For more than 25 years, the Alaska State Writing Consortium, a member of the National Writing Project, has worked to provide our member districts and teachers with the best possible professional development opportunities. This blog was created from professional discussions by the ASWC Virtual Institute'12.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Week 5: Final discussion of Because Writing Matters
Both sections of our class will meet for final, collaboration conversation about our text this week. Please join the conversations and post under Weekly Resources, to Week Five 3/12.
One thing that I agreed with in chapter 5 is that you can not take one student's writing performance on a single occasion. However, I do think that you can tell what kind of mechanics the student needs to work on. For example I have a student that struggles with run on sentences and and sentence fragments but in some cases the content of her writing is strong and in other genres her content is week, but her conventions stay consistent.
Another thing that I really agreed with is that rubrics should focus on appropriate criteria for the task being assessed. In my class we study one mode of writing over a two week span. Let's say we are studying summaries, I will do mini lessons on summaries every day and then all 5 days of the week the student will write a summary. The second week we work on one summary and we take it through the entire writing process. Day one prewriting, day two drafting, day three finish drafts and start revising, day four finish revising and start editing, day five finish editing and publish. They get a checklist/rubric on the first day so that they know how they are getting graded for the project. Some parts stay the same on the checklist other parts change depending on the mode of writing.
Checklist Break Down: The writing process is worth 10 points, so if they turn in their prewriting, draft with revisions and editing, their writing process checklist which has the steps broken down, and their published copy they get 10 points. Structure is usually worth about 10 points, they get points for appropriate title, paragraph formation, topic and conclusion sentences. Content is usually worth 18 points, this is where the checklist becomes a rubric and they have clear expectations for what needs to be in the writing. Conventions are worth 12 points, they get 3 points for proper indenting, 3 points for capitalization and punctuation, 3 points for grammar and spelling, and 3 points for handwriting. So really 6 of the points are based on effort they just need to indent and write neatly to get 6 out of the twelve points.
I think I got a little sidetracked. What I am trying to say and agree with is that checklists and rubrics are important when it comes to assessing student performance.
Next part I liked in chapter 5 was the part about portfolios. This is an area in my career that I need work, and this is one thing that is not a part of my classroom that I am going to focus incorporating. I am not sure how yet but I know that it is important. The different case studies ideas presented in this chapter have got me thinking. I don't think it is something I am going to incorporate this year because I like consistency and if I tried to implement it this late in the year I just would not be comfortable.
The other two chapters were interesting but I did not find a lot to respond to. The things about professional developement were important and I know that this is something that our school needs more of. My fifth grade team and I are very cohesive and what we do with writing but I don't think the school is on the same page and we could use some work in this area as a school.
One thing that I agreed with in chapter 5 is that you can not take one student's writing performance on a single occasion. However, I do think that you can tell what kind of mechanics the student needs to work on. For example I have a student that struggles with run on sentences and and sentence fragments but in some cases the content of her writing is strong and in other genres her content is week, but her conventions stay consistent.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I really agreed with is that rubrics should focus on appropriate criteria for the task being assessed. In my class we study one mode of writing over a two week span. Let's say we are studying summaries, I will do mini lessons on summaries every day and then all 5 days of the week the student will write a summary. The second week we work on one summary and we take it through the entire writing process. Day one prewriting, day two drafting, day three finish drafts and start revising, day four finish revising and start editing, day five finish editing and publish. They get a checklist/rubric on the first day so that they know how they are getting graded for the project. Some parts stay the same on the checklist other parts change depending on the mode of writing.
Checklist Break Down:
The writing process is worth 10 points, so if they turn in their prewriting, draft with revisions and editing, their writing process checklist which has the steps broken down, and their published copy they get 10 points.
Structure is usually worth about 10 points, they get points for appropriate title, paragraph formation, topic and conclusion sentences.
Content is usually worth 18 points, this is where the checklist becomes a rubric and they have clear expectations for what needs to be in the writing.
Conventions are worth 12 points, they get 3 points for proper indenting, 3 points for capitalization and punctuation, 3 points for grammar and spelling, and 3 points for handwriting. So really 6 of the points are based on effort they just need to indent and write neatly to get 6 out of the twelve points.
I think I got a little sidetracked. What I am trying to say and agree with is that checklists and rubrics are important when it comes to assessing student performance.
Next part I liked in chapter 5 was the part about portfolios. This is an area in my career that I need work, and this is one thing that is not a part of my classroom that I am going to focus incorporating. I am not sure how yet but I know that it is important. The different case studies ideas presented in this chapter have got me thinking. I don't think it is something I am going to incorporate this year because I like consistency and if I tried to implement it this late in the year I just would not be comfortable.
The other two chapters were interesting but I did not find a lot to respond to. The things about professional developement were important and I know that this is something that our school needs more of. My fifth grade team and I are very cohesive and what we do with writing but I don't think the school is on the same page and we could use some work in this area as a school.