It seems like there is a lot of pressure on writing assessments. Maybe it is just me, or my district, but I do not feel nearly as pressured about the writing assessment as I do the reading assessment. This is probably due to the fact that we have not had one in three years since the state did not have it in their budget.
However, our DCT says the writing assessment is scheduled to return in 2013. With that in mind, our DCT wanted us to find a better way to assess writing. We had a meeting not long ago discussing giving our students a writting pretest and post test at each grade level (6-8). We had not done this before, but our feeder high schools are, therefore, we thought it would be beneficial to all if we started it in middle school. We decided the pretest will be given within the first two weeks of school, with the idea that not many teachers will have taught writing so the results will give the teachers a good baseline. There are five prompts that the students are to select, and each grade level has a different set. There also a specified number of days (only because we need a control factor) to complete the writing. Each grade level will be given a specified rubric to use for grading the pre/post assessments. The post test will be given the last two-three weeks of school. We had decided that the students would get to select one of the five prompts, but could not write about the same one. This really is our only change in our curriculum, which will actually be beneficial to all the teachers. CA teachers will continue to write every day, and will now have a product to use as a jumping off point for teaching writing at the beginning of the year.
This chapter talks about rubrics, and how some teachers get "rubric happy." I use them when grading projects or writing, but do not solely rely on them. There are some great kid friendly rubrics available, which are what I use. I also like my rubrics to be very specific for my students to understand why they missed two points on a part. Has anyone tried having their students help them to create a rubric? That is something I would like to try.
From my experience thus far, I have found providing student examples of excellent and poor writing to help students see what my expectation is for them. Yes, a rubric tells them the areas in which they are graded, but allowing them to see what is deemed excellent givens them a true understanding. Not only showing the examples, but like the books says to ask students questions like:
- What made this a good piece of writing?
- What did the writer not do?
- What revisions could the writer have made?
- What suggestions would you give if a student had written this piece?
- Even if the piece is good, what could make it better?
I liked that idea of having students help create the rubric, too, and I'd love to see some of the ones you're using now.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a DCT?
Comments by Jacinda:
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to pressure from district and testing. I hate it, but can actually understand some of it. I like what you use in your classroom. I like how you show your kids examples of what to expect and what YOU expect. I think that is a great way to start out the year.