instruction and assessment should be very close. What 

makes an instructional task an assessment is if you intend to use information from the task to get information about a student’s performance. 

1. Dialogue and Oral Response

What they are: Dialogue and oral responses may actually be one 

of the most common ways of assessing students informally. These 

include classroom discussions, responses to questions, as well as 

more formal structures such as classroom presentations or debates. 

Although teachers may use these as informal assessments, there are 

also ways of making that information more useful and more systematic for formal assessment purposes. 

Purpose: Dialogue and oral responses can be used to check student 

knowledge. Teachers frequently ask questions to check for understanding of specific content. Less frequently do they use these strategies to assess students’ thinking. 

The type of dialogue and response you set up depends greatly on 

the purpose you have for it. If you are assessing students’ factual 

knowledge, quick question and answer type responses are fine. To 

keep track of students’ responses, you may want to develop a quick 

checklist like the one in FIGURE 3-2. If, however, you are trying to assess 

students’ ability to use historical reasoning, then you will want to think 

much more carefully about the types of discussion you have or the 

presentations and debates you establish. 

FIGURE 3-2: 

A Discussion Checklist for Factual Knowledge on 

European Explorers 

Mark a check next to each student’s name when a comment 

demonstrates knowledge of a specific fact or concept.

Creating HighQuality Dialogue 

and Responses 

The basis of quality 

discussions, or what 

Lewin and Shoemaker 

(1998) call “substantive dialogue” is quality questioning. Good 

discussions revolve 

around real questions 

of interest. Students 

know when questions 

are designed to lead 

them to the teachers’ 

answer or when they 

are genuine opportunities to explore 

and learn. The former 

may lose their interest quickly while the 

latter can engage 

STUDENT NAME PRINCE 

HENRY, THE 

NAVIGATOR

COLUMBUS CORTES PONCE 

DE LEON

DE 

SOTO 

(Based on Alabama Standards)
17

them over time. In addition, high-quality 

dialogue can be shaped around a text. The 

text can be a letter, a speech, a diary entry, 

a cartoon, a piece of art, or a poem. This 

text gives students something they need to 

interpret and to which they need to respond. 

It anchors the discussion and dialogue in 

something solid. Discussion and dialogue 

around text is the basis of work such as the 

Paideia seminar (www.paideia.org). 

As you develop good questions for your students, you need to think about the following 

issues (Dantonio, 1990): 

1. What is the content focus of the question?

2. What is the process focus of the question?

3. Is the question open-ended, including the opportunities for 

multiple responses? (In quick content knowledge and recall 

questions, this may not be applicable.) 

4. Is the question clearly stated?

Questions can be used to assess different thinking processes. FIGURE 3-3

shows historical thinking processes you might want to assess, questioning stems for those processes, and sample questions for an 

elementary history unit on the Constitution and the United States 

and then for a high school unit on the Federalist Era. Please note that 

there will be substantial overlap in the questions. Thus, a question that 

revolves around historical issues-analysis will also include components 

of historical knowledge, comprehension and other thinking skills. 

FIGURE 3-3: 

Questioning for Historical Thinking

 HISTORICAL 

THINKING SKILLS 

SAMPLE QUESTION 

STEMS

MODEL 

QUESTIONS

Content Knowledge—

Recalling facts or 

concepts, justifying 

answer with supporting 

details

What can you remember 

about ?

Describe . 

List . 

Why did you say this? 

How do you know? 

Elementary: Describe 

the Bill of Rights and 

its purpose. 

High School: What 

is the concept of 

judicial review? How 

was it established? 

Chronological Thinking—

an understanding of 

when events occurred 

and in what temporal 

order, an understanding 

of narrative flow and the 

ability to see patterns

Place these events in correct 

order.

What led to ? 

Elementary School: 

What led to the writing 

of the Constitution? 

High School: How 

long was it until 

the United States 

could function as a 

democratic country? 

Why would you say 

that? 

“I hate it when 

teachers ask 

questions they 

already know 

the answer to. 

That’s not a real 

question.”

—high school

 student
18

 HISTORICAL 

THINKING SKILLS 

SAMPLE QUESTION 

STEMS

MODEL 

QUESTIONS

Historical 

Comprehension 

—students’ ability 

to understand and 

make use of historical 

narratives, documents or 

artifacts

Summarize what you read....

What is this person saying?

Who is the author? Assess his 

or her credibility. 

How did the historical 

situation contribute to the 

author saying this? 

Elementary: What 

does the First 

Amendment say? Why 

was this written? 

High School: What is 

Benjamin Banneker 

saying about the idea 

of equality in the early 

United States? Why is 

he saying this? 

Analysis and 

Interpretation—the 

ability to use historical 

information to develop 

an interpretation of why 

or how things happened 

or to develop theories for 

possible alternatives

Compare and contrast . 

What would have happened if

? 

How is this (historical 

experience) like another 

(historical experience)? 

Whose interpretation of (this 

historical event) is (better, 

more accurate, more 

believable)? Why? 

Which part of this narrative 

is fact and which is 

interpretation? 

Elementary: 

Compare and 

contrast government 

under the Articles of 

Confederation with 

government under the 

Constitution. 

High: How is the 

formation of new 

democracies in the 

world today the same 

as the start of the 

United States? How is it 

different? 

Historical Research—the 

ability to ask historical 

questions, find, and 

examine historical 

information, and 

construct a sound 

interpretation

What new questions do 

you have after learning this 

(reading this, viewing this)? 

What do you want to know 

more about?

How would you find the 

answer to those questions?

What story would you tell 

about ? 

What conclusion did you 

reach from your research? 

Why? 

Elementary: What 

more do you want to 

know about life in the 

new United States of 

America? How would 

you find answers to 

your questions? 

High: Tell a story 

about what you 

found out about the 

interactions between 

American Indians and 

European settlers in 

the early 1800s. Be 

ready to defend your 

version of the story. 

Historical Issues—

Analysis and DecisionMaking—the ability to 

investigate the dilemmas 

of history, identify the 

historical antecedents 

of current social issues, 

and evaluate results of 

different decisions

What did people (in this time 

period) think about ? 

Why did this (controversial 

event) happen? What would 

you have done if you had 

been there? 

Why does (this situation) exist 

today? 

Describe the different choices 

people have today in ways 

they respond to (particular 

situation). Which would you 

recommend? Why? 

Elementary: Why did 

many of the founding 

fathers have slaves? 

High School: How did 

the early founders 

see the relationship 

between religion and 

government? How do 

these views influence 

the debate today? 

Historical 

communication skills 

Any question will help you 

assess this. 
19

Preparing Students to Engage in Dialogue 

and Discussion

Just as with writing, students need to be taught how to engage in 

substantive dialogue and respond to complex questions. Research 

has shown that about half the time there is no relationship between 

the complexity of the question and the complexity of the answer that 

follows it (Strother, 1989). 

There are several ways teachers can increase the quality of students’ responses: 

1. Limit the amount of talking done by teachers. For dialogue 

to play an important part in students’ cognitive growth, the 

teacher should talk no more than 30% of the time (National 

Paideia Center, 2003). 

2. Teachers need to follow up with students and probe their 

responses. Asking them to build on their answers will increase 

the quality of the responses. In addition, authenticity may 

help students think more about their responses. 

Things to be careful about: 

1. Questioning and dialogue are such natural occurrences that 

teachers don’t think much about them. Yet, most discussions 

revolve around factual and recall level questions (Strother, 

1989). If you want to use dialogue and discussion effectively 

to assess higher order thinking skills, you need to prepare for 

it. You can develop questions ahead of time and run them by 

your peers. 

2. True dialogue and discussion occurs when people listen to 

each other. Students may need to be taught to listen and 

encouraged to take risks in responding. Teachers also need 

to be careful to listen to the students themselves and restrict 

the amount of time they talk. 

3. It is easy for some students to dominate the discussion. 

Teachers can use various strategies to make sure everyone is 

involved, including requiring everyone to make some sort of 

a comment or drawing names out of a hat or tossing a ball 

around for comments. Placing students in small groups can 

also encourage more discussion. 
20

2. Essays and Open-Ended Responses

What they are: Essays and open-ended responses are responses 

written to a prompt of some sort. They can ask students to interpret 

primary sources, to compare different kinds of information, to draw 

a diagram illustrating relationships, or to solve a problem. They are 

useful for encouraging students to organize and consolidate their 

thinking in a way that goes beyond remembering events. A really 

good essay question is like a puzzle where you’re trying to help students put some pieces together. The document-based questions 

that show up on Advanced Placement exams and some state tests 

are examples of good, thoughtful essay questions (sample AP questions can be found at www.collegeboard.com and sample documentbased questions at different levels for New York State can be found 

at http://emsc32.nysed.gov/osa/). 

Purpose: Essays and open-ended responses are good at assessing 

students’ reasoning and their ability to communicate historical knowledge. They also can be good at assessing students’ historical knowledge, depending on the type of question that is asked. Since the 

most common type of open-ended response is an essay question, 

this section will focus primarily on essay questions. 

There are two main kinds of essay questions: Restricted Response 

and Extended, Open-Ended Responses (Kubiszyn and Borich, 1996). 

Restricted response essay questions are really an extended version of 

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the short answer. They ask students to recall specific factual information and can be used to assess students’ knowledge, or application 

or comprehension of information. These questions generally begin 

with verbs such as “Describe,” “List,” or “Summarize.” Some restricted 

response essay questions might include: 

● Describe the monarchical system of government and give 

three examples. 

● Summarize the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent. 

These types of questions do not assess the more complex historical 

thinking or reasoning goals. Why use these instead of multiple-choice 

tests? Criswell and Criswell (2004) present three reasons: 

● The written expression reveals more of students’ underlying 

logic.

● A student cannot guess the correct answer. A certain amount 

of guessing or bluffing certainly could be part of the essay 

process, however. 

● The teacher believes that students should be able to recall 

the answers rather than just identifying it. 

All of these justifications can also be reasons to use open-ended 

short answer questions instead of short answers with a word bank. 

The real power of essay questions comes in the use of extended, 

open-ended responses, which can measure students’ ability to 

engage in higher order thinking, such as their ability to synthesize and 

evaluate information. These next several sections will address creating high-quality, extended, open-ended responses. 

Developing Quality Essays and Open-Ended Responses

Good essay questions and other open-ended responses are actually 

harder to write than most people realize. Nevertheless, they are well 

worth the effort since they provide a window into students’ thinking. 

In addition, writing is also a key method of communicating information and students must be able to communicate content information 

with clarity and precision. 

Stiggins (1997) highlights three steps to take as you are creating highquality essay questions:

1. Specific desired content knowledge. You need to clarify what 

it is exactly you want students to know. What is the content 

that students are expected to discuss? 

 A not so good example: Write everything you know about 

the Black Death.

 (This is much too broad of a topic. Also, technically, there 

is no way a student can get this wrong since you are 

asking them to write everything they know. If they know 

nothing, they write nothing.) 

 A much better example: In the 1300s, the Black Death 

decimated one-third of Europe’s population. Describe 

the impact of the Black Death on various aspects of 

European society, including food supplies, political 

structures, and religious and philosophical beliefs. 
22

2. Specific kind of historical thinking, reasoning and prolemsolving you want students to demonstrate. If you want to 

maximize the potential of essays, you will want to ensure that 

the reasoning is focused on higher-order thinking skills. 

 A not so good example: List three restrictions put on 

African-Americans in the South after the Emancipation 

Proclamation. 

 (Although this very clearly specifies the knowledge to 

be included, this is really a recall question and does not 

require any higher order thinking. It may be good as a 

homework or class work item rather than as a test item.) 

 A much better example: After the Emancipation 

Proclamation, many states in the South placed formal 

and informal restrictions on the lives of African-Americans. 

Identify three restrictions. For each restriction: 

● Describe the restriction. 

● Identify the purpose behind the restriction. 

● Evaluate the impact of the restriction on AfricanAmericans at the time. 

● Use your knowledge of the African-American 

experience today to suggest some possible long-term 

impacts of this restriction. 

(This much more detailed question includes a mix of 

lower-order thinking skills—simply recalling the restriction 

and possibly identifying the purpose of the restriction— 

with higher-order thinking—evaluating the impact of the 

restriction, making a connection to life today). 

3. Guide students in the direction of an appropriate response 

without spelling out the answer. The question needs to be 

specific and provide enough guidance to students so that 

they understand what they are supposed to write or do: 

 A not so good example: Describe the role of religion in 

the early United States. (This is a very typical essay 

question. It is too broad, however, and provides little 

guidance to the students.) 

A much better example: The Role of Religion in the New 

Republic: You are member of a state legislature in 1800. 

Someone has proposed a law that would allow the state 

government to purchase lands for churches. You know that 

the issue of the appropriate role of religion has been an 

important struggle in the early years of the United States. You 

also know that many states at this time period actually have 

provided official support to specific religions. To inform your 

decision, you have read, among other pieces, the works of 

two of the founding fathers, George Washington and James 

Madison (see below). 

1. Summarize Washington’s and Madison’s perspectives 

on religion and government. In your summary, bring in 

additional information from the time period to describe 

why the writer might have this perspective. 

2. How will you vote? Defend your decision, using the texts 

and other information you know from the time period. 

Remember, you are legislator in 1800, not today. 
23

3. Now, pretend you are a legislator today voting 

on legislation authorizing the display of the Ten 

Commandments in government building. What would 

your decision be? What justification would you give? 

You must at least partly defend your decision by using 

historical information from the early Republic. You may 

also bring in more recent information as appropriate. 

George Washington. Farewell Address, 1796 

Note: This was written as George Washington completed his second 

term as President. 

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political 

prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism 

who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human 

happiness — these firmest props of the duties of men and 

citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, 

ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not 

trace all their connections with private and public felicity. 

Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, 

for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation 

desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation 

in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. 

Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined 

education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and 

experience both forbid us to expect that national morality 

can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

James Madison. Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious 

Assessments 1785 

Note: This was written in opposition to a bill proposed by the General 

Assembly of Virginia to collect funds for teachers of religion. The bill 

was not passed. 

...The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right 

of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This 

right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on 

the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot 

follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, 

because what is here a right towards men, is a duty 

towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he 

believes to be acceptable to him....

...it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our 

liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty 

of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the 

late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till 

usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and 

entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the 

consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson 

too much soon to forget it.
24

...(the) proposed establishment is a departure from the 

generous policy, which, offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, 

promised a lustre to our country, and an accession to 

the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is the 

Bill of sudden degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an 

Asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. 

It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose 

opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative 

authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the 

Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the 

first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance.”

(This question provides much more detailed guidance on what is 

expected. Providing information on how the essay will be scored can 

also help in providing guidance.)

Preparing Students to Write Essays

Needless to say, students need to be taught how to answer these 

questions. You cannot just provide students with an essay question 

as an assessment and expect that they will understand what to 

do. Instead, you must carefully scaffold instruction to get students 

ready to answer essay questions. Since answering questions in 

clear writing supported by details is a critical skill in history (or any 

field), this is a case when teaching to the test is actually a useful 

instructional activity. 

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25

Below are some steps for scaffolding students’ writing skills. For a 

more complete description, consult some of the resources in the 

bibliography. 

1. Have students write frequently. Get them used to 

writing, even if is just short answers or brief reflective 

writing. Each piece of writing does not need to be large 

and complex. 

2. Have them read what they write to one another to get 

them used to writing for an audience. 

3. Focus on 2-3 specific writing skills at a time. Don’t try to 

teach students everything they could possibly need to 

know about writing at one time. This will make it easier 

for the students and for you as you look at their work 

(McCoy, 2003). 

4. Develop a rubric or checklist for assessing the writing. 

Show students how to use the rubric using “anchor” 

papers or samples of real student work to show them 

examples of good historical communication as 

well as examples of less successful work (Lewin and 

Shoemaker, 1998).

5. Give struggling students specific feedback about their 

responses on specific questions. Have them rewrite based 

on the feedback. 

Things to be careful about:

Essay questions are not the perfect assessment. Below are some 

potential pitfalls in the use of essay questions. 

1. Don’t confound writing proficiency with reasoning skills. 

In many cases, a well-written essay will receive a high 

score, regardless of the content of the essay. It is helpful, 

in these cases, to make sure that you have separate 

scores for communication or writing skills and for content 

knowledge or reasoning skills. We’ll investigate this in more 

depth in the next chapter. 

2. Be realistic about the resources you have. Scoring essays 

will require more time than multiple-choice tests. Make 

sure you build in enough time for grading and giving 

feedback with the essays. If you have many students, 

you may want to stagger essay assignments so you don’t 

have a large amount to grade at the same time. In all 

cases, you should think carefully about what you want to 

accomplish with the essays so that they are well worth the 

time and effort. 

3. Make sure that expectations are clear up front. Essay 

questions can be open to bias, particularly in the scoring 

process, so make sure that the scoring expectations are 

clear from the beginning. We’ll talk more about that in 

the next chapter. 

4. Don’t give away the answer, such that every student 

has exactly the same response. Make sure the question 

and the expectations are general enough to allow for 

substantive thought on behalf of the students. 
26

3. Projects and Investigations

What they are: These are in-depth projects or investigations that have 

students consider a complex issue over multiple days. Projects or 

investigations are often done as the culminating experience of a unit 

and are designed to allow students to synthesize information and skills 

together. Projects and investigations may take many different forms. 

Research projects and presentations are popular with many teachers. Other projects may ask students to solve an ill-defined problem 

connected to the area of study. They may ask students to research 

and prepare for a debate. They may have students research and 

prepare a re-enactment of a particular event. 

Purpose: As indicated in FIGURE 3-1 at the beginning of this chapter, 

projects and investigations are useful for assessing students’ historical 

reasoning and historical communication skills. Projects and investigations are generally not as useful for assessing specific content knowledge. 

The real strength of projects and investigations is that they provide 

one of the few opportunities to assess students’ work in a context 

more closely resembling the adult world or the world of work. For 

example, there are very few times when adults in the workforce are 

required to take multiple-choice tests (drivers license and credentialing exams being notable and rare exceptions); however, there are 

numerous times when people need to make sense of data, do presentations based on research, or write reports. Well-designed projects 

and investigations provide the opportunity to engage in the sorts 

of complex thinking, problem solving, and communicating that are 

required in many workforce situations. They also provide an opportunity for teachers to assess any goals they may have in the affective 

and social domains. 

Developing Quality Projects and Investigations

Just like essays, projects and investigations require some investment of time to do well. To truly take advantage of projects, they 

should tap into some of those higher-order thinking skills. A popular 

research project that asks students to go onto the Internet and find 

5-10 facts about an individual is actually fairly lower level, since it 

simply requires students to summarize factual information. Below 

are some things to think about as you plan the use of projects and 

investigations for assessments. 

Step 1: Determine the goals and objectives of the project. What are 

you trying to assess through this project? As with any type of assessment, you need to start by identifying the learning objectives you 

want to assess. Identify the content area you are going to include 

in the project. Look at the types of historical thinking skills you want 

students to demonstrate. Identify any objectives in the affective or 

social domains you may want to assess. For example, you may want 

to look at the ability of students to work cooperatively in a group. 

You may want to assess their persistence in the face of a challenging assignment. These are all valid objectives for a project or an 

investigation. After you have identified the objectives for the assessment, you need to design a project or investigation that aligns with 

those objectives. 
27

Step 2: Determine the substance of the project. Coming up with a 

good project or investigation does require some creativity. The key, 

however, is thinking about the real world of historians and the type of 

work in which they are engaged (Wiggins, 1992). What is the actual 

work of historians? Historians examine multiple primary sources from 

the time period. They consider the work of other historians. They analyze and synthesize data to create a story that answers a question. 

They present their conclusions to other historians, who may or may 

not believe them. They defend their conclusions or revisit those conclusions in light of new information. A high-quality project and investigation will thus incorporate these characteristics into the assessment 

task itself.

Step 3: Lay out the specific components of the task, including the 

actual work students will do and the project’s scope and duration. 

Projects and investigations should be of a 

reasonable scope and 

duration so that everyone has some chance 

of success. This will 

come with practice. 

It might be helpful to 

develop a day-byday guide or checklist 

showing how students’ 

time will be spent. 

Step 4: Develop the 

assessment criteria 

and provide them 

to students up front. 

Students will know 

what they are trying 

to achieve and what 

they need to do to do 

quality work. It may 

also be useful to show students actual examples of quality work so 

that they have something to judge. We’ll talk more about this in the 

next chapter. 

FIGURE 3-4 shows the process of developing an historical investigation 

assessment task. 

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28

Step 1: Determining the content. According to my curriculum 

standards, my students need to learn about “the transformation of the American economy and the changing social and 

political conditions in the United States in response to the 

Industrial Revolution” (California, grade 8). In particular, they 

are supposed to understand the implications of industrial 

revolution (development of cities, conservation, immigration) 

as well as the growth of the big business and the labor movement. I spend some time exploring the History Matters website

(www.historymatters.gmu.edu), which has a great collection of primary sources and activities, as well as links to other websites. 

I see that there are a lot of interesting primary source documents out there on the labor movement, sweatshops, urbanization, immigration, and the conservation movement. Since 

these are all issues that also resonate today, I believe they will 

be good areas for investigation. I want the project to allow 

them to investigate one of these areas in depth. 

Step 2: Determining the process skills. My curriculum standards also say that students should be able to make connections between what happened in the past to social and economic conditions today. Thus, I want the project to focus on 

understanding the issues in the past and connecting them to 

what we see today. Because I am familiar with expectations of 

historical thinking, I also want students to be able to examine 

primary sources and make conclusions based on those primary sources. 

Step 3: The components of the investigation. The overall 

structure of the investigation should involve looking at the historical aspects of various pieces of industrialization that are 

represented today. I want to include choice so each student 

will choose an aspect he or she is interested in and explore its 

historical roots, making connections to the current situation 

and then perhaps developing recommendations. We’ll work 

towards having a summit of prominent thinkers (the students) 

doing presentations on: Understanding the Past to Prepare for 

the Future. 

Here is what each student will do: 

1. Each student will pick a topic out of the following: 

a. High Gas Prices? Why the U.S. Relies on Fossil Fuels 

b. Urban and Suburban Sprawl: How Cities Came 

to Be 

c. Mass Transit: Transportation and its Impact

d. Migrant Workers: Immigration and the Economy 

e. Workers’ Rights: The Labor Movement

FIGURE 3-4:

Developing an Historical Investigation for a Unit 

on the Industrial Revolution (Steps 1 through 3) —

A Teacher’s Thought Process
29

Preparing Students to do 

Quality Projects and Investigations

Just like any of the other assessment methods, students need to be 

taught the steps involved in doing quality projects and investigations. You can’t assume that students will know how to do research 

or how to compare and contrast things. Fortunately, this instructional process can easily be built into the development of an ongoing project or investigation. One way to do this is to clearly identify 

each of the steps necessary to do the project. The first time they do 

a project or investigation, the students may need very specific help 

from identifying questions they need to ask to identifying sources to 

creating first drafts of the product. It is better to err on the side of too 

much detail at the beginning and then gradually allow the students 

more ownership in the project as they become more used to the 

process. 

Things to be careful about: 

● Many teachers assign large projects or investigations 

to students to do outside of class time. This can result in 

wonderful projects completed by parents or not-so-wonderful 

projects created by students struggling without resources at 

home. Teachers can avoid this by having students do the 

majority of the work during class time, with small specific 

assignments to be done at home. 

● Projects and investigations can be a time sink. How many 

times have you started to do something that you thought 

f. Money and People: Capitalism and Social 

Concerns

g. Industry and the Environment

2. Each student will begin by identifying a specific real 

situation that exemplifies this topic today. They must 

start with at least two documents that present two 

different perspectives today. 

3. The students will then trace the history of their issue 

from 1867 to 1914. What was happening connected 

to the issue in that time period? Students will examine 

their textbooks and summarize how the issue is 

addressed in the textbook. They will also identify at 

least two primary sources from the time period that 

represent different perspectives. They will compare the 

primary sources with each other and with the textbook 

to develop their interpretation of the main aspects of 

that issue during that time period. 

4. Using the information, they will develop a 

presentation and supporting paper that presents a 

historical understanding of the situation today. They 

will then develop recommendations for resolution 

of this issue based on their understanding of the 

historical situation. 
30

was a good idea and then never had the students finish 

it because you ran out of time? Planning the projects 

carefully so that they are accomplishing and assessing key 

instructional goals can help minimize this issue. 

Assessing your Assessment Tasks

As you begin developing assessment tasks such as those 

described above, Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters (1992) 

present some criteria to consider. These criteria apply to all 

types of assessments. 

● Do the tasks match the important outcome goals

you have set for students? Do these goals reflect 

complex thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis?

● Do they pose an enduring problem type—the types of 

problem and situations that students are likely to face 

repeatedly in school and their future lives?

● Are the tasks fair and free of bias? For example, do 

they favor either boys or girls, students who have 

lived in a particular location or region, students with 

a particular cultural heritage, or those whose parents 

can afford to buy certain materials? 

● Will the tasks be credible to important constituencies? 

Will they be seen as meaningful and challenging by 

students, parents and teachers? Do the tasks rely on 

quality subject matter content?

● Will the tasks be meaningful and engaging to 

students so that they will be motivated to show their 

capabilities? Do the tasks involve real problems, 

situations, and audiences? (pp. 41-42, emphases 

in original) 
31

Establishing Criteria

“In the absence of criteria, assessment tasks remain just 

that, tasks or instructional activities. Perhaps most important, scoring criteria make public what is being judged, 

and, in many cases, the standards for acceptable 

performance. Thus, criteria communicate your goals 

and achievement standards.” (Herman, Aschbacher & 

Winters, 1992, p. 44) 

In the previous chapters, we have described some assessment methods that are well suited to examining students’ ability to do history. 

These methods—dialogue and oral responses, essays and openended responses, and projects and investigations—can provide rich 

information on what students know and are able to do. Yet, as indicated in the quote above, an essay is not necessarily an assessment 

task; it could be just an instructional activity. What makes an essay (or 

anything else) an assessment is the establishment of criteria against 

which the work is measured and the use of those criteria to obtain 

information about a student’s performance. Even dialogue, which 

may be assessed more informally, should have some explicit criteria. 

Having clear criteria in assessments is important for several reasons. 

A meta-analysis of multiple studies concluded that the use of clear 

learning goals and objectives is related to increases in achievement 

(Marzano et al, 2001). These learning goals and objectives should be 

articulated in the assessments teachers use. Teachers may assume 

their assessments go beyond superficial or rote learning goals and 

reflect their goal of deep understanding; but when examined more 

closely, they may find this not to be the case. Developing specific 

criteria can help teachers use assessments that better align to their 

learning goals. Another large benefit to developing specific criteria 

is that students become aware of the expectations and are increasingly able to monitor their own learning (Shepherd, 2000). 

Having explicit criteria is particularly important for assessments that 

are not multiple-choice. Multiple-choice items can be scored objectively. The student is offered a fixed number of options and the option 

selected is compared to a scoring key. Given the scoring key, any 

teacher would score the items in the same matter. The methods we 

discuss in this manual—essay and open-ended responses; dialogue 

and oral responses; and projects and investigations—depend to a 

greater extent on teacher judgment of a response. Thus it is critical to 

develop good scoring criteria that: 

● “Help teachers define excellence and plan how to help 

students achieve it.

● Communicate to students what constitutes excellence and 

how to evaluate their own work. 

● Communicate goals and results to parents and others.

● Help teachers or other raters be accurate, unbiased, and 

consistent in scoring.

● Document the procedures used in making important 

judgments about students.” (Herman, Aschbacher & Winters, 

1992, p. 48)

CHAPTER FOUR
32

Establishing the performance criteria up front is also exceptionally useful in the planning process. First, it forces you to decide on the actual 

goals for the activity and what you will stress. Second, it helps focus the 

assignments more and avoid the “creep” that can happen to projects 

or activities. 

In summary, scoring criteria must: 

1. Reflect the goals you are trying to assess; and

2. Communicate expectations in advance. 

To explore what happens when these characteristics are not in place, 

examine the scenario in the box. It is also important to think about 

the other extreme in the use of criteria, which is also not helpful to 

students’ development. In this other extreme scenario, a teacher 

may go too far and actually give the answer to essay questions in 

advance. Thus, students know “what the teacher expects” in terms 

of the answer but, because they have been given the actual answer 

and only have to memorize it, there is no critical thinking or deep 

understanding being developed. 

The Importance of Alignment and Communication

To explore the relationship between an assessment task and the criteria used to assess 

performance on that task, imagine the following scenario. 

You are taking a course at a local college on assessment. Your instructor gives you the 

following assignment: “Write one sentence in response to the following question: Why is 

it important to match your assessments with your learning goals?” You try very hard to 

include meaningful information in a concise manner. 

You turn in your paper and receive it back within minutes, a red “F” stamped across it. “But,” 

you sputter, “I answered the question.” Then the instructor shares the grading criteria with you: 

1. The sentence incorporates three capital letters.

2. The sentence includes exactly four pronouns.

3. The sentence was written in green ink.

An “A” meant all three criteria were met; a “B” meant two criteria were met; a “C” meant 

one criterion was meant. An “F” meant no criteria were met, thus your grade of an F. 

In thinking about this somewhat unlikely scenario, ask yourself the following questions: 

1. Did the criteria assess the presumed learning goal behind asking the question? 

2. Based on the assessment criteria used to grade your sentence, what were the 

actual assessed learning goals? What does this tell you about selecting criteria for 

assessments? 

3. As bizarre as they might have been, if you had known the criteria in advance, 

could you have written a sentence that enabled you to get an A? What does this 

tell you about communicating expectations in advance? 

4. If these criteria had been communicated to you in advance, what would have 

been the focus of your sentence-writing? What would you have actually learned 

from writing the sentence? What does this tell you about the relationship between 

assessments and learning?

5. Do you think your students might ever feel the way you would have if you had 

been in this situation? 
33

There are at least three ways to arrange criteria: 

1. Checklists 

2. A Point System

3. Rubrics (Holistic and Analytic) 

Different arrangements of criteria work in different situations. We’ll discuss each of these arrangements and their most appropriate uses in 

this chapter. 

1. Checklists 

Checklists are the simplest of the different methods of examining students’ work. A checklist can be used to indicate that a student has 

effectively completed the steps involved in a task or demonstration. 

Checklists may be used to track completion of steps in a project, 

record observable behaviors in a discussion group, or identify the 

existence of specific components in an essay. In general, checklists 

are useful for simply determining the presence or the absence of 

something. They are also useful in helping students assess themselves 

or determine whether they are on track. Checklists are not as useful 

in situations where there can be partial levels of accomplishment or 

when you need to determine the relative quality of students’ work. 

Below are two specific examples of how checklists could be used in a 

history class. 

A. Discussion on topics or questions is commonly expected 

of students in their history classrooms. However, it may 

not always be clear to students exactly what constitutes 

“good” discussion behaviors. To assess students and provide 

them more guidance, checklists can be helpful. Teachers 

can record students’ responses to specific questions, as 

the example on page 16 showed. Checklists can also be 

helpful as a debriefing tool to encourage students to take 

responsibility for their behavior. For example, FIGURE 4-1 shows 

a checklist developed by the National Paideia Center for 

helping middle grade students self-assess their participation 

in a seminar. In addition to the checklist, there are also 

open-ended questions that ask students to reflect on their 

contributions to the seminar. 

MY POSITIVE BEHAVIORS: 

I was courteous to others.

I paused and thought before speaking.

I listened to others tell their ideas.

I kept an open mind concerning what 

was said.

I used information from the text to 

support my statements/questions. 

I felt comfortable speaking in seminar.

I gave my opinions clearly.

I acted as a positive role model for 

others.

I was prepared for the seminar. 

MY NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS: 

I interrupted others.

I did not look at the person speaking.

I raised my hand to speak.

I did not speak at all.

I talked too much.

I talked about subjects other than the 

text.

I did not listen to others.

I was discourteous to others.

I was not prepared for the seminar. 

Source: National Paideia Center, 2003, Used by permission
34

B. Debates and project work are often used to help students 

develop in-depth knowledge about a critical issue in a time 

period. Such long-term projects often require many steps to 

completion. Checklists that lay out all the steps along the 

way can help students keep track of the work they are doing.

FIGURE 4-2 provides an example of a checklist for a typical 

research project in middle school. 

FIGURE 4-2: 

Research Project Checklist

TASK DATE 

COMPLETED

Selected topic 

Developed four questions to ask about the topic

Identified three different sources of information 

Wrote answers to questions on note cards 

Planned report using concept map 

Wrote first draft of report 

Met with fellow student to edit 

Revised report 

Word processed final report and turned into teacher

2. A Point System

 A point system assigns points for certain features of the student’s 

response. Open-ended questions or projects are often scored 

with this approach because points can reflect partial as well as 

full credit. FIGURE 4-3 shows an example of how one teacher used a 

point system to evaluate an essay written for a final exam.
35

FIGURE 4-3

Using Points for Essays

Assignment: It is February 1968. The US and South 

Vietnamese forces have pushed back the VC forces 

after the Tet Offensive. But the political damage 

has been done. You are a top policy advisor to the 

President. Draft a memo to President Johnson outlining what policies the United States has used to win 

the war in Vietnam - which ones have worked, which 

ones have not worked. Then, advise the President 

on what course of action he should take: Should the 

United States withdraw from Vietnam, increase and 

widen the war, or maintain the current policies and 

status quo? In your recommendation, give reasons 

for your suggested course of action and possible 

outcomes. Here is a suggested format for the memo 

(you can use any format you wish):

February 15, 1968

TO: President Lyndon B. Johnson

FROM: (YOUR NAME), Foreign Policy Advisor

SUBJECT: US Policy in Southeast Asia

(INSERT YOUR TEXT HERE)

Your essay will be graded using the following rubric:

Writing Style (50 Points)

 Sentence and Paragraph Structure - 10 points

Grammar and Spelling- 10 points

Clarity - 10 points

Organization - 10 points

Introduction and Conclusion - 10 points

United States Policies to Win the War (50 Points)

 Policies that have worked - 25 points

Policies that have not worked - 25 points

Course of Action President Should Take 

(50 Points)

 Clarity of Description of Action- 25 points

Reasonableness of Actions - 25 points

Reasons for Recommendations (25 Points)

Possible Outcomes (25 points)

Source: Bruce E. Haulman 2003. Used by permission 
36

One of the shortcomings of many point systems is that there are not 

specific criteria delineating what gets full credit for a certain number 

of points. This can be remedied if teachers clearly articulate the criteria for a certain number of points. FIGURE 4-4 provides an example of 

a point system for short-answer questions developed to evaluate content knowledge for a Teaching American History Grant in Roanoke 

Rapids, North Carolina. The rubric builds substantially on work done 

by the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student 

Testing (CRESST). 

FIGURE 4-4: 

Short Answer Rubric—Conceptual Identifications

0 – NO KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING

Student provides no answer or a completely wrong answer that 

indicates no understanding of the concept. This can also be a 

simple reordering of the same words. 

1 – MINIMAL KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING 

The response shows that the student has some inkling of 

knowledge or understanding of the concept(s). This can be 

demonstrated in two ways: 

A. A correct association is provided but conveys no 

understanding of the significance of the concept(s). 

 Assimilation: becoming similar

 Capitalism: money 

An association should NOT be counted if is simply a reordering 

of the words of the term with no other words added. Both of the 

answers below would be scored as 0. 

 Ex. westward movement—moving west

 Industrialization—industry 

B. An incorrect definition that suggests some correct association

 Ex: Urbanization—people moving out of cities (urbanization 

does involve people and cities but they are not moving out 

of cities) 

2 – PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING

The student indicates some partial understanding or some 

knowledge of the concept; however there is no attempt to 

connect the information to a period in history or to provide a 

factual example. 

 Ex: State’s rights—states can decide on things 
37

3 –MOSTLY COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OR 

KNOWLEDGE OF CONCEPT

The student: 

A. Has complete understanding of the concept and knows 

how to connect it to the time period but provides no factual 

example 

 Or 

B. Provides an accurate factual example of the concept but 

presents a limited understanding of the concept. 

 Ex: Industrialization—U.S. had dramatic shift from agriculture 

to making things by machines. Contributes to growth of cities/

source of difference between north and south. 

 Imperialism—U.S. going overseas, such as involvement in the 

Philippines and Cuba. 

4—COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF 

UNDERSTANDING OR CONCEPT 

Student has complete understanding of the concept, connects 

it accurately to the time period, and provides at least one factual example of the concept. Ex. Imperialism: By end of 1800s, 

U.S. had completed expansion of territories in United States. 

Pressure began to mount to become a world power by reaching overseas. Business community wanted more markets and 

religious leaders wanted to spread Christianity abroad. At the 

turn of the century, U.S. was sending forces to Philippines, East 

Asia, and Cuba. 

Adapted from Baker, Aschbacher, Niemi, and Sato, 1992 

When teachers begin laying out specific 

criteria for the achievement of specific 

points, they are beginning to create a 

version of a rubric, the most informative 

way of presenting assessment criteria.

3. Rubrics 

Rubrics are rating scales that are used 

with performance assessments. Defined 

as “scoring guides, consisting of specific pre-established performance criteria, used in evaluating student work on performance assessments” 

(Mertler, 2001), rubrics describe different levels of student performance. These kinds of rating scales are like grades (A-F) but with the 

gradations in quality described in detail for students relative to the 

expectations for the task. Such criteria are especially important when 

teachers are trying to engage students in reflecting on or assessing 

the quality of their own work. 

There are two types of rubrics: holistic and analytic. Holistic rubrics 

require judgment of the overall performance as a whole while analytic rubrics involve examination of specific aspects of the performance (Mertler, 2001). 

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38

Holistic Rubrics 

Rather than assigning separate scores for each important aspect of 

task performance, holistic ratings consider all the criteria simultaneously 

and result in a single summary or grade. This approach may be most 

appropriate when the purpose is to provide students with an overall 

index of their performance on a task or product. For example, teachers 

often choose to provide overall scores for essays to indicate the extent 

to which a student was able to write an effective argument. Suppose 

a sixth-grade social studies teacher asked her students to describe 

the relationship of the United States’ government to the governments 

of Greece and Rome (South Carolina Curriculum Standards). For this 

teacher, a “quality” essay might include accurate content, logical organization with main ideas and supporting details, and clear writing. She 

may use a holistic rubric something like the one in FIGURE 4-5. 

FIGURE 4-5:

Holistic Rubric for Rating Student Writing Samples 

in Social Studies (Grade 6) 

4

● Consistently uses accurate data. 

● Demonstrates a logical plan of organization and 

coherence in the development of ideas. 

● Develops ideas fully using such things as 

examples, reasons, details, explanations, 

and generalizations that are relevant and 

appropriate. 

● Consistently expresses ideas clearly.

3

● Generally uses accurate data. 

● Develops the assigned topics using a general 

plan of organization. 

● Demonstrates satisfactory development of ideas 

through the use of adequate support materials. 

● Generally expresses ideas clearly.

2 

● Uses some accurate data. 

● Attempts to develop the assigned topic, but 

demonstrates weakness in organization and may 

include digressions. 

● Demonstrates weakness in the development of 

ideas with little use of support materials. 

● Has difficulty expressing ideas clearly.

1

● Uses little accurate data. 

● Minimally addresses the assigned topic but lacks 

a plan of organization. 

● Does not use support materials in the 

development of ideas or uses irrelevant material. 

● Does not express ideas clearly.

(Chicago Public Schools, n.d.)
39

FIGURE 4-6 provides an example of a holistic rubric for assessing historical knowledge at the elementary level. 

FIGURE 4-6: 

Holistic Scale for Assessing Historical Knowledge 

(Elementary) 

(Chicago Public Schools n.d.) 

Analytic Rubrics 

Analytic rubrics are rating scales that describe performance along 

a continuum. They are used to describe a product or a performance 

along multiple dimensions. They are most useful when teachers want 

to focus on specific components of a larger product. For example, to 

assess an essay analyzing primary sources, the dimensions or criteria 

that might be rated include: quality of content knowledge (accuracy, importance), quality of historical thinking (defensible interpreta5

● Offers accurate, comprehensive and complete 

analysis of the information and issues.

● Provides a variety of facts to explore major and 

minor issues.

● Extensively uses previous historical knowledge 

to provide an in-depth understanding of the 

problem and to relate it to past and future 

situations.

4

● Concise, accurate analysis of the documents.

● Facts provided relate the major and minor issues 

involved.

● Recalls previous general historical knowledge to 

examine historical issues.

3

● Relates only major facts to the basic issues with a 

fair degree of accuracy.

● Analyzes information to explain at least one issue 

with essential support.

● Uses general ideas from previous historical 

knowledge with a fair degree of accuracy.

2 

● Provides only basic facts with only some degree 

of accuracy.

● Refers to information to explain at least one issue 

or concept in general terms.

● Limited use of previous historical knowledge with 

only limited accuracy.

● Major reliance on the information provided 

from text.

1

● Repeats one or two facts without complete 

accuracy.

● Deals only briefly and vaguely with concepts or 

issues.

● Indicates little or no previous historical 

knowledge.

● Relies heavily on the information provided.
40

tion of texts, connection of texts to time period), and quality of writing (focus and clarity). Each dimension would have a description of 

what it meant at different levels of implementation. 

Let’s take a look at one of the essay assignments from CHAPTER 3 (p. 22). 

This assignment and the accompanying rubric were developed for high 

school students as part of a Teaching American History Grant in Horry 

County, South Carolina. 

Assignment: The Role of Religion in the New Republic

You are member of a state legislature in 1800. Someone has proposed a law that would allow the state government to purchase 

lands for churches. You know that the issue of the appropriate role 

of religion has been an important struggle in the early years of the 

United States. You also know that some states at this time period have 

provided financial support to specific religions. To inform your decision, you have read, among other pieces, the works of two of the 

founding fathers, George Washington and James Madison. 

● Summarize Washington’s and Madison’s perspectives on 

religion and government. In your summary, bring in additional 

information from the time period to describe why the writer 

might have this perspective. 

● How will you vote? Defend your decision, using the texts and 

other information you know from the time period. Remember, 

you are legislator in 1800, not today. 

● Now, pretend you are a legislator today voting 

on legislation authorizing the display of the Ten 

Commandments in government building. What would your 

decision be? What justification would you give? You must 

at least partly defend your decision by using historical 

information from the early Republic. You may also bring in 

more recent information as appropriate. 

The goals of this assessment are to measure students’ knowledge 

of the time period, their ability to interpret primary source documents and place those documents in a context, and their ability to 

make a connection between history and events of today. Thus, the 

rubric has the criteria as laid out in FIGURE 4-7. As you look at the 

rubric, note that the criteria in this rubric are limited in number and 

fairly general. Good quality rubrics don’t try to assess everything; 

instead, they focus on a small but critical set of skills or knowledge. 

It is often desirable to assess skills that are transferable to other 

topics (e.g., skill in summarizing main points) or can be applied 

beyond the specific item being assessed (e.g., skill in defending 

a position using evidence). In some cases, teachers may want to 

include task-specific criteria (such as knowledge of a specific historical event) in the rubric (Moskal, 2000). 
41

FIGURE 4-7: Essay Rubric: US History—High School

The essential question is whether students are able to apply the 

thinking and tools of historians to critical historical issues. 

CRITERIA 4 3 2 1

Historical 

Knowledge: 

Knowledge 

outside of text

Essay includes 

substantial 

information (more 

than 4 facts or 

concepts) not 

found in the text.

Essay includes 

three or four facts 

or concepts not 

found in the text. 

Essay includes 

one or two facts 

or concepts not 

found in the text. 

Facts and 

concepts in essay 

come only from 

text. 

Historical 

Knowledge: 

Accuracy and 

Importance 

The most 

important 

historical 

concepts or 

information 

necessary to 

answer the 

question are 

included. 

Concepts and 

facts included 

are accurate 

and used 

appropriately in 

the essay. 

The writer includes 

some of the 

most important 

historical 

concepts or 

information, 

although one or 

two key ideas 

are missing. Any 

misconceptions/

factual errors are 

minor and do not 

affect the overall 

accuracy of the 

argument. 

The writer is 

missing most of 

the important 

historical 

concepts or 

information 

necessary to 

answer the 

questions. Specific 

details included 

may be accurate 

but could be seen 

as insignificant. 

Alternately, 

there are no 

misconceptions 

but factual errors 

are prevalent 

enough to 

negatively impact 

accuracy. 

Information 

included is either 

irrelevant or 

insignificant to 

the question. The 

writer does not 

include any of the 

most significant 

historical 

concepts or 

terms. Key 

statements reveal 

misconceptions; 

details and 

examples contain 

many factual 

errors. 

Historical 

Thinking: 

Interpreting texts 

Essay presents 

a valid and 

defensible 

interpretation of 

the text. In the 

interpretation, 

the writer clearly 

describes how 

the text and 

the author are 

products of the 

specific time 

period. 

Essay presents 

a valid and 

defensible 

interpretation of 

the text. There is 

a limited attempt 

to place the text 

or author in the 

context of the 

time period. 

Essay presents 

a somewhat 

questionable 

interpretation of 

the text. There is 

little attempt to 

connect the text 

or the author to 

the time period. 

Writer 

demonstrates little 

understanding 

of the text. There 

is no attempt to 

describe how 

the document or 

author is related 

to the time period. 

Historical 

Thinking: 

Connection to 

today

The essay clearly 

describes how 

the events of 

today have their 

roots in historical 

experiences. 

The essay 

articulates a 

connection 

between events 

today and 

historical events. 

The essay 

discusses events 

of today, making 

a superficial or 

loose connection 

to historical 

events.

Writer discusses 

only events of 

today without 

making any link to 

historical events. 
42

CRITERIA 4 3 2 1

Historical 

Communication 

The essay’s 

organization 

is logical and 

appropriate to 

the topic; the 

organizational 

scheme may be 

chronological 

or thematic. The 

essay has a core 

argument that 

responds to the 

question. The 

writer includes key 

statements that 

contribute to the 

argument. Each 

key statement 

is supported by 

relevant specifics. 

The organization 

and the focus of 

the essay make 

interpretation 

of the purpose/

thesis/main 

idea easy for the 

reader. 

The essay’s 

organization is 

generally logical 

and appropriate 

to the topic. The 

essay has a core 

argument that 

responds to the 

question. Key 

statements, and 

supporting details, 

are generally in 

support of the 

topic, although 

the connection 

may not be 

obvious at times. 

The organizational 

structure is 

strong enough to 

move the reader 

through the text 

and help the 

reader interpret 

the purpose/

thesis/main idea 

without too much 

confusion.

The writing 

addresses the 

topic, but contains 

many extraneous 

or loosely related 

ideas. The writing 

responds to the 

question, but 

rather thinly or 

unevenly. There 

may be a central 

argument but the 

key statements 

and supporting 

details do not 

always further that 

argument.

The essay 

responds to the 

topic but does so 

in either a very 

general or a very 

haphazard way. 

Ideas, details or 

events appear 

strung together in 

a loose or random 

fashion. There 

is no distinction 

between key 

statements and 

supporting details 

or the details do 

not support the 

statements. 

The significant advantage of analytic rubrics is that they offer diagnostic information to students about the strengths and weaknesses 

of their performances on a variety of dimensions so they can better 

target performance areas that need to be improved. The dimensions chosen and the descriptive categories used for the rating scales 

need to be chosen so that they communicate to students what it is 

important to do well. 

Creating and Using Quality Rubrics 

Creating a quality rubric does take time and effort. However, taking this time up front results in substantial savings during the actual 

assessment of the work. In addition, the time spent up front in developing a quality rubric that is used to guide instruction also results 

in time saved as the instructional process becomes more clearly 

focused. 

Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters (1992) describe an iterative process for developing the criteria inherent in rubrics. We have adapted 

the components of this process as follows: 

1. Think about the specific skills and knowledge you want to 

assess. Make sure these are important skills and knowledge 

on which you are willing to spend some time. You would 

not want to spend a large amount of your valuable 

instructional and assessment time on unimportant or 

insignificant skills or knowledge.
43

2. Investigate and think 

about what the field 

of history defines 

as good work by 

historians in these 

skills and knowledge. 

We have included 

some resources at 

the end of this book 

that will be helpful 

in investigating how 

educators translate 

historians’ skills into 

the classroom. 

3. Gather model rubrics 

(such as some of the 

rubrics in this book) 

in different areas 

that you might want 

to assess. You can 

use these as starting 

points, but you should 

feel free to adapt 

them to meet your 

needs. 

4. Describe the high 

end performance 

for each of the 

important dimensions 

you will assess. 

What would be high 

implementation in 

each set of skills or 

knowledge? For 

everything except 

a checklist, think 

backwards from that 

high performance 

point to identify two 

to three levels of 

weaker performance.

5. Consider the rubric 

in the light of actual 

student work samples. Try it and revise as necessary. 

There are some specific things to think about in creating rubrics. First, 

when used to help students learn, rubrics need to be written in language students can understand and need to avoid vague terms, 

such as “creative” or “challenging.” Andrade (1999) discusses how 

a pair of middle school teachers, working on an oral presentation 

rubric, avoided using the term “starts with a creative beginning” 

by listing possible ways that students might demonstrate a creative 

beginning. Good quality rubrics also avoid unnecessarily negative 

language, such as “boring.” 

If you are developing an analytic rubric, coming up with different 

points on the scale can be challenging. Andrade (1999) recommends using the following strategy developed by a fifth grade 

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44

teacher: thinking about the levels as a “Yes,” “Yes but,” “No but,” and 

“No.” FIGURE 4-8 provides an example of what this would look like. 

FIGURE 4-8: 

One Criterion of an Analytic Rubric for a Research 

Report—Middle School 

As you develop your own rubrics, you may want to evaluate them 

using —what else—an analytic rating scale for rubrics. FIGURE 4-9

lays out various criteria that are necessary for rubrics: how useful the 

rubric is, whether it provides students an opportunity to self-assess 

their work, how valid and reliability it is, the clarity of the descriptors 

used, and the importance of the key elements in the rubric. 

One of the most important things to remember about rubrics is that 

they are meant to be used. Students should work with the rubrics 

to help them understand the expectations, to help them create 

a quality product, and to develop the ability to assess themselves 

and their work. In fact, having students use rubrics to self-assess 

their own work may be one of the most powerful uses of rubrics 

(Black and Wiliam, 1998). Descriptive studies have shown that students used rubrics consistently and reliably and that their use did 

not depend on their academic ability (Hafner and Hafner, 2003). 

Teachers should work with rubrics to guide their own instruction and 

ensure they are focusing on key areas, to track student work, and, 

of course, to assess student performance. 

The next chapter discusses how to use assessment criteria to give effective feedback to students and how to translate them into grades. 

CRITERION QUALITY

Use of multiple 

primary and 

secondary 

sources

Yes, I used 

more than one 

primary source 

and more than 

one secondary 

source in my 

report. 

Yes, I used both 

primary sources 

and secondary 

sources in my 

report, but I 

had only one 

primary source 

and/or one 

secondary 

source. 

No, I didn’t use 

both primary 

and secondary 

sources in my 

report, but I did 

use more than 

one source. 

No, I didn’t use 

more than one 

source in my 

report. 
45

CRITERIA 4 3 2 1

Useful

Assessment is useful and convenient to the learner from the beginning of the discussion about the task and it concentrates all student energy on what is important to accomplish.

Learners can understand the assessment and begin to use it before the task has begun. It focuses their energy on what it is important to accomplish.

Assessment is available to learners at some point before the task is completed. Students can use it to get an idea of what is important to accomplish.

Assessment not available to learner or learner cannot interpret or understand it. 

Self-Assess

Learners required to selfassess and are required to reflect and concentrate on quality of work.

Learners encouraged to self assess and reflect on quality of work.

Learners are invited to selfassess, but may not reflect on quality.

There is no promotion to self assess or focus on quality. 

Valid

An explicit set of objectives is measured. Understanding is a prerequisite to scoring well. Students cannot score well or poorly due to factors unrelated to objectives.

A distinct set of objectives is measured. Students must understand the concepts to score well and will score well if they understand.

Vague objectives may be present. Students who understand objectives tend to score higher.

Students are uncertain as to what is expected. Assessment does not measure what it says it measures.

Reliable

Different students & teachers assessing the same task will get the same results.

Different students & teachers assessing the same task will get highly similar results.

Students & teachers are guided to similar results.

There is no consistency of results. 

Descriptors

Has explicit descriptors that allow the students & teacher to distinctly discriminate within a range of quality. (4 or 6 are ideal so no “middle” exists)

Has specific descriptors, which allow the students & teacher to discriminate a range of quality that is limited to few enough so that discrimination is distinct. (usually 3-7 levels)

Has descriptors that help students & teacher measure specific items but there may be too many items.

No understandable descriptors.

Key Elements

Measures only vital elements that are critical to the task. No items of low consequence.

Measures key elements that are essential to the task. Few items of low consequence.

Meaningful items assessed, but may be of limited significance.

Inappropriate items are assessed (due to ease of grading?)

FIGURE 4-9: The New and Improved Aunt Olive’s “Show-Me” Rubric on Rubrics by Ned Miller 

Adapted by Susan Johnson & Debra SmithSource: Electronic Learning Marketplace 
46

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47

Using Assessment 

Information: 

Feedback and Grading

The previous chapters have discussed identifying appropriate learning goals in history, using assessments aligned to learning goals, and 

developing criteria that measure the learning goals. This chapter 

focuses on what you actually do with assessment information. Why 

are we going to all this trouble? 

In CHAPTER 1, we talked about two purposes for assessment: formative 

assessment and summative assessment. In this chapter, we discuss 

the use of assessment information for formative and summative purposes. Specifically, we look at how you use assessment results to provide feedback for improvement and to provide summative information such as grades or scores. 

Formative Assessment: Providing Feedback

“The most powerful single innovation that enhances 

achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for 

improving education must be ‘dollops of feedback.’” 

(Hattie, 1992)

Some researchers have argued that formative assessment is one of 

the best ways to make dramatic gains in student learning, particularly for low achieving students (Black and Wiliam, 1998). While formative assessment can help teachers identify ways to modify their 

instruction, one of the best ways it can help improve student achievement is by providing feedback to students centered on their work 

and how they can improve it. 

The research support for feedback is among the strongest in the 

educational field. John Hattie’s (1992) review of 7,827 studies found 

that studies on providing students with specific information or feedback regarding their work in relation to particular objectives reported 

increased student achievement. In their examination of over 40 

experimental and quasi-experimental studies, Black and Wiliam 

(1998) reported that the studies on the effects of formative feedback 

reported results ranging from effect sizes of .4 to .7. This translates to 

gains of approximately 25 percentile points. 

What is feedback? Feedback is information that is given to students 

concerning their performance. According to Black et al. (2003), 

appropriate feedback includes the following key components: 

● Data on the student’s performance on a criterion 

● Data on the desirable performance of that criterion 

● Information comparing the two performances and assessing 

the gap between them 

● Information about how the gap can be changed

CHAPTER FIVE
48

Note how the components of feedback are centered on the work 

the student is accomplishing relative to a standard. The feedback 

is not making judgments about the student himself or about how 

the student is performing in relation to other students. As Black 

and Wiliam (1998) recommend, “feedback to any pupil should be 

about the particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on 

what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparisons 

with other pupils” (p. 6). 

In a meta-analysis of many research studies, Marzano et al (2001) 

found that the most effective feedback shared the following 

characteristics: 

1. Corrective. It provides a correct answer or an explanation of 

what is accurate and what is inaccurate. Quality feedback 

involves explanation, not just an indication of whether the 

answer was correct or not (Bangert-Drowns et al, 1991).

2. Timely. Feedback should be given soon after the work is 

completed. 

3. Criterion-referenced not norm-referenced. This means 

the feedback is connected to an established standard 

of learning, not comparing one student against another 

student. 

In addition, feedback should be both teacher and student-based. 

Students should get the opportunity to provide some of their own 

feedback and provide feedback to each other. This improves students’ ability to examine their own work critically and to determine 

themselves what they need to do to get better (Shepherd, 2000). 

Examining Your Use of Feedback in the 

Classroom

Ask yourself the following questions: 

1. What kind of feedback do I provide to my 

students? 

2. When do I give them feedback? 

3. How well does my feedback connect to the 

learning standard I have for the students? 

Ongoing feedback can be time-consuming, which is why it should 

be integrated as naturally as possible into the instructional process. 

Black and Wiliam (1998) built on their extensive research to suggest 

some ways that this can happen: 

● Build in opportunities, through discussion and dialogue, 

to make sure that students have a chance to share their 

evolving understanding. Make sure those discussions 

are genuine by asking questions to get at students’ 

understanding not at some predetermined answer. Also, wait 

long enough for students to think about their answers and 

probe them to justify their responses. 
49

● Give students tests and other exercises as opportunities 

to provide feedback. It is better to have frequent short 

tests instead of infrequent long tests. Any new learning 

should be tested within a week. Examine the quality of the 

questions carefully. 

● Create a culture that values deep thinking and questioning. 

In this case, ongoing reflection and assessment become 

part of the way the class does business. Have students use 

their responses to questions to share their thinking with others. 

Many students do work simply to turn it in and get a check. If 

the work they do is used in subsequent discussions, they may 

feel more accountable for doing it well. 

Summative Assessment: Grading 

We know that formative assessment is critical for helping students 

improve their learning. At some point, however, for accountability 

purposes, to communicate progress to parents and community members, or, at the very least, to fulfill school and district expectations of 

report cards, there must be a summative assessment: a picture of 

what students have learned. 

We have discussed how checklists and rubrics can create a better 

picture of what students know and are able to do. But what is the 

relationship between rubrics and the grades that appear on report 

cards? Grading students’ achievement status involves the teacher 

in a series of decisions. In A Practical Guide for Developing Sound 

Grading Practices, Stiggins (1991) describes some of the decisions 

that must be made if a single grade is to be given over an assessment period. 

First, what criteria should be considered in determining a report 

card grade? A grade over a grading period is usually considered 

as a composite measure of student achievement on the objectives of the instruction, rather than a measure of student interest, 

attitude, or effort. 

Second, as a measure of achievement, what and how much grading data should be gathered? For the grade to be a valid measure 

of achievement in a subject or course, there must be a sufficient 

sampling of student performance on the critical subject or course 

objectives to provide a fair and reliable assessment of the student’s 

achievement status. 

The teacher must be the judge, but at one extreme, using only one 

measure (e.g., a one-hour, paper-and-pencil exam) to determine a 

report card grade for a grading period is clearly not a sufficient sample of student performance. At the other extreme, assessing student 

performance daily would not provide students with the time needed 

to develop competencies and skills in advance of being assessed. 

Third, how are individual grades or scores combined into a single 

grade at the end of a grading period? Performance-based assessments can be readily incorporated into any grading system. 

Suppose you had the following five goals in mind for students. 

Students will be able to: 
50

1. Demonstrate knowledge of the Great Depression.

2. Analyze primary source documents.

3. Write a report providing a historical interpretation that 

incorporates multiple sources. Defend that interpretation with 

evidence. 

4. Work collaboratively to identify the impact of the Great 

Depression on life today. 

5. Discuss historical content with accuracy. Provide justification 

for conclusions. 

Given these five instructional objectives, student assessment data as 

shown in FIGURE 5-1 might be used to arrive at a report card grade. 

Each assessment would have a scoring key or rubric that clearly 

describes what the students need to do to get specific points. The 

column entitled “weight” refers to the importance of a particular 

assignment in the overall grading period. 

FIGURE 5-1: 

Sample Grading Period Weighting System 

ASSESSMENTS INSTRUCTIONAL 

OBJECTIVE

MAXIMUM 

POINTS

POINTS 

EARNED

WEIGHT STUDENT 

SCORE/ 

MAXIMUM 

SCORE

Paper and pencil 

test on Great 

Depression

Knowledge of Great 

Depression

50 42 2 84/100

Primary Source 

Analysis sheets (5 x 

10 points each) 

Analyzing primary 

source documents

50 35 1 35/50

Historical 

Interpretation 

Report

Analyzing primary 

source documents:

Write a report 

providing 

an historical 

interpretation

25 20 4 80/100

Checklist for 

weekly discussions

(5 x 10 points 

each) 

Knowledge of Great 

Depression:

Discuss historical 

content, justify 

conclusions

50 45 1 45/50

Group project 

on connection 

between 

Depression and 

life today

Analyzing primary 

source documents: 

Work collaboratively 

to connect Great 

Depression to life 

today. 

50 40 1 40/50

Total 284/350
51

In FIGURE 5-1, demonstrating knowledge accounts for 150 points out 

of 350 or 43% of the overall grade; analyzing primary source documents is addressed in assessments that represent a total of 200 

points or 57% of the overall grade; writing a report interpreting historical information is 100 points or 28% of the overall grade; oral discussions account for 14% of the grade; and working collaboratively 

to connect the Great Depression to life today also counts 14% of 

the overall grade. When you add up these percentages, they add 

up to more than 100. This is because some instructional objectives 

are being measured in multiple ways. Nevertheless, the proportion 

of the total grade that is addressing specific instructional objectives 

should be proportional to the emphasis you want to place on each 

of those objectives. In this case, the assessment distribution indicates that the ability to analyze primary source documents is the 

most important part of a student’s grade. If you believe that another 

aspect of historical thinking should be more important, then that 

aspect should receive the majority of points. 

The weighting system used in deriving report card grades should 

be related to course objectives and explained to students so that 

they know their goals. In the example above, students might be 

informed at the beginning of the grading period about the five 

instructional objectives and the assessments to be used. The number of points needed for different grades (A, B, C, etc.) should also 

be communicated. 

In such a point system, it is also important to stay flexible so as not 

to penalize students when an assessment is poorly designed. For 

example, if students were told that 300 points constituted an A, but 

students lost points 

because of poorly 

designed items on the 

test, some adjustment 

to the point system 

would have to be 

made. 

Student achievement 

status on important 

instructional objectives can be communicated in ways other 

than a single report 

card grade in Social 

Studies or History. 

Some teachers find 

that grades, although 

required by policy, are 

not particularly helpful 

in conferencing with 

students and parents 

about students’ performance on specific goals. Checklists, rubrics, 

and narratives can be used in addition to grades or as an alternative 

means of reporting. 

The next chapter concludes our discussion of assessments by examining the relationship between classroom assessments and assessments 

done for accountability purposes and by providing tips for getting 

started on your work with assessments. 

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52

Some Concluding 

Thoughts

Appropriate Assessments in an Era of 

Accountability

All of the information in this book is all very good and well but you 

may think it is vastly removed from the reality of teaching today 

with its focus on high-stakes state-mandated tests. In some cases, 

your state may not test social studies at all, in which case the subject of history may be neglected at the elementary level in the 

singular focus on reading and math (Jones et al. 1999). At the high 

school level, there may be end-of-course tests in history that focus 

primarily on recall of specific historical events. In this situation, 

teachers sometimes express feeling pressure to “cover” the entire 

history curriculum so students have at least heard the terms once 

before they take the test. 

The types of assessments included in this publication are not contradictory to the state-mandated assessments. Instead, they supplement and can actually help your students do better on state tests. 

The analysis of historical documents and information as discussed 

here builds students critical literacy skills, which should help them on 

a variety of standardized tests (Wineburg, 2005). 

What is the relationship between the types of assessments discussed 

in this book and the standardized tests that happen at the end of the 

year? To answer this question, let’s begin by looking at what teachers need to do to get students ready for standardized tests. First, they 

need to help students learn the content that would be included on 

the test. Second, they need to help students learn how to work with 

the content in the ways that are assessed on the test. Finally, they 

need to help their students learn test-taking strategies. The last item is 

probably the least important and needs the least amount of time—

although it can be the thing on which teachers focus the most. What 

teachers need to spend most of their time on is helping students learn 

the content and skills. 

“Can effective teaching take place in the absence of learning? 

Certainly not” (Guskey, 2003, p. 7). This quote reminds us of one 

simple rule for teachers: Just because a teacher teaches does not 

mean that a student learns. In order for students to learn, they need 

to work with the information. In a broad examination of effective 

instructional strategies, Marzano et al. (2001) reported on studies 

that found that students improved their achievement by approximately a quarter to a third when they engaged in strategies such 

as summarizing information, utilizing graphic organizers, and generating and testing hypotheses. In short, students’ achievement 

increases substantially when they are cognitively engaged with the 

content. Thus, although lecture or reading may be the most efficient 

way to teach the content, it will not always be the best way to get 

students to learn the content. 

CHAPTER SIX
53

If students need to learn the content in order to do well on the exams, 

how do you know whether they have learned the content? You need 

to assess, of course. Some of the assessments you choose to administer may mirror those that occur at the end of the year or end of 

the course. Those assessments will provide you with limited information about your students’ understanding. You may know how many 

answers a student got correct, but you may not know how thorough 

or accurate their understanding is of the event or topic. The kinds of 

assessments described in this manual give teachers richer information 

about what students can and can’t do. They will help you draw conclusions about students’ knowledge and skills and where they need 

to improve. 

In addition, some researchers have hypothesized that students 

are more motivated and are more likely to engage in learning for 

learning’s sake when they are doing more challenging performance 

assessments instead of paper and pencil tests (Brookhart and Durkin, 

2003). Motivating students to engage in learning is one of the most 

significant challenges of any teacher; if high quality performance 

assessments can help in that process, they will also likely contribute to 

improved achievement. 

Getting Started

Teachers who want to begin incorporating more and varied assessments in their history classrooms need to be aware that change is 

generally a gradual process that occurs through experience, dialogue and reflection. 

Teachers need time to try out new assessments, reflect on their success or failure, and make revisions. Just as student learning is an individual process that is self-directed and personally constructed, so is 

teacher learning about assessment practices. Changing assessment 

practices is not a simple, linear, lock-step process that all teachers follow in a prescribed manner. Rather, it is a process of becoming more 

purposeful about:

● Desired student outcomes in history

● The use of assessment methods that match well with 

desired outcomes

● The quality of the assessment including the criteria

● The use of grading systems that reflect student achievement 

on these outcomes. 

How might teachers engage in this more purposeful thinking about 

student assessments? 

1. Some districts have initiated district-wide staff development 

efforts to strengthen assessment within the context of sound 

instructional planning (e.g., units, lessons) in history. FIGURE 6-1 

shows one model of staff development in which assessment 

is being considered within the broader context of quality unit 

development. This model is being implemented by Roanoke 

Rapids, North Carolina and surrounding districts as part of a 

federal Teaching American History grant. 
54

2. If no systematic district or school professional development 

support is provided, teachers, either individually or in 

informal groups, could begin to reflect on their assessment 

practices. Incorporating more and varied assessments into 

the classroom may be easier if experiences, concerns, and 

frustrations are shared with colleagues. Sharing successful 

tasks and methods with other teachers also increases the 

number of assessments available. The idea of thinking 

about a teacher’s responsibility as that of providing 

quality work for students to do was advanced by Dr. Phillip 

Schlechty (2002), who is the founder of the Center for 

Leadership in School Reform in Louisville, Kentucky (www.

schlechtycenter.org). He defined ten dimensions of quality 

work (e.g., clear and compelling product standards or 

criteria, authenticity) so that teachers could have specific 

ideas about how to continually improve upon their 

assignments and performance assessments. Others have 

also developed rubrics that teachers can use to examine 

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(Source: Butler and McColskey, 2004 at http://www.serve.org/Assessment/assessmentpublicationh2.php). 

FIGURE 6-1: 

Model of Staff Development
55

the quality of their assignments/assessments (i.e., work 

given students to do):

http://www.cresst.org/resources/justforteachers_set.htm

http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/toolkit98/A36H1.PDF

http://www.consortium-chicago.org/publications/p0a02.html

In addition, there is support for teachers in the form of meeting 

protocols (structured agendas) for groups of teachers to use in 

conducting meetings for the purpose of “tuning” or improving 

the quality of their assessments or assignments (http://www.serve.

org/Assessment/IQ/strprofdev.php). For more information on forming 

Critical Friends Groups, see:

www.lasw.org/index.html

www.cesnorthwest.org/critical-friends-groups.htm

www.nsrfharmony.org

There is no right place to start with assessment. There are many 

activities, depending on the prior experience, time constraints, 

interest, and resources of the teacher(s) involved, that represent 

jumping-off points for changing or at least reflecting on assessment practices. 

Listed below are some examples of activities that might get conversations started about assessment practices. 

● Articulate one very important desired student outcome 

(refer to Chapter 2). For example, a teacher might be 

interested in how well a student can apply historical 

knowledge to an issue today. Review the assessment 

methods in Chapter 3 and choose an approach to assessing 

students’ competence in this area that you have not 

tried before. Try the assessment approach and see what 

you learn about student performance and about the 

assessment method. 

● Experiment with a format for a grading period that outlines 

for students the major goals you have for their performance, 

how their performance on these goals will be assessed, and 

how report card grades will be derived. 

● Start a list of the advantages and disadvantages of each of 

the assessment methods described in Chapter 3. What do you 

think you need to know from someone who has tried each 

method before you go any further? 

● Develop a chart (see FIGURE 5-1) showing how you can combine 

assessment data in obtaining student report card grades. What 

kind of weighting system are you using? Does the weighting 

match up with your priorities for student learning? 

● Analyze the tests you have used in the past. Try to sharpen 

the focus and eliminate more trivial items based on the 

information in this manual. 

● Start a folder of assessment samples from released state 

tests or item banks, other teachers, district tests, or published 

articles and critique them for your own purposes. 

● Revise the projects or essays you already do with your 

students. Identify those that are most essential and 

experiment with rubrics that could be used to assess student 
56

performance on those tasks. Reflect on the effect rubrics 

have on the instructional and assessment process. 

The process of incorporating and using a broader array of assessment methods can sharpen teachers’ thinking about the learning 

goals they have for their students and how to measure achievement of those goals. It can also result in improvements in the quality of instructional tasks that teachers design for students. Finally, 

if teachers are explicit and purposeful about their goals, students 

are more likely to evaluate the quality of their own work. The benefits of experimenting with a variety of assessment methods lies as 

much in the conversations they engender between teachers and 

students and among teachers as in the information they provide 

about student competence. Conversations about the characteristics of quality work can empower both students and teachers, 

resulting in powerful and engaging learning in history. 
57

Alabama Content Standards, Social Studies. Retrieved 3/6/2006 from http://

alex.state.al.us/standardAll.php?subject=T1&summary=1 

Andrade, H. (1999) Understanding rubrics. http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/rubricar.htm

Baker, E. L., Aschbacher, P.R., Niemi, D. & Sato, E. (1992) CRESST performance assessment models: Assessing content area explanations. Los 

Angeles: National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and 

Testing, UCLA

Baker, E. L. and Linn, R. L. (2002). Validity issues for accountability systems: CSE Technical Report 585. Los Angeles: Center for the Study of 

Evaluation, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and 

Testing, UCLA. http://cresst96.cse.ucla.edu/reports/TR585.pdf

Bangert-Drowns, R. L., Kulik, C. C., Kulik, J. L., & Morgan, M. (1991). “The 

instructional effect of feedback in test-like events.” Review of 

Educational Research, 61:2, 213-238. 

Black, P.& Wiliam, D. (1998b). “Inside the black box: Raising standards 

through classroom assessment.” Phi Delta Kappan, 80:2, 139-148 www.

pdkintl.org/kappan/kbla9810.htm 

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment 

for learning: Putting it into practice. Berkshire, England: Open 

University Press.

Brookhart, S. M. and Durkin, D.T. (2003). “Classroom assessment, student motivation, and achievement in high school social studies classes.” Applied 

Measurement in Education, 16:1, 27-54. 

Butler, S. and McColskey, W. (2004). “Increasing academic rigor through 

high-quality professional development.” The Vision, 3:2, 30-35. 

Chicago Public Schools (n.d.) The rubric bank. Retrieved 3/6/2006 from http://

intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Assessments/Ideas_and_Rubrics/Rubric_Bank/rubric_bank.html

Criswell, J.R and Criswell, S.J. (2004). “Asking essay questions: answering contemporary needs.” Education, 124: 3, 510-516. 

Drake, F. D. and McBride, L. W. (1997). “Reinvigorating the teaching of history 

through alternative assessment.” The History Teacher, 30. 145-173. 

Electronic Learning Marketplace (2005). http://www.elm.maine.edu/assessments/

National Center for Fair and Open Testing (n.d.). FairTest fact sheet: Multiplechoice tests. http://www.fairtest.org/facts/mctfcat.html

Guskey, T. R. (2003). “How classroom assessments improve learning.” 

Educational Leadership, 60:5, 6-11. 

Hafner, J. C., Hafner, P. M. (2003) “Quantitative analysis of the rubric as an 

assessment tool: an empirical study of student peer-group rating.” 

International Journal of Science Education, 25: 12, 1509-1528

Hattie, J. A. (1992). “Measuring the effects of schooling.” Australian Journal of 

Education, 36(1), 5-13. 

Haulmann, Bruce E. (2003). Vietnam War: Mid-term exam. Retrieved 

3/6/2006 from http://www.instruction.greenriver.edu/Haulman/History250DE/

H250DLW6.htm

Herman, J. L., Aschbacher, P.R. & Winters L. (1992). A practical guide to 

alternative assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision, 

Curriculum, and Development. 

Jones, G.M., Jones, B.D., Hardin, B., Chapman, L., Yarbrough, T. and Davis, M. 

(1999). “The impact of high-stakes testing on teachers and students.” Phi 

Delta Kappan 81:3, 199-203.

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York: HarperCollins.

Lewin, L. and Shoemaker, B.J. (1998). Great performances: Creating 

classroom-based assessment tasks. Alexandria, VA: Association for 

Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. and Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom instruction 

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Development.

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McBride, L. W., Drake, F. B. and Lewinski, M. (2005). Alternative assessment in 

the social sciences. http://www.coe.ilstu.edu/jabraun/socialstudies/assess/socsci/frames.html

McCoy, M. M. (2003) “Incorporating effective writing strategies.” Social 

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McTighe, J. & Wiggins, G. (2004). Understanding by design professional 

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WCB Brown & Benchmark.

Mertler, Craig A. (2001). “Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom.” 

Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7:25. Retrieved May 18, 

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59

In addition to the resources already mentioned in the manual, we’d 

like to suggest the following.

Resources for Teaching History

The History Matters website contains an extensive collection of primary 

source documents on U.S. history, resources for teaching history, and 

links to other websites. Their primary sources tend to focus on the experiences of everyday Americans at different stages in history, although 

they will provide links to the classical texts. If you’re teaching U.S. History, 

this is probably one of the most useful sites on the web: www.historymatters.gmu.edu. 

World History Matters is similar but not as extensive and is primarily designed 

for high school and college teachers: http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorymatters/. 

The American Memory collection at the Library of Congress contains over 

7 million primary sources related to U.S. History. Needless to say, it can 

be a bit difficult to find the perfect resource but their learning page for 

teachers tries to make things easier: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/ 

The Avalon Project at Yale has an extensive collection of online documents 

related to law, history, and diplomacy around the world. This is the 

place to go for treaties, constitutions, military documents, and the like. 

Many of the classic historical texts can also be found here: http://www.

yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm 

History World includes timelines and basic factual history for countries around 

the world. This would be good for providing an overview of history for a 

particular time period or a particular country: www.historyworld.net.

The National Humanities Center is developing toolboxes for teachers on periods in U.S. History. These toolboxes include primary sources, some background information, and guiding questions for discussion: http://www.nhc.

rtp.nc.us/ 

The National Center for History in the Schools is the author of the National 

History Standards. Their website also contains sample units in world and 

U.S. history: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/ 

Resources on Teaching Writing

Urquhart, V. and McIver, M. (2005). Teaching Writing in the Content 

Areas. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum 

Development. This recently published book comes with a study guide 

for teachers to use. 

Caswell, R. and Mahler, B. (2004). Strategies for Teaching Writing: An ASCD 

Action Tool. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum 

Development. In addition to writing strategies, this three-ring binder 

includes resources such as templates and rubrics. 

Northwest Regional Education Laboratory connects assessment and writing in its 6+1Trait Writing professional development and resources. More 

information can be found at their website: http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/

department.php?d=1 

ReadWriteThink is a website sponsored by the National Council of Teachers 

of English and the International Reading Association. It contains 

resources related to improving reading and writing: www.readwritethink.org 

The National Writing Project is centered on improving the teaching of writing. 

Information on its books and professional development can be found 

on its website: www.writingproject.org.

Resources on Dialogue and Questioning: 

The National Paideia Center (www.paideia.org) provides free online curriculum 

resources for planning and implementing seminars in your classroom. 

They also provide professional development. 

The Critical Thinking Community promotes critical thinking in schools. They 

include resources on questioning: www.criticalthinking.org. 

Resources
60

The SERVE Center at UNCG, under the leadership of Dr. Ludwig David 

van Broekhuizen, is an education organization with the mission to 

promote and support the continuous improvement of educational 

opportunities for all learners in the Southeast. The organization’s 

commitment to continuous improvement is manifest in an applied 

research-to-practice model that drives all of its work. Building on 

research, professional wisdom, and craft knowledge, SERVE staff 

members develop tools, processes, and interventions designed to 

assist practitioners and policymakers with their work. SERVE’s ultimate goal is to raise the level of student achievement in the region. 

Evaluation of the impact of these activities combined with input 

from stakeholders expands SERVE’s knowledge base and informs 

future research.

This rigorous and practical approach to research and development 

is supported by an experienced staff strategically located throughout the region. This staff is highly skilled in providing needs assessment services, conducting applied research in schools, and developing processes, products, and programs that support educational 

improvement and increase student achievement. In the last three 

years, in addition to its basic research and development work with 

over 170 southeastern schools, SERVE staff provided technical assistance and training to more than 18,000 teachers and administrators 

across the region.

The SERVE Center is governed by a board of directors that includes 

the governors, chief state school officers, educators, legislators, and 

private sector leaders from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, 

North Carolina, and South Carolina.

SERVE’s operational core is the Regional Educational Laboratory. 

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education 

Sciences, the Regional Educational Laboratory for the Southeast 

is one of ten Laboratories providing research-based information 

and services to all 50 states and territories. These Laboratories form 

a nationwide education knowledge network, building a bank of 

information and resources shared and disseminated nationally 

and regionally to improve student achievement. SERVE’s National 

Leadership Area, Expanded Learning Opportunities, focuses on 

improving student outcomes through the use of exemplary pre-K and 

extended-day programs.

P.O. Box 5367 • Greensboro, NC 27435

800-755-3277 • 336-315-7400 • Fax 336-315-7457

Ludwig David van Broekhuizen, Ph.D., Executive Director

www.serve.org