Teacher-Directed Writing Lessons
Brenda Hill
Oct 24, 2011
How do you effectively use teacher-directed writing lessons to evaluate and measure student growth and progress?
Writing is an important communication tool for explaining ideas, for expressing thoughts and feelings, and for imparting new information. There are many perspectives on what it means to write - and write well. In order to observe and document student writing growth and progress, ongoing assessments need to occur consistently and pervasively across all grade levels.
The following are guiding questions to consider as you focus on student writing development:
* What evaluation tool is being used to assess student writing; and how do we document student growth and progress in writing?
* How often do we assess writing?
* Do we have a specified time to explicitly teach writing - skills and organization?
* Are we planning lessons which focus on students' needs and weaknesses reflective of writing data?
* How is writing assessment data used to direct instructional practices?
* Are students transferring organizational and writing skills from lessons into writing assignments?
* Are students consistently writing about new information in all content areas?
By reflecting on the answers to these questions you will begin to implement and make effective decisions about writing which meet student's needs and promote development of writing skills.
According to the Journal of Staff Development (Summer 2006, Vol. 27, No 3), "assessments of good quality are perceptive, compassionate, and useful." The goal is to improve student writing development without inversely impacting their ability to write. Over a specific period of time there should be evidence of student growth.
The following are steps for getting started so that you can effectively measure and evaluate student writing:
Steps for Effective Evaluation and Measurement of Student Writing:
1) Implement a method for evaluating student writing. If your school or district does not have an assessment method for assessing writing, then you may need to research methods for assessing writing and employ one to use in your classroom.
2) Determine a schedule for assessing students consistently and frequently. Are you going to assess student writing once a month, once a grading period, etc?
3) Document student writing growth and development. Student portfolios, writing recording sheets, and/or teacher-student conferencing forms where individual writing goals have been discussed, determined, and recorded with goals for improvement will allow opportunity to observe and record progress.
4) Use assessment data based upon students' needs and writing weaknesses to develop lesson plans and determine classroom instructional practices.
5) Explicitly teach writing through mini-lessons, modeling, and think alouds.
6) When possible, use completed graphic organizers to model how to organize and format writing products.
7) Have students apply and transfer writing skills in all subjects. Writing in content areas not only gives students opportunities for applying writing skills, but also increases retention of new content knowledge and information.
8) Conference with students to evaluate writing and set goals for improvement. Many times writing growth is not observed over time because students are unsure of how to improve their writing. Conferencing allows you and the student time to discuss writing and set goals for improvement.
The guiding questions for implementation and the steps for effective evaluation and measurement of student writing development will provide support as you focus on developing each and every student as a writer. By explicitly teaching writing skills based upon assessment data, you will observe much needed improvement in student writing growth and development. Additionally, content writing assignments require students to apply and transfer writing skills to all subjects and will increase retention of new content information. The goal is to integrate meaningful writing into the curriculum throughout the year as you measure and evaluate student writing. The learning outcome is literate students who are able to communicate effectively and meet the challenges of the 21st century.
