In his article, The Trouble with Rubrics, Kohn goes against the current pedogogical status quo and seeks to discredit the use of rubrics. So many schools advocate for rubrics in to help students see what needs to be done to "get the grade." Kohn pulls an interesting point that the very tools we sought to help them are dampening authentic learning. According to the author, "Studies have shown that too much attention to the quality of one’s performance is associated with more superficial thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the face of failure, and a tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control (p. 14)." Moreover, "students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they’re doing often become less engaged with what they’re doing (p.13)." Does this sound like authentic learning? No.

Further, Kohn introduces us to Mabry, a teacher who is a serious proponent of throwing rubrics out the metaphorical pedogogical window. She is concerned with students learning helplessness from the organized and inorganic rubrics given to them relentlessly. "Students, presumably having grown accustomed to rubrics in other classrooms, now seemed “unable to function unless every required item is spelled out for them in a grid and assigned a point value. Worse than that,” she [Mabry] added, “they do not have confidence in their thinking or writing skills and seem unwilling to really take risks” (email to author) (p. 13). 

We want brilliant writers, not dependent box checkers. Kohn cited Mabry's reaseach “compliance with the rubric tended to yield higher scores but produced ‘vacuous’ writing” (678) (p.13)." We don't want to stifle creativity and life. We want to encourage and foster vivacious writing, the next J.K. Rowling, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or some nameless famous blogger could be sitting in our classrooms. Due to this we must focus on offering "feedback that will help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they’re doing (p.14)"