Does assessment do more than rank our students?

In reading both Elbow and Routman, I begin to understand how much is loaded into the difficult job of teaching and assessing writing. Elbow seems to  be questioning the whole aspect of ranking students with grades and rubrics. He argues that "ranking leads students to get so hung up on these oversimple quantitative verdicts that they care more about scores than about learning."(Elbow,p.190)  In a system where ranking students leads to better classes, AP and Honors Programs, and often better teachers, in the high school years; Elbow says this ranking has lead to so much confusion by teachers that there is "the tendency to think that if we renounce ranking and grading, we are renouncing the very possibility of judgment and discrimination." (Elbow, p. 191) H e leans towards evaluation and liking writing, and lots more time for students to free write each day which is not evaluated. This goes along with my experience with students this year so far. Most recently with Juanita 2nd graders when we were given the students' Dragon Stories to work on with very little guidance. Almost immediately without knowing or understanding, I started to work on editing conventions with my 2nd grader. I was certainly not inspiring her to create interesting ideas or conferencing with her to help her to find her voice. This kind of repeated correcting with red hash marks and stabbing in the dark at writing, was my own personal writing experience as a child. It will be a challenge to learn a new way, but ultimately worth it.  Routman takes another approach, which seems to be end up at the same place but gets there in a different way. She wants us to prepare the students for high stakes testing. In the course of your writing curriculum, you make a place and time for preparing students to do on-demand writing to a prompt. " Writing on demand is a fact of life. Students need to be able to write essays and respond to prompts on required tests..or as job seekers on applications" (Routman, p. 248)  Routman suggests that as teachers we keep this perspective. We prepare the students for tests by reducing their anxiety and helping them to be "test wise". This is just a part of overall writing curriculum. By collecting writing samples in the students portfolio and having students writing everyday, teachers have a chance to show parents multiple examples of students' writing and be more humane about grading and assessments in general. Routman wants us to be realistic about the atmosphere we find ourselves in as teachers, to work within the given system and to try and have students take responsibility for their own writing and learning. This is where both Routman and Elbow agree. They both want students to peer conference and take responsibility for their own quality writing. Routman wants her students to aim high, " we want students to be asking: did I do enough, have I done my best, have I met the criteria, will my writing engage my reader, have I communicated clearly?" ( Routman,p.255) In creating a classroom that takes into account meeting the current testing requirements while establishing a safe community where writing is taking place everyday, not always to be published, sometimes just for the fun of writing; the hope is to establish students who write for the love of it, because they have learned to write from their heart. No easy task!

Observing Parent Teacher Conferences

I spent the conference days moving from my main placement to my dyad placement observing over twenty conferences.  Both my schools are Title 1 and sometimes conferences included a crowded table of safety net, special education, guidance counselor, interpreters, teacher, student teachers, parents and sometimes students. I was amazed at the thoroughness of assessments, portfolios and preparation that goes into conferences and grading. It was so good to see two different teachers and approaches to conferences. Parents of all the students in both my placements were amazing and there was one constant; all parents want the best for the children. Both master teachers connected to parents by asking what their concerns were and then listened. After all, parents know their children better than any of us sitting at that table. We all shared the same goal, for the student to succeed. I am thankful this weekend for my family, great food, my friends and my health, but I am also thankful for my students and what they have taught me over these short months. I am excited to go back to my 2/3 grade kiddos in January.

Wiggins on what is an Essential Question?

I found this article and felt compelled to share. While trying to create a unit for our instructional design class, I am having trouble with all these big questions. What is the objective, the assessment, the look to's and look at's. This article gave me a bit of clarity. So I am passing it on. Hope this helps.


Wiggins on What is an Essential Question?

Helping Students to write independently

As I read over Routman Chapter 9, Conference with Students, I think of writing with my 2/3 graders at the beginning of the year. I can see that I took too much control of their editing and didn't give them a chance to work on their own stories. I think this comes from trying in vain to help my own children with their writing as they were older. I would be their editor. It would become a case of lots of marking through and rewriting, all in an effort to help them be better writers. I don't think I accomplished that! I can see parallels in our work on our own literary vignettes as students. By learning what it is to be a writer ourselves going through the stages of rough drafts, reading our work aloud in small groups and rewriting, we too can learn more than if we were told to write and then received our first attempts returned filled with red marks. Using whole group, small groups and peers to help with the process of writing, we help the student writer to feel more independent and competent. " Keep in mind that our goal is to have students monitor their own writing and problem solve independently so they can eventually draft, rewrite, revise, publish, and edit mostly on their own."(Routman, p.235) I can see more clearly reading Routman how to practice my responses to be more helpful, but to continue to place the editing responsibility back to the student.

Just a few more weeks

It is amazing how fast my dyad placement has flown. It seems that just as you are getting to know the kiddos and you are done. I have really enjoyed the dyad placement, not just because you get a secondary placement, but because the pace is a bit different. In September it was all about getting to know your main placement teacher and your class. In your dyad classroom, I felt that I got a chance to do that and learn from my host teacher, but also observe a whole variety of classroom teachers and grade levels. This will be a good experience for next year when I am in my own classroom. Every teacher is accomplishing their classroom management a bit differently. Observing so many different methods really has been illuminating for me. I have kept lots of notes to refer back to in the future.

I have also enjoyed getting a chance to see another school community and how things are the same and different. At first, I really didn't understand why we needed to be placed in two different settings.I can know see why much more clearly. 

2/3 grade Halloween

I went back to my main school yesterday to spend Halloween with my class of 2/3 graders. What fun, what joy, what chaos! I came as the Swine Flu Doctor in my scrubs with plenty of hand sanitizer and gloves! They loved it. We had a fun day. My master teacher, Obi Wan Kenobe, in her wisdom knew this is not the day to try to teach. They are so excited, they are so distracted, they are so thrilled to be having a party at the end of the day and a school wide parade at the end of the day. We had parent volunteers come in and each of us took 5-6 students. Students went about making their own treats for the party. I helped the students make and bake their own cupcakes. We also made little ghosties out of lollipops and tissue! They had to make one for each class member. We turned all of this into a math lesson. Counting, grouping and multiples. It was such fun to be with them that day. I can't wait until January to be back there with them. I really miss them.

Tuning out KFKD

In reading Lamott, I am constantly reminded that her story is not just about writing, but about living. I love the chapter on Radio Station KFKD.  The author is alluding to the stream of messages that play in our ears that can get in the way of writing, creating or for that matter doing any work that is purposeful to you. " Out of right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement...of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self loathing."(Lamott, pg 116) This flow of input is certainly not helpful to reaching inside to find where your true story lies. In our experiences working on our literary vignettes over the past few weeks; I have noticed that the more we include our honest selves into our writing, the better the writing becomes. You can hear that true voice of the writer and even not knowing much about the process, we can realize that voice when we hear it. Writing about your true feelings and your real experiences and reading them out loud to someone one else, for goodness sake, feels vulnerable.  I think that is what the writing process is all about. By listening to our true voices we are aligning ourselves with our story. " This is what it means for us, for writers, is that we need to align ourselves with the river of the story, the river of unconscious, of memory and sensibility, of our characters' lives, which can then pour through us, the straw. When KFKD is playing , we are at cross purposes with the river."( Lamott, pg 121)  I think we can see this as readers, writers and teachers. If we can tune out the flow of negative self talk; we can hear so much more.