Types of Rubrics
As Georgia transitions to updated ELA standards and Milestones writing expectations for the 2025–2026 school year, Writable supports educators with two aligned rubric options: the Georgia Milestones Holistic Rubric and the Georgia Milestones Detailed Practice Rubric. This guide will help you understand the differences between the rubrics, their benefits, and when to use them to support writing instruction, formative feedback, and Milestones readiness across grades 3–12.
The Focus of Georgia’s Writing Rubrics
All student writing, narrative, argumentative, or informational is now scored using the same rubric. This marks a shift from Georgia’s previous genre-specific rubrics and promotes a consistent focus on common writing traits.
Instead of evaluating genre-only features such as:
Including a counterargument (argument)
Using sensory details and character development (narrative)
Structuring thesis-driven paragraphs with evidence (informational)
The Georgia Milestones rubric emphasizes broader writing qualities like:
Developing and organizing ideas clearly
Using appropriate and effective language
Maintaining focus and purpose
Demonstrating grammar and conventions
Matching tone and style to audience and task
Georgia Milestones Holistic Rubric
Definition: This rubric mirrors the official scoring used in the Milestones assessments. It ensures alignment with the Georgia ELA standards. The holistic rubric evaluates student work across three key domains with a maximum possible score of 8 points.
Purpose and Organization (3 points) assesses the writer’s ability to construct a purposeful and well-organized text. This includes having a clear structure, appropriate transitions, and alignment with the intended audience and writing mode.
Evidence and Elaboration (3 points) measures how effectively the student uses relevant facts, explanations, examples, and elaboration to support their ideas, emphasizing the use of their own words rather than relying heavily on source material.
Language Usage and Conventions (2 points) evaluates grammar, mechanics, sentence fluency, word choice, and spelling to ensure the writing is clear, accurate, and appropriate for the task.
Benefits:
Aligned directly with Milestones scoring expectations
Encourages accountability for addressing the prompt and writing purposefully
Reflects Georgia's official scoring methods
Supports district benchmarking and Milestones readiness
When to Use:
Common district assessments or benchmarks
End-of-unit or summative writing collections
To answer: “If students took the test today, how would they perform?”
Georgia Milestones Detailed Practice Rubric
Definition: This rubric expands the three Milestones traits into a more granular evaluation, breaking down writing into subskills, offering more detailed formative feedback aligned to the same scoring domains (Purpose & Organization, Evidence & Elaboration, Language Usage & Conventions).
Benefits:
Provides actionable, skill-specific feedback to students
Encourages growth in targeted areas like elaboration, transitions, or language use
Ideal for formative assessment, revision, conferencing, and student self-reflection
Supports differentiated instruction
When to Use:
Early in the year for baseline and scaffolding
During writing workshop or revision cycles
When focusing on specific traits, such as organization or elaboration
When providing detailed, actionable feedback is the instructional goal
Choosing the Right Rubric in Writable
Guiding Questions: By considering your assessment goals, instructional focus, and audience, you can choose the rubric that best aligns with your needs. Ask yourself these questions to determine the best rubric for your needs:
Are you preparing students for standardized tests (e.g., Milestones)?
Use the Holistic Rubric
Are you looking for nuanced scoring that is comparable to the scoring on Milestones assessments?
Use the Holistic Rubric
Is the focus on supporting growth in specific writing traits and support the delivery of formative, skill-focused feedback?
Use the Detailed Practice Rubric
Do you want students to engage in peer review and revision as part of the writing process?
Use the Detailed Practice Rubric
Sample Instructional Sequence
This sequence shows how to use both rubrics across the school year to build writing skills progressively and align to state testing expectations.
Fall → Start with the Detailed Practice Rubric to build awareness of writing traits
Winter → Introduce the Holistic Rubric to transition to Milestones expectations
Spring → Use the Holistic Rubric regularly to build writing fluency and test readiness
Next Steps and Support
If you have questions about choosing or customizing rubrics, contact our support team at support@writable.com.