Writing assessment focus is mainly on the role of the writer, purpose of writing, and writing modifications. Self and peer assessment are key roles in that process. Students can write for their purposes and get feedback on the process.
When my students are first beginning to write, they write exactly like they would if they are recording their transcriptions of stories. Students voice can be heard in the style that their voice comes across. After the transition from pictures to words with pictures, I can see my student's writing developed in their sentences. Some are personal stories, some are about an activity that they participated in such as a boat ride to fish camp or hunting. The stories are dictated and very long. Kids have no problem telling the stories for someone else to record. Once they are in charge of their own words on the paper, they begin to see writing as a difficult process. I am hoping to find ways to help ease that transition for my students to become confident writers.
I hope to implement the process where students go through the process writing beginning on pg. 138 where they do prewriting, writing, postwriting, and conferencing. This can be a discussion about the topic and what they will choose to write about.
Scoring rubrics come in handy at this point, such as Figure 6.1 Holistic Scoring Rubric for Writing Assessment with ELL Students that can show you where your students are at in a glance. My K-1 students will generally be in levels 1 and 2, but it is also a great idea to show them where they will eventually end up as they learn the writing process. This is a great idea for motivation purposes and gets students hooked on writing.
Writing assessments are a great instruction guide. I would love to have a rubric posted and have my students understand the writing process to self-assess and help their peers with the writing process. The more students are exposed to the writing process, the better writers they become. I enjoy hearing my students tell each other about their journals. I am also interested in writing in other content areas and connecting them to our daily lessons in reading,writing, math, and employability skills.
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13 years ago
2 comments:
Excellent point Mae. Writing assessments are really guides to help students write well. Isn't that our goal really to a have assessment integrated into our instruction so well?
i completely agree with you about the assessments being instructional guides---when students know what is expected, and it's realy spelled out for them they have a way bigger chance of being successful..I always like reading your blogs because we are at such opposite ends of the spectrum, yet have similarities still :)
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