A Programmatic Ecology of Assessment: Using a Common Rubric to Evaluate Multimodal Processes and Artifacts

• Rubrics based on rhetorical factors can productively assess multimodal artifacts, such as games, in first-year composition.
• Value, environment, and scale are important factors in the ecology of assessment.
• An ecology of assessment values feedback from programmatic rubrics that can adapt and strengthen multimodal curricula.
• Rubrics aid programmatic consistency, instructor workload, and self-critique.

Rubrics are important assessment tools and can play a critical role in relation to workload, programmatic consistency, and multimodality. Teachers need supporting tools for multimodal assessment. Multimodal composition curricula can productively use programmatic rubrics when those rubrics are part of an ecology of assessment that prioritizes feedback and adaptation. Addressing factors of value, environment, and scale, an ecology of assessment can use rubrics as a normal part of a writing and communication program, while nonetheless acknowledging that rubrics can be sterile, artificial, and oversimplified. After discussing a rationale for rubrics and the ways in which a programmatic rubric can be adapted, a specific case study illustrates the application of a programmatic rubric for the design, development, and assessment of a game project in a first-year English composition class. The article concludes by speculating about directions for research and pedagogy to strengthen multimodal assessment.