(Source: https://www.priorityit.co.nz/practice-makes-perfect-especially-with-technology)
What an interesting week I had in Literature 102 classes! This week was all about practice, practice, practice as it relates to assessing children's writing. This was by no means an easy task but what I appreciate about our lecturer is the fact that she gave us enough scaffolding before allowing us to try on our own.
Prior to these classes, when I had to assess students writing I would mostly look at grammatics, but using our 6 + 1 Writing Traits checklist proved helpful in the assessment exercises we did in classes this week. Gradually, this notion of how exactly one should go about assessing student's writing became clearer and clearer to me. It should never been based on feeling but should target exactly what the students strengths and areas of need are. It is only then that I as their teacher would be able to help them move on to the next stage of their writing development. I now feel better able to help my students do just that upon my return to the classroom.
I am also now able to critically assess my own writing, because there have been times that I have written a piece and felt that it was missing something but could not figure out just what it was. Now, through use of writing traits checklist I will be able to close that gap.
The following site provides access to rubrics that can be used to assess students' writing, you can either select the 4-point scoring rubric or the 6-point scoring rubric:
https://sites.google.com/site/christies61library/executive-docs/rubrics
Hi Erica. I can not keep saying enough, that love these six traits, and you could not have said it any better yourself. Knowledge of these traits acts as invaluable writing tool. It helps you to improve the quality of your own writing, because you now know all the criteria you have to meet. I do also believe that once students are exposed to this, their writing will improve as well, because attention will be drawn to their weakest areas.
ReplyDeleteYou are quite right Shevon, the six traits helps one to pinpoint exactly what is missing from their writing. What an invaluable tool!
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ReplyDeleteThis class was also very much needed for me as an ever developing teacher. I too mostly analyzed my student's writing based on grammatics (spelling, punctuation, subject verb agreement etc.) However, I believe I am better able to properly analyze my students' work using these 6 traits. And as both you and Shevon mention, analyze my own writing as well.
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