Assess thinking and reasoning, not maps. The Seeing Reason mapping tool is your window into the development of your students' understanding about a problem or system they investigate. It allows you to monitor their initial understanding and to see their progress in interpretation and integration of information. Assessment should focus on their learning about the problem or context of the study. Avoid assessing the maps themselves. Focus on the development of thinking about the problem or system. Use a series of saved maps to track the changes and students' writing about their understanding over time. Scoring rubrics should look at how a map contributes to understanding of the problem rather than simply the number of factors and relationships in a map.