CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Assessing Writing
As a method to engage learners in continuous feedback on their growth as writers, providing opportunities for student writing on a daily and weekly basis allows the teacher to monitor student progress of writing standards mastery.
Introduction
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In addition to assessing reading comprehension, standards-based writing assessments allow students to use written expression as an additional skill to measure student growth. As a foundation to successful student writing, the teacher must model key aspects of the writing process before releasing students to self-evaluate and peer edit. During the writing process, formative assessing occurs at each phase up to the summative version. While writing assessments are the most time-consuming due to the deliberate focused written feedback needed to truly impact student learning and growth, it is also one of the foremost integral cross-disciplinary skills. Anchored in ELA and reinforced across other contents, the role of the teacher is to emphasize the importance of multiple drafts and proofreading for students who struggle to develop strong writing practices. There is a criteria for success and rubric that accompanies all formative and summative writing tasks. Since writing and interpreting comprehension through written analysis can be subjectively assessed, I utilize these measures to hold myself and students accountable to standards-based writing. By using these same rubrics for student self-assessment, students demonstrate engagement in their own growth and build investment in understanding the critical role of every component of the writing process. While brainstorming, drafting, editing, and final revisions convey the core tenets of strong writing skills, there are several instances in which I assess students' writing through formative feedback in aspects of academic instruction that do not reflect this traditional method. Rather, through feedback to learners, I am able to track common trends in writing and provide student-specific feedback to monitor learner progress.
LDC Formative and Summative Writing
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My district has adapted the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) curriculum to mirror reading comprehension standards with writing standards in each unit. Within the LDC, most formative assessments are written assignments to build skill towards the written summative task. Each unit's LDC task focusing on a different medium of writing to provide students with exposure to a variety of writing styles. As each formative writing assessment anchors on preparing students to be better prepared for the summative writing assessment, I utilize the LDC rubric to evaluate student performance leading up to the summative assessment. To engage students, they also apply the rubrics standards as a criteria for success during the editing phase of the writing process.
As shown by the red box, I notify groups of students to conference with me prior to or during their formative writing assignments. During these small conference I utilize reading comprehension to inform the potential strengths and weaknesses of their writing. The formative assessment shown has multiple choice questions because even through they are not rigorous the focus of LDC assessments are exclusively for written mastery. Therefore, the feedback I provide students throughout formative assessments is anchored in text evidence as it will support their written analysis. than pre-select a question prompt that students with disabilities in writing are encouraged to focus on. As a measure to engage all learners, these individual student conferences prior to assessing writing allows students to discuss their reading analysis with me before recording their answer or review key writing guidelines. Based on the product of this student's conference and formative writing, I know this student needs additional support introducing strong text evidence in his writing.
The document to the left is a student sample of an eighth grade unit summative assessment. The student's outline with my feedback and writing assessment feedback is included from our writing conferences. As shown on the last page, this student represents a work product that has reached about 65 percent written standards mastery as normed by the LDC rubric. Even though the summative written assessments do not align with the i-Ready assessment, it offers a foundation to addressing gaps in standards mastery. To improve this student's standard mastery score she can move from approaching to meeting expectation on 3 domains: integrating stronger text evidence, analyzing this text evidence more clearly, and review key points to deepen articulation of content knowledge.
Spelling and Grammar Feedback
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As writing occurs daily in some capacity, I am constantly maximizing opportunities to evaluate student spelling and grammar. From these informal formative assessments, I highlight for students grade-level appropriate vocabulary and reiterate this practice through identifying instances of misspelling and misconceptions in grammar comprehension. As a form of assessing writing, identifying spelling and grammar errors models writing expectations for students and monitors student learning as they build their vocabulary comprehension skills.
The image to the right displays how I offer quick tips to students during in-class writing assessments to reiterate strong grammar skills. The image shows how I meet all learners needs in the classroom, as my students with disabilities and ESOL students need frequent anchor charts and visuals throughout instruction to support their learning.
The document to the left is a student sample that represents common trends in spelling and grammar of the majority of students. On this formative writing assessment, I am focusing on spelling and grammar to build insights rather than the entire piece of writing. By focusing on spelling and grammar within formative assessments rather than a standalone diagnostic or formative, I receive authentic data to assess my students' writing standard mastery. When students misspell words or use incorrect grammar, it is often common phrases as indicated by the red circles. As a way to assess writing growth in between LDC assessments, I track the type of words students misspell to address them during later instruction. To support this student, a lesson reteaching phonics could strengthen these spelling errors.
Accommodations in Assessing Writing
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Another method to engage learners in their own growth is providing students with additional supportive structures that allow their academic needs to be met. For many students, those are reading below grade-level also struggle to write on grade-level. As a guide to my decision-making, assessing writing skills allows me to construct tiered writing assessments and writing prompts so that students can self-select a writing prompt but still demonstrate progress towards standards mastery. However, as data indicates the necessity for students to build stamina for writing, I encourage students at all cognitive abilities to engage in rigorous critical thinking even with writing accommodations. Similarly to accommodations in assessing reading comprehension, most instances of writing accommodations occur through IEP, 504, or ESOL differentiation, which function as intermediate support structures towards the general writing standard and learning outcome. Thus, students are provided modified or scaffolded writing support but are still engaged in the core formative or summative writing tasks.
The document to the left represent a sample of the notes taken during a student-teacher writing conference. As a layer of accommodation for students with disabilities or ESOL students, I spent time while other student work in pairs or independently, with students who need direct guided support for writing. As a result of previous assessment data, I am able to meet with students and offer guided questions and scribing as they discuss key details and analysis for this written response.
The document to the right represents a differentiated summative assessment on the same LDC unit assessment as described above. The student sample shows the product of the writing process from outline, to teacher feedback, to final product. This student sample also demonstrates how students struggle to increase writing skills when they do not follow feedback or the outline requirements. In addition to utilizing the text as evidence in their written assessment, students with disabilities and ESOL students were permitted to use evidence from the film as well. Even though I provided a scaffolded outlined and feedback to this student, there were still several writing mistakes on his final draft. The rubric on the last page indicates an evaluation through standards-driven writing assessment criteria. To meet the needs of this student's writing, I can provide an additional graphic organizer to organize book and film text evidence during the drafting stage.