Pick a template as a starting point, then rename the criteria to match your subject. The descriptors in the templates are deliberately generic — your real ones will be sharper. Adjust the levels. Four levels (Excellent / Proficient / Developing / Beginning) is the default because it forces a real judgement — three encourages "middling everything" and five collapses into noise. But if your school standardises on a 3- or 6-point scale, add or remove columns to match. Write the descriptors so a student can tell which level they hit without you in the room. "Clear thesis" is weaker than "Original thesis sustained across all body paragraphs"; the second is checkable. Print it straight from the browser (the print view hides the editor and shows only the rubric). Or copy the Markdown into Google Classroom, Canvas, Moodle, Schoology, etc.

Don't use the same words at every level. "Excellent organisation" / "Good organisation" / "Some organisation" / "Poor organisation" tells the student nothing. Force yourself to describe what each level actually looks like in their work. The level points are weights, not the only grade. A 4-level rubric with 5 criteria gives a 5–20 raw range. Decide separately how that maps to a letter or percentage; rubrics describe the work, not the grade scale. Avoid double-counting. If "argument" and "analysis" overlap heavily, you'll punish or reward the same weakness twice. Read the criteria together and split them into different things. Keep cells short. Long descriptors look thorough but students don't read them. Two short sentences max per cell. Hand it out before the work begins. A rubric you reveal after marking is just a justification document. Used up front, it shapes the work. Markdown tables strip line breaks inside cells. The Markdown output replaces newlines with spaces so your table doesn't break in GitHub or your LMS. The HTML preview keeps your line breaks.

Rubric Generator

Generate printable rubrics (markdown + HTML preview + print view) from a list of criteria and performance levels. Designed for teachers planning assessments.

Rubric title

Start from a template

Performance levels (columns)

Criteria (rows)

Preview

Markdown source

Enter input above to see the result.

What is this for?

A rubric is the single most useful thing you can hand a student before they hit "submit". It tells them what excellent work looks like before they write a word — and it tells you, the marker, what you're scoring on before you start. Writing one from scratch is fiddly: you have to lay out a grid, agree on level names, write four short descriptors for each criterion that actually distinguish those levels. This tool gives you a familiar editor (criteria as rows, performance levels as columns), pre-built templates for essays, projects, presentations, lab reports and group work, and produces both a printable HTML preview and clean Markdown you can paste into your LMS or planning doc.

How to use it

Pick a template as a starting point, then rename the criteria to match your subject. The descriptors in the templates are deliberately generic — your real ones will be sharper.
Adjust the levels. Four levels (Excellent / Proficient / Developing / Beginning) is the default because it forces a real judgement — three encourages "middling everything" and five collapses into noise. But if your school standardises on a 3- or 6-point scale, add or remove columns to match.
Write the descriptors so a student can tell which level they hit without you in the room. "Clear thesis" is weaker than "Original thesis sustained across all body paragraphs"; the second is checkable.
Print it straight from the browser (the print view hides the editor and shows only the rubric). Or copy the Markdown into Google Classroom, Canvas, Moodle, Schoology, etc.

Common gotchas

Don't use the same words at every level. "Excellent organisation" / "Good organisation" / "Some organisation" / "Poor organisation" tells the student nothing. Force yourself to describe what each level actually looks like in their work.
The level points are weights, not the only grade. A 4-level rubric with 5 criteria gives a 5–20 raw range. Decide separately how that maps to a letter or percentage; rubrics describe the work, not the grade scale.
Avoid double-counting. If "argument" and "analysis" overlap heavily, you'll punish or reward the same weakness twice. Read the criteria together and split them into different things.
Keep cells short. Long descriptors look thorough but students don't read them. Two short sentences max per cell.
Hand it out before the work begins. A rubric you reveal after marking is just a justification document. Used up front, it shapes the work.
Markdown tables strip line breaks inside cells. The Markdown output replaces newlines with spaces so your table doesn't break in GitHub or your LMS. The HTML preview keeps your line breaks.