Dr. Diekman used a writing rubric and a critical thinking rubric to evaluate student work in PSY 410.F, A Capstone: Work and Family Roles.  She used 4 of the 7 categories (problem, evidence, perspective, and conclusion) on the Miami adaptation of the Washington State critical thinking rubric and developed her own rubric to assess the important aspects of good writing.  A multi-stage project including an interview-based paper, a literature review/research proposal and a final paper was assessed using the rubrics.  In addition to assessment, she also used the rubrics to provide a structure to consider critical thinking, to evaluate class readings according to the criteria, and to focus students’ efforts on their writing.  This integration of the rubrics into the course provided a common language and framework that the class could take from text to text.  She reported that, “Students’ evaluation of the critical thinking and writing rubrics were overwhelmingly positive.  They appreciated that the guidelines were clear and they could track their improvement from one stage of the project to the next.”