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I am using Spandel's Creating Writers 6 Traits, Process, Workshop, and Literature 6th Edition in my upcoming online class: Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6th Traits. This is a graduate course offered by the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
Part of our time is spent assessing sample papers and writing feedback. I'll use this chart to emphasize the need to convert criticism to "I" comments.
Education Week reporter Nirvi Shah tracks news and trends of interest to the special education community, including administrators, teachers, and parents.
Via Mel Riddile
-About 27 percent of students perform at or above the Proficient level at both grades
-About 80 percent of students perform at or above the Basic level at both grades
-Female students score higher than male students at both grades
Via Karen LaBonte
In Texas we have a new state test called the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and some schools like mine, were surprised by the student poor performance in writing.
he question is, "What should they be reading?" My son in-law answered this question also, "They need to read the same type of things that you want them to write." So, there you have it. Our students were doing poorly on expository writing so they need to do more expository reading? Well, perhaps not. I'm not sure exactly what expository reading is but what the students need is to read more writing that is expository in nature.
BoomWriter is a supremely engaging creative writing website that has students reading, writing and assessing content in ways they’ve never done before! It's easy & it's free.
Via Beth Dichter
This page of resources was created as a collaborative effort between the Northern Nevada Writing Project and Nevada's Northwest Regional Professional Development Program. Creating this set of resources required us to score thousands of student samples, write dozens of annotations, and design a series of instructional tools that were--first and foremost--good for writers, and good for test scores too.
Student achievement scores take off with the implementation of tech-supported writing initiatives that cross curriculum lines.
"Under normal circumstances, when a classroom of 30 students writes essays on paper and hands them into their teacher," Anderson explains, "it would be impossible to give them each feedback within 20 seconds, and by the time you do get back to the students with notes or corrections, they've mentally moved on from the assignment."
Test Ladies™ unite! Timing truly is everything when we’re helping students prepare for the writing portion of the state assessment. Check out a strategy that gets kids writing—fast! ------- Timed writing practice can help kids conquer their fear of the clock. Here we have another take on Natalie Goldberg's classic advice: Just keep the pen moving! ~ Dennis
This scientific study conducted in 74 Oregon elementary schools showed that the 6+1 Trait Writing model caused a statistically significant increase in student writing scores during the year in which it was studied.
Students don’t always like working in groups. Ann Taylor, an associate professor of chemistry at Wabash College, had a class that was particularly vocal in their opposition.
She asked for their top 10 reasons why students don’t want to work in groups and they offered this list (which I’ve edited slightly).
Many teachers have heard my spiel on the Test Lady™, the woman who scores the state prompt writings. Giving students a person or audience to write to is more motivating than if they think their writing will be scored by a machine. This is what prompted me to invent the Test Lady™--the old lady who reads and scores the state writing prompts. Students are more apt to try harder on this assessment, be more specific, and provide more detail when there is a live person on the other end of the writing.
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Teaching & Assessing Common Writing with Six Traits (an Oklahoma Writing Project presentation)
One of the most interesting points to make about this tool is that it’s more than just a tool that analyzes keywords. That’s a big part of how search engines basically work. What this web tool does is actually understand concepts. It’ll let the student know if their essay is not hitting on the key points that need to be made.
So how accurate is it? Research done by SAGrader shows that the tool agrees with what human graders 93 – 98% of the time. So while it’s not perfect, it’s worth trying out to at least see how it fares in your classroom.
There is little argument that reflective writing is a good way to foster critical thinking, encourage self expression, and give students a sense of ownership of their work (Chretien et al. 2012, Kennison and Misselwitz, 2002).
The Nation's Report Card: Writing 2011: Executive Summary...
Via anna smith
"The list of recommendations presented below is based on scientific studies of students in grades 4–12. The strategies for teaching writing are listed according to the magnitude of their effects. Practices with the strongest effects are listed first.... All of the strategies are potentially useful, and we encourage teachers to use a combination of strategies to best meet the needs of their students.
Via Karen LaBonte
This post is about free Plagiarism tools that teachers can use to deter students from cheating on assignments, which raises the quality of work for your course. Instructors can see at a glance assignments that are original and ones that contain content copied from the Internet. I have assembled all these tools in a guide below for you to download and share.
Via Kathleen Cercone
Advice from the test Lady: Know your audience!
"To help your writers envision this real live audience for their writing, consider having students draw portraits of the Test Lady™ on 11x17 paper. Hang them in the room as a constant reminder that a human being is on the other end of what they will write for the state writing prompt. "
Summary:
Over the past 8 years, the National Writing Project created and refined the Analytic Writing Continuum (AWC) Assessment System, originally based on the framework of the Six +1 Trait Writing Model (Bellamy, 2005), for research and instructional purposes. Unlike the holistic scores used in most large-scale writing assessments, which offer limited information about how improvements in student writing may be achieved, the AWC provides accurate assessment of both holistic and important performance attributes of writing.
The number of students taking Advanced Placement exams is up, but according to the latest report from the College Board, a significant numbers of students that should be taking AP tests aren’t. They analyzed the performance of 771,000 PSAT-takers from the class of 2011 and discovered that 478,000 students—over 60 percent—did not take an AP exam even though their test scores indicated they could do well on one. In particular, the College Board found that high scoring students from black, Latino, and Native American backgrounds are "much less likely than their white and Asian peers" to take AP exams. Eighty percent of black students whose scores indicated that they could have done well in AP classes never enrolled in them, and in the class of 2011 only 9 percent of AP exam-takers were black. By comparison, only 40 percent of Asian students and 60 percent of white students whose scores suggested they should be taking AP classes and exams don’t do so.
Via Jim Lerman
How do you respond to the statement: Correcting isn't teaching!
Think about it: all correcting does is make you a better proofreader. Students more often than not ignore your hard work. You as a teacher feel obligated to take out the red pen, while in your heart you know this just isn't working. Don't you see the same errors over and over again? How many times can you check, highlight, underline and explain in the margins that a lot is two words? What else can you do? Isn't every English teacher obliged to correct the work of their students? Isn't that the expectation of parents and administration?
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