Blogging rubric. My blogging students and I needed some way to grade the blogs. We had already looked at many blogs together and written many posts. I thought we could probably compose a rubric together in late semester, and here is what we came up with, below. I've tinkered with it slightly to make it clearer to people who weren't in on the class discussion. When the time came, I focused on a dozen posts, chosen by each writer, as the main evidence of their good work, though I did consider the rest of their work too.

For a grade of A, a blog should have all the *C and **B traits plus:

Well-developed and organized sidebar with updated, especially well-focused links.
Posts well-focused on a specific element of the blog's topic or topics.
Author frequently offers in-depth comments that further discussion on classmates' blogs.

For a grade of B, a blog should have all the *C traits plus:

**Commenting widely on blogs by many classmates.
**All posts are relevant to the needs of the audience.
**All links are relevant to the blog and make it stronger.
**Standing searches and news aggregator regularly produce relevant content from standing seaches.
**Posting frequently and regularly in ways that are relevant to the site's subject.
**Writes concisely.
**Development of a clear house style.
**Responding regularly in a specific, engaged manner to other people's sites and their comments on your site.
Well-developed sidebar with pertinent links.
Posts develop toward a specific audience and well-focused topics are emerging.
Commenting regularly in a way that engages the topic thoughtfully.

For a grade of C (satisfactory):

*Frequently makes clear sentence to sentence cohesion.
*Correct grammar and punctuation use. (In special cases, informal grammar and punctuation, as planned to be appropriate for a particular audience -- arranged ahead of time with the instructor.)
*Does the assignments that have been given over the semester.
*Making sure in-post links work when posting them -- permalink strategy.
Broad or general collection of topics or focus.
Sidebar with a collection of relevent links.
Responding occasionally to other people's sites.
Responding occasionally to those who comment on your site.
Some wordiness remains.
Posts frequently and regularly.
Commenting occasionally in a way that shows the piece was read and that has relevance to the posting.
Commenting on only a portion of the class's blogs.
Standing searches and news aggregator occasionally producing relevant content from standing searches.
Links have relevance to the site.
Many posts are related to the needs of the audience. [0 & P]