Across great levels, students' work in class appeared better than the work on their assessment piece of writing. While we recognized the element of time prevented students from going back and revisiting pieces, we came to several conclusions. Blake Reidy, 3rd grade teacher, was instrumental in helping us with the discussion around assessment.
- How the writing assessment is presented to students is key. While teachers want to make students aware they are being assessed, they should be cautious about putting too much emphasis on the assessment, so it is not viewed as a test.
- Students' work should be considered when grading them for proficiency - not the assessment alone. Student journals are a great source for checking to see if the student is carrying over what they have learned and applying it to their every day writing.
- Some of the instruction presented during the units of study, may not be "learned" to the level of proficiency during the unit. Students' level of owning and generalizing what they learn to different writing tasks takes time. To stop and focus all instruction on forms of punctuation would be to derail the writing process. Students will acquire writing strategies as you guide them through the different genres.
Thank you one and all for your hard work. Your students are lucky to have such a dedicated staff.