The Checklist

I've come upon a new way (for me) of assessing/having students self assess writing this year. It isn't mind blowing by any means, and it isn't working 100%. But, I would say I'm getting a lot better quality products this year. The first writing unit we did was on Personal Narratives. It really just hit me after a conversation with our instructional coach that this is non-fiction writing. I mean, duh, yeah, but I hadn't thought of it that way before for some reason. She found  a great resource that had basically mini-lessons for each day to complete the whole piece with quality including a short mentor text that we referred back to often.

As we went mini-lesson by mini-lesson, we began creating a checklist of what a good personal narrative looks like. I used this instead of a rubric to assess their pieces. I also had them, after the fact, go back and assess themselves using the same checklist. I realizes that many of them weren't using the chart paper checklist as a guide, and missed some parts, but after looking it over with their own checklist in hand, they were able to provide a more honest picture of their writing. Unfortunately, I did this after they had submitted their final copy... I really should have allowed them to go back and fix mistakes then and there, but as life sometimes goes, we were in a hurry and part way into their next assignment. I should have slowed down, but I didn't.

So, the next writing unit came along: book and movie reviews. Again we looked at some mentor texts, had mini-lessons, and created another great checklist. THIS time, I got a little smarter. I printed the checklist twice on a piece of paper and asked them to assess themselves on the top checklist before they submitted their piece to the blog. This allowed them to catch things they'd left out and go back and fix it before my eyes landed there for the "final" assessment. Much better this time! Still, I had some friends who were in a hurry themselves, realized they didn't have everything, and didn't take the time to fix it.  (You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink....) Hopefully next time I can help those friends see the benefits to doing that.

Below you can gaze at the checklist for the reviews.

Maybe this will work with your classroom! Enjoy!


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___________________________________’s Book/Movie Review

My Self-Assessment

I included:

o   information about the author/director and the audience

o   a catchy title

o   an introduction that hints at my opinion

o   a quality summary

o   at least two strengths or weaknesses with details and examples to support them

o   a satisfying conclusion

o   my voice – it sounds like I wrote this

I checked for:

o   capital letters

o   correct spelling

o   conjunctions with a comma before them to make compound sentences

I think I did well with:

Mrs. Goerend’s Turn:

You included:

o   information about the author/director and the audience

o   a catchy title

o   an introduction that hints at your opinion

o   a quality summary

o   at least two strengths or weaknesses with details and examples to support them

o   a satisfying conclusion

o   your voice – it sounds like you wrote this

I also noticed:

o   capital letters

o   correct spelling

o   conjunctions with a comma before them to make compound sentences

Comments:

All They Wanted

I write this more in shame than anything, but in a hope you can learn from it. This is probably common sense to most of you, but sharing this failure might click with someone.

I was attending the Solution Tree PLC conference in St. Louis earlier this summer. I attended many sessions on assessment because it's something that has been an interest of mine for a while. I have knowledge of many good formative assessment practices. I'm big on the retake and standards-based assessment and reporting.

This past year, and many years before it, students would ask the same old question, "How long does it need to be?" I would come back with the response, "I interpret that question as meaning, 'How short can it be to get by, Mrs. G?'" Sadly, some students caught on to this and would give that response to students before I could even give it. I realized got a big slap in the face after attending a session at the conference (I can't remember which) that all the students wanted were more examples of good writing. They really aren't asking to see how short it can be, well maybe a couple are, but most really want to know so they can do their best!

Writing is not one of my strong suits. I have allowed students to fix things and resubmit their paper, and I blog with my students so they have a larger audience for me. One thing that really hit home with me at the PLC conference was students' needs for many examples of writing that meets, does not meet, exceeds the standard.  I was giving them a rubric with descriptors and sometimes one good and one poor model to look at, but many weren't able to transfer to what that would look like in their own writing. They need more. They need more models posted. I even have a sweet little box called "Mentor Texts," for their writing, but I need to be more explicit with its use.

So, this is one of many improvements I hope to make this year. After 6 years of teaching, there's never been one year where I say, "I hope next year is an exact repeat of this year." I archived all of my students' blog posts from last year and hope to use them as models for this coming year (names omitted of course).


What are some mistakes you've made in your classroom? How can you take a risk and be transparent about those mistakes to help others learn?

Another lesson from the garden

Spring has sprung around here.  New plants are growing, but this also means there is a lot of clean up to do. Cleaning out of the old plants must happen for the new to grow. This is the same in life - sometimes if we want to try new things, we must clear out old ideas that get in the way.  If we allow the old to protect the new little plants, it shelters them from the cold for a while.  After time though, the old must go for the new to grow.

What sort of cleaning out of ideas or practices are you going to let go so that new ones can grow?

Creative Juices

Lately, if you follow me on Twitter, know me on Pinterest, or are connected with me on Facebook, you  see I haven't been sharing much about education.  More of my time outside of school work has been spent crafting, idea gathering, starting a shop, and sharing about what I'm doing.  My husband never knows what I'm up to.  I will go in the other room, run the sewing machine or hot glue gun for a while, and come back with a creation.  I feel alive!  How can we transfer this feeling to our students who may feel trapped in the day-to-day reading, math, and writing?  What sort of things are you doing to allow your students (or staff, my administrator friends!) to feel alive in their creativity?