Poetry Out Loud Scoring Rubric

Very Weak Weak Average Good Excellent Outstanding

Stiff or agitated; Body language Comfortable; Poised; body Authoritative; body

Timid; unsure; eye
lacks eye contact and eye contact steady eye language and language and eye
Physical with audience;
contact and body
are at times contact and eye contact contact show
Presence language reflects
appears unsure, at times confident body reveal strong compelling stage
nervousness
uncomfortable confident language stage presence presence

Very clear,
Audible, but Very clear, crisp,
Inaudible; slow; Clear, crisp, effective
quiet; too loud; Clear, adequate mastery of rhythm
Voice and distracting rhythm;
monotone; paced intonation, even
appropriate use of volume,
and pace, skillful
Articulation singsong; hurried; intonation and intonation,
unevenly; affected pacing use of volume and
mispronunciations pacing rhythm, and
tone intonation
pacing
Poem is
Poem is
overshadowed by Poem is secondary Style of
enhanced by Style of delivery
significant to style of delivery; delivery
Poem is neither style of reflects
Dramatic distracting gestures, includes instances reflects
overwhelmed delivery; any internalization of
facial expressions, of distracting precedence of
Appropriate- inflections or gestures, facial
nor enhanced gestures, facial
poem; poem’s
poem; all gestures
by style of expressions, and movements feel
ness accents; acting out expressions, and
delivery and movement
voice is well
essential to poem’s
of poem; singing; vocal inflections; conveyed
are appropriate success
over-emoting; inappropriate tone
to poem
inappropriate tone
Contains very
Contains extremely
Contains two challenging
One element of challenging content
Straight-forward elements of content and
Simple content, challenging and language;
Level of easy language, short
language and
content,
challenging language;
length is
Difficulty content; moderate content, length is
length language, or challenging for a
length language, or appropriate to
length poem of this
length complexity of
complexity
poem

Masterfully
Evidence of Doesn’t Satisfactorily Interprets
Conveys interprets poem for
Obscures meaning sufficiently communicates poem very well
Understand- of poem communicate meaning of
meaning of
for audience;
audience, deftly
poem well revealing poem’s
ing meaning of poem poem nuanced
meaning

Inspired
Captivating
performance
Sufficient performance—
Ineffective or Inadequate Enjoyable shows grasp of
recitation; lacks whole equals “more
Overall inappropriate recitation;
meaningful
recitation; recitation skills
than the sum of the
Performance recitation; does lackluster; does successfully and enhances
impact on parts”; shows
disservice to poem disservice to poem delivers poem audience’s
audience mastery of recitation
experience of
skills
the poem