“we need to look to the piece of writing itself to suggest its own evaluative criteria” – a truly radical and provocative suggestion.

Thus, the dilemma:  Either our instruction and our assessment remain “out of synch” or the instruction gets worse in order that students’ writing can be easily judged with the help of rubrics.

In fact, when the how’s of assessment preoccupy us, they tend to chase the why’s back into the shadows.