Story Evaluation Rubric

Story Evaluation Rubric

• Due to the nature of our platform (the text of the stories will not be seen, just the illustrations), it is crucial that ALL stories can generally be clearly discerned from just the pictures alone. Understandable, sequential, engaging, concrete story plots. These stories should generate fun and engaging images that could easily help a child be able to write a creative story.  
• Our audience age is approximately ages 7-12, with the 8-10 age range being our “golden” range. All stories should be geared towards this age range. Avoid stories that are too simple or too complex. 
• Transition from State A to State B: Are there gaps in the story or characters that are hard to show just with pictures? If the child is following the story and suddenly things change without explanation, it could be due to missing dialogue or ideas that are hard to show visually. 
• Universality: The books in WriteStories will be used in various places like the countryside, cities, the US, India, and more. Fantasy and learning new things are okay, but if understanding the story depends on specific cultural knowledge or advanced concepts, there might be issues. For example, if your villain makes fake archeological artifacts or spreads false news to crash a company's stock, it could be hard for an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old to understand, especially with just simple pictures and no words. Being sensitive to a worldwide audience is very important. All stories should ideally be universal and be able to be used in any culture if possible. 
• Evil as Evil: Not all stories can or should be sunshine and unicorns. Conflict as part of the story arc can come from a number of sources (natural or bad personal choices, etc...). It is ok, to depict evil in the story (also keeping in mind the age of the children - nothing too disturbing or above age-level appropriateness), but it needs to be portrayed as evil and not good or neutral. It is important to keep in mind that any evil portrayed as evil in the story needs to be able to be clearly shown as such in the pictures as well as text. 
• This is our publicly shared statement regarding our library of books. Does the story adhere to this statement? 

• • • • Scriptive believes that books can have a profound influence on the lives and development of all of us, including our children. Because of this, Scriptive is very careful with what books are chosen for the Scriptive library and are vetted by our team of experts. Scriptive guarantees selections in our library are family-friendly and age-appropriate.
      • As to content, there are also things that we actively seek. We enjoy books with powerful messages that teach kindness, respect, bravery, trustworthiness, helpfulness, cheerfulness, and hard work. We enjoy beauty in writing and illustrations, positive messages, and wholesome fun.
      • However, there are things we actively stay away from. We avoid inappropriate and sexual content, profane language, and innuendos. We avoid stories that are disrespectful or have inappropriate behavior to any group or individual. We also stay away from political messaging.

• Cohesiveness: The story should not depend on dialogue or internal conflict. The story should be able to be discerned from the visible pictures.
• Story Arc: Does the story contain a story arc? This is important for writing development in children and we want to emphasize that on our platform.