Education Blog Writing Sample - Formative Assessment
5 Step Formative Assessment to Help Student Writers Hit Learning Targets
Who couldn’t use a little dialogue and reflection in all aspects of life? Our relationships? Our finances? Our golf game?
But in their groundbreaking work, Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam suggest that dialogue and reflection underpin all successful formative assessments, the most powerful tool in our arsenal as teachers to help our students hit learning targets.
Black and Wiliam assert the best formative assessments display the following characteristics:
•Use of classroom discussion and tasks to determine current state of student learning
•Provision of descriptive feedback
•Development of self- and peer assessment skills.
Here is a five step, formative assessment activity incorporating these characteristics that, if used regularly, will dramatically grow student writing. I promise.
I designed the activity for use at the secondary level with a text-based rubric, but it could easily be modified for primary grades using hamburger rubrics. I am assuming that students are already versed in the use of rubrics and that writing recurs weekly or biweekly.
Step One: Talk Through the Rubric
•Put the students in groups of four. (Research shows that four is the optimal number for collaborative learning.)
•Have each student in the group talk through one score point aloud to the group for 15 seconds (assuming a four-point rubric).
•Teacher should start and stop each 15 second segment of rubric talk by saying “go” and timing for 15 seconds. Circulate and encourage assigned students not to stop talking during their turn, even if they are reading directly off rubric.
Step Two: Prepare Scoring Slips
•Fold a piece of paper in half, then half again. Unfold, then follow creases to tear into four equal pieces. (Primary teacher might have slips prepared ahead of time).
•Label each slip with one student’s name in the group of four. When finished, students should have a slip for each group member, and one for themself.
Step Three: Read Around
•Teacher should say: pass your piece to the student on your right.
•Teacher should say: find the scoring slip with the student’s name whose piece is in front of you.
•Teacher should say: Read. (Teacher should set the time for reading depending on size of piece. But even for longer pieces, limit the time. Shorter pieces, one or two minutes. Longer pieces three or four minutes.)
•Teacher should say: Stop reading. On the scoring slip in front of you, write down the score you would give the writer with at least three supporting comments based on the rubric.
•Teacher should say: Pass the piece in front of you to the right, but DO NOT GIVE THE SCORING SLIP TO THE WRITER YET. (Students will want to do this almost reflexively).
•Teacher should say: You should all have a new piece in front of you. Find the slip with the writer’s name. (Pause and circulate before saying read. The first few times you do this activity, some students will be slow on the uptake). Then say: Read.
•Teacher should say: Stop reading. On the scoring slip in front of you, write down the score you would give the writer with at least three supporting comments based on the rubric.
•Teacher should say: Pass the piece in front of you to the right, but DON’T GIVE THE SLIP TO THE WRITER YET.
•Repeat process one more time. After the final read say, return the piece to the writer.
Step Four: Dialogue
•Teacher should say: You should each have your own piece in front of you and three scoring slips, one for each member of your group.
•Teacher should say: Now number off in your group, one through four, as if you are in a PE class. (Some students will be slow on the uptake again, so after ten seconds say: “All ones hold your hand up.” You will probably have to repeat the request for ones to hold their hand up a few times until each group has only one hand up. If you are good at teasing in a non-threatening way, this can be a fun few moments)
•Teacher should say: Now, all twos hold your hand up. Then: all threes hold your hand up. Then: all fours hold your hand up. (By the time you get to numbers three and four, it should take only seconds. If you already have predetermined numbers, colors, popsicle sticks, etc—you rock!)
•Teacher should say: All ones, pass your piece to your right.
•Teacher should say: The person holding one’s piece, read aloud what you wrote on the scoring slip and then give the slip to one. (Allow 15 to 30 seconds to complete)
•Teacher should say: The person holding one’s piece, pass it to the person on your right.
•Teacher should say: The person now holding one’s piece, read what you wrote on the scoring slip and then give the slip to one.
•Teacher should say: The person holding one’s piece pass it to the person on your right.
•Teacher should say: The person holding one’s piece, read what you wrote on the scoring slip and then give the slip to one.
•Teacher should say: The person holding one’s piece, return it to one.
•Teacher should say: One, answer the following statements aloud to the group: What I like best about my piece is? What I most need to work on for the next piece is?
•Repeat the above process three more times until each member of the group has his or her piece and three scoring slips.
•Caveat: be prepared to modify—what teachers do best. We know that not every student will have a piece. If one student in a group has no piece, then there will be an empty desk on each “pass.” If more than one have no piece, you might mix and match, pulling a student from a group with four papers. If you are struggling with reluctant writers, then provide 15 minutes of silent writing before beginning. You get the drift.
Step Five: Reflection
•Have the students use the blank scoring slip for a brief written reflection. On one side, each student should explain the learning targets he/she got right. On the other, the learning targets he/she missed and how to get better at them.
All that’s left is to decide what type of teacher feedback you are going to provide. You might provide none and leave it a peer review activity only. You might call for only one paper from each group. You might put one or two pieces under the document projector for whole class discussion. You might have students fill out a “next step” or “learning chain” form. I chose to read each piece, providing an holistic score only, unless the student attached a “please read” slip. I provided two “please read” forms per student each nine weeks
Happy dialoguing.
Thoughts on modifying for the primary classroom? Feel free to leave a comment