What´s Annotated Bibliography?

The annotated bibliography is an important part of the research process. The annotated bibliography helps students identify credible sources and summarize the valuable information they can pull and incorporate into their writing. This type of assignment “also provides insight into the research process undertaken by students due to its reflective nature…students used the annotated bibliography assignment to reflect upon their searches, and demonstrate evidence of research strategy revision, which was not as easily ascertained from final written papers” (Carbery and Leahy). By assigning an annotated bibliography, I can make sure students are taking their research seriously and I can monitor their progress on the final writing assignment.

The last thing I want to do is overwhelm students with new information about composition. If students begin to feel the course is cumbersome then they will quickly lose interest. Aysegul Bayraktar states:

Determining and increasing students level of self-efficacy is essential because students with high self-efficacy work hard, persist, seek help when completing challenging tasks, feel less apprehensive when faced with writing problems, approach difficult tasks as challenges instead of ignoring or avoiding them to save face, set more challenged goals, believe that they will achieve their goals, take risks, engage in related activities, and are confident with the awareness of

I will share each rubric with my students before their final drafts are due so they know exactly how they will be evaluated and to clear up confusion or uncertainty. According to Carbery and Leahy, there are many well-documented benefits to using rubrics including:

• Helping students learn more effectively

• Students understanding the expectations of the instructors

• Grades becoming more meaningful

• Making is explicit what students are expected to learn

• Facilitating self-evaluation

• Promoting deep learning

While I did use the state-provided rubrics as models, I made several modifications to each rubric in order to make them directly applicable to my classroom assignments. For instance, I added point values to each criteria on the rubric. The categories worth more points are the areas of the lesson that I find to be most important. These are also the areas that I will reiterate and emphasize to my students over the course of the unit. I also revised the criteria and the characteristics that differentiate an exceptional paper from an inadequate paper when appropriate. The annotated bibliography rubric is an evaluation tool that I created from scratch but I wanted to maintain the same format as the other rubrics I am utilizing in my