Rubric for Written Expression on Current Events
(from Baase)

Give a short description of what the article is about and how it relates to the material of our course. It is not necessary to summarize the whole article, but be sure to include the publication date and enough information to let the rest of us find it and read it for ourselves. For maximum credit, your submission should also include your own thoughts about the article. That is, it should include relevant observations, implications or questions about the article, rather than just passing along information from the article.

Advanced Proficient
The submission gives a clear description of what the article is about, and clearly explains how it is related to the course material. It includes relevant observations or questions about the article (as described above).  Grammar is excellent. 

Proficient
The submission gives a description of what the article is about, and how it is related to the course material. However, it reports only information from the article, without adding significant new thoughts about the article.  Grammar is good.

Partially Proficient
The article appears to be related to the course material, but the submission does not explain this connection or does not add any new thoughts. May have some grammatical errors. 

Not Proficient
The article does not seem to be relevant to the course material; or the submission does not contain enough information to allow someone else to find and read the article. Has grammatical or spelling errors.