START WITH A PROMPT

When drafting the prompt, include as many specifics regarding your output expectations as possible; the details associated with a creating a grading rubric for a history course are bolded in the example below.

SUGGESTED MODEL: Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Haiku (I had more success with Claude than with ChatGPT - but feel free to use your preferred AI platform).

PROMPT: You are community college History professor with 20 years fulltime teaching experience. You want to be more objective in your approaches to grading by utilizing rubrics to assess student writing. Writing is a critical skill freshman and sophomores need to develop. Create an holistic grading rubric to evaluate research papers. The rubric needs to have 5 criteria reflecting quality writing such as thesis statement clarity, organization, the use of evidence, etc. Please include 5 performance standards associated with the traditional A-F grading scale. Include all of these elements within one rubric. Thanks!

CREATING A USABLE RUBRIC

Claude’s standard text-based response (left), and the Artifacts window (right).

At this stage, you can refine your prompt, ask follow up questions, or copy the material.

When are are ready to copy the AI output, simply cutting and pasting the text, however, may not be what you are interested in since it will lack the formatting of a traditional rubric. How can you make the AI output usable?

GENERATING A CSV FILE

Once you are satisfied with the AI-generated content, write another prompt!

PROMPT: Can you translate this into a CSV file and explain to me how to open that file in Excel? Thanks!

Once the AI converts the text into the correct format:

1. In the Artifacts window, click on the action arrow [v] associated with the Copy button and select “Download as txt”
2. Open the generated .txt file but save it with a .CSV extension (e.g., “essay-grading_rubric.csv”)
3. Open the Excel program > click on File > Open > find the CSV file
4. The content of the CSV file will populate the new spreadsheet, but it will require formatting (Image 1)
5. Once the rubric is formatted to perfection! > save it with the preferred Excel extension
   

Unformatted content from a CSV file opened for the first time in Excel.

Rubric content from a CSV file formatted by the user in Excel.

If you are not using Claude:

1. In the follow-up prompt as the AI platform to translate the text into a TXT file format
2. Open a text editor, such as Notepad (on a Windows laptop, type “Notepad” into the “Type here to search” box to access the program)
3. Paste the formatted text onto the page and save the file with a .CSV extension (e.g., “essay-grading_rubric.csv”)
4. Open the Excel program > click on File > Open > find the CSV file
5. The content of the CSV file will populate the new spreadsheet, but it will require formatting (Image 1)
6. Once the rubric is formatted to perfection! > save it with the preferred Excel extension