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Home : 2005 : March : 31

writing
By Mary

Consider implementing writer's workshop. It's really not hard at all to run, and it gives kids lots of choice. That helps them buy in more. Also, with WW, you are giving specific minilessons, in short conferences. What
you teach depends on what the student demonstrates a need for. How to run WW is too involved for this response. Take the Writing Project for your state. They teach teachers how to do workshop by having the teachers participate in one. You get four hours of graduate credit for it, too. Well, you do in Colorado. I don't know about where you live.
A really good way to evaluate student

writing is to use a good six-trait rubric. It should be a one-sided rubric, and should list advanced, proficient, partially proficient and unsatisfactory along the edge. Then, for each of the six traits, highlight each descriptor that is true. When you finish, you can see at a glance where a student is, on every single trait (advanced, proficient, etc.). This is also a visual that kids (and their parents) immediately understand. Highlighted areas in the top two (advanced and proficient) are good, and in the last two (partial and unsatisfactory), are not so good.

Next, have each kid set their own writing goal, based on the rubric (which you've explained and modeled). When you hand back the next paper, you can compare this rubric to the one before, and see where improvement has been made, or is still needed. The kids REALLY start to understand it now. Hopefully, they've seen themselves move up the rubric on one or more traits, because now they're setting another writing goal, for the next paper. This is when you'll hear kids say funny things like, "I improved in sentence fluency!"

Staple all of a kid's rubrics together at the end of the year and give them to the next grade. THAT'S some valuable information, and they really appreciate it, too.

The six-trait rubric is like a made-in-heaven complement to and tool for writer's workshop.

My last suggestion is to have the kids peer-revise. Just have them write what was good, and what needed work. Provide the form. It's two questions with lines for them to write on. Model, model, model how to do this, and grade them on the feedback they give a peer. They learn in a hurry that if they say everything was great, no suggestions, that they get a zero. Then they'll begin to actually read each other's work and help each other.

Well, you're probably about ready for me to stop now. :-) You asked for it.