History departments often disagree, politely or not, about what strong student writing looks like. One teacher rewards detail, another rewards argument, and a third grades mostly on organization. Students notice, and so do parents.

A common assessment is one way to close that gap. Everyone gives the same prompt, uses the same sources, and scores with the same rubric. The results tell you about student learning, not about which teacher grades harder.

Loewen's book offers a natural anchor. A prompt asking students to compare a textbook passage with primary sources fits almost any U.S. history course and measures skills that matter. It also gives teachers a shared conversation about what critical reading means.

Loewen's later book, Teaching What Really Happened, offers practical classroom ideas that pair well with this kind of department work.

Designing the Assessment

Start with the skills you want to measure, then write the prompt. Keep the source set short enough to read in a class period. Pilot the assessment with one section before rolling it out to everyone.

• Choose two or three skills, such as claim, evidence, and source evaluation
• Write a prompt that requires those skills and no others
• Assemble a short source set, including one textbook-style passage
• Draft a four-level rubric with plain-language descriptors
• Pilot with a small group and revise before full use

Norming the Scorers

Set aside a department meeting for scoring practice. Everyone scores the same anchor papers, then compares results and discusses differences. Two rounds are usually enough to bring most teachers within a point of each other.

Save the anchor papers and notes. New teachers can use them to learn the standard, and you can use them next year. That documentation makes the assessment sustainable.

Using the Data

Look at results by skill instead of by teacher. If source evaluation scores are low across every section, that is a curriculum question rather than a teaching problem. It gives the department a shared target.

AI grading platforms can speed up this process by scoring all sections against one rubric and producing skill-level reports. Teachers still review scores, but the department gets a consistent view of results without waiting weeks for every paper to be read.

Making It Stick

Repeat the assessment at least twice a year so you can see growth. Share results with teachers in a way that supports them rather than ranks them. Trust is what keeps a common assessment from becoming a compliance exercise.

Revisit the rubric annually. As teachers learn from scoring, the descriptors should get sharper. A rubric that never changes is usually one nobody is really using.