Learning Resources for Teachers

When using a process approach to teaching writing, teachers focus on what students think and do as they write. Graves (1994) identified five stages of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing/sharing. Research has shown that the writing process does not take place in a linear manner; rather, writing involves recurring cycles. The stages have been labeled as a way of identifying and discussing writing activities (Graves, 1994; Perl, 1994).

Key Features of the Writing Process

Please follow this link for the key features of the writing process listed by Tompkins (2003).

Workshops

Often, teachers who use a process approach to writing also use reading workshops in their classes; the two go hand-in-hand. The key element of both workshops is student choice; that is, students choose what they read and write. Often, these choices are within boundaries established by teachers. For example, students may choose to read books from an assigned genre and engage in a specified type of writing. Writing in writing workshops may be in response to literature. Writing workshops work best when there is a large block of time for students to write.

Please follow this link for suggestions on how to begin a writing workshop in your classroom.

Writing is an effective tool for enhancing students' learning of content area material (p. 20). Writing to learn in the content area provides students with new tools for delving into subject matter and using writing as a tool for thinking (Daniels, Zemelman, & Steineke, 2007).

Writing incorporated into a content area classroom is a catalyst for further learning and meaning making. Writing tasks used to extend learning are often informal, short, unedited, ungraded, and allow students to explore their understanding of content.

Good content writing is a product of quality instruction. Teachers must surround students with examples and models, provide expectations, provide feedback, and provide practice in realistic ways.

Writing to Learn Strategies

Please click on each strategy to read the information provided.

• RAFT
• Take Notes/Make Notes [PDF 29.8 KB/2 pages]
• Exit Cards [PDF 12.7 KB/1 page]
• Reader Response Logs [PDF 14.5 KB/1 page]
• Quick Writes
• Learning Logs
• Framed Paragraphs
• Biopoems
• Inquiry Chart
• K-W-L [PDF 25.8 KB/2 pages]
• Cubing [PDF 26.7 KB/2 pages]

Literacy assessment is more than testing; it is an integral and ongoing part of teaching and learning. In this lesson we will focus on formative assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments are assessments made over time and are meant to provide feedback to teachers and students over the course of instruction. In contrast, summative assessments take place after a period of instruction and involve making a judgment about learning that has occurred. Examples of summative assessments are grades or scores on a test or paper.

Effective teachers identify their goals and plan their instruction at the same time as they develop their assessment plans. Assessment plans include three parts: pre-assessing, monitoring, and assessing (Tompkins, 2003).

Pre-assessment tools that help teachers determine students' prior knowledge include:

• Creating a KWL chart that brainstorms a list of characteristics about a topic;
• Creating an anticipation chart; and
• Quick writing about the topic.

Monitoring tools help teachers monitor students' progress in reading and writing as they observe students participating in reading and writing activities. Monitoring tools include:

• Taking anecdotal notes to record students' literacy behaviors;
• Documenting students' writing progress;
• Analyzing students' spelling development;
• Conferencing with students about their literacy learning at regular intervals;
• Listening to students talk during small group and whole class discussions;
• Reading students' learning log entries; and
• Collecting and examining students' work samples.

Assessing tools that teachers use to evaluate and grade a students' work at the end of a unit include:

• Observations of students' oral presentations;
• Analyzing students' comprehension through graphic representations (charts, Venn diagrams, story maps) that they have made; and
• Checking students' use of new vocabulary in their written projects.

Authentic assessments may be used as formative monitoring tools. These assessments can be used to evaluate students' writing products. Daniels and Bizar (1998) suggest six strategies teachers can use for authentic assessment. These strategies include portfolios, student conferences, anecdotal records, checklists, performance assessment, and classroom tests.

Portfolios

Portfolios are meaningful collections of artifacts documenting students' learning and development over a period of time (DeFina, 1992; Graves & Sunstein, 1992). Teachers embracing a portfolio culture in their classrooms shift their emphasis from the assessment of outcomes through comparative rankings of achievement (grades, percentile rankings, test scores) toward the enhancement of student performance through evaluative feedback and reflection. Portfolios used for assessment are folders, notebooks, or expandable files that contain student work selected by the students as well as teacher-selected student work, teachers' anecdotal observational notes, students written goals for a grading period/year, and may include tests. The unique assessment quality of portfolios is that students help decide some of what goes into their portfolios and engage in goal setting and self-evaluation at regular periods throughout the school year.

Portfolios provide teachers with a wealth of information upon which to base instructional decisions and from which to evaluate student progress. Teachers can use their record of observations and the collection of student work to support the conclusions they draw when reporting to parents. Portfolios can also serve to motivate students and promote student self-assessment and self-understanding (Frazier & Paulson, 1992).

Evidence typically found in student portfolios includes:

• Student-generated learning goals;
• Criteria for selecting items for portfolio;
• Criteria for judging the merits of work in the portfolio;
• Student's self-reflection on progress toward goals;
• Samples of student writing;
• An autobiographical sketch of the student;
• Learning log entries;
• Audio and/or videotapes of student performance such as oral reading;
• Projects from content area learning; and
• Copies of teachers' anecdotal notes taken in conferences with the student.

Anecdotal records

Teachers write brief, informal notes of student performance during learning activities. Notes also include questions students ask, strategies and skills students are using or not using, as well as notes about students' needs for further instruction. These records can become part of the student's portfolio and are excellent sources of information when conferencing with parents.

Checklists

Checklists are excellent tools for observing students' abilities to construct meaning from text. Each checklist should contain the qualities or traits you are looking for and a means for recording observed behaviors. Checklists should be specific, easily observable behaviors that are age-appropriate. Checklists can be set up in different formats ranging from very simple, checking yes or no, to more complex, rating skills on a scale.

Conferences

During conferences, teachers talk with students individually about student learning goals, progress in achieving goals, and help students solve problems. Usually these conferences are brief and impromptu and are held at a student's desk as the teacher moves around the classroom. Tompkins (2003) identified several types of conferences used by teachers engaged in literacy assessment.

• On-the-spot conferences - Often lasting less than a minute, these conferences usually take place at the student's desk. Teachers monitor some aspect of the student's work or check on the student's progress.
• Pre-reading or prewriting conferences - Teacher and student together talk about a new reading or writing assignment and plan for the reading or writing activity. Teachers give students the immediate support they need to begin an assignment.
• Revision conferences - Teachers meet with small groups of students to provide feedback on student writing and suggest revision strategies to improve.
• Book or text discussion conferences - Typically, this is an after-reading conference. When teachers meet with students after completing a reading assignment, they discuss entries in learning logs and the plot or content of the reading, clarify points or vocabulary, and/or plan extension activities.
• Editing conferences - After students have proofread their compositions, teachers meet with students individually to correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other mechanical errors in the writing.
• Assessment conferences - Teachers meet individually with students after they have completed an assignment or project to talk about their growth. At these conferences, students reflect on their progress and set new learning goals

Performance assessments

Performance assessment requires students to perform a task rather than select an answer from a ready-made list on a traditional test. For example, a student may be asked to explain historical events, generate scientific hypotheses, solve math problems, converse in a foreign language, or conduct research on an assigned topic. Teachers then judge the quality of the student's work based on an agreed-upon set of criteria. Two kinds of performances often used by classroom teachers are:

Open-ended or extended response exercises are questions or other prompts that require students to explore a topic orally or in writing. Students might be asked to describe their observations from a science experiment or present arguments an historic character would make concerning a particular proposition. For example, what would Abraham Lincoln argue about the causes of the Civil War?

Extended tasks are assignments that require sustained attention in a single work area and are carried out over several hours or longer. Such tasks could include drafting, reviewing, and revising a poem; conducting and explaining the results of a science experiment on photosynthesis; or even painting a car in an auto shop.

Classroom Tests

Effective Reading Strategy: Anticipation Guide

Anticipation Guides are used as a before reading strategy to help activate and evaluate students’ prior knowledge. Students can use the anticipation guide during reading to collect information on their predictions and return to it after reading to evaluate the accuracy of their predictions. Anticipation guides engage students in thought and discussion about ideas they will encounter in the text. They are often structured as a series of statements with which the students can choose to agree or disagree. They can focus on students’ prior knowledge about the text, or the "big ideas" or essential questions posed (implicitly or explicitly) by the writer as a way for the readers to clarify his/her opinions before reading the text and then compare them to the writer’s message as they read.

• Blank Anticipation Guide Graphic Organizer
• Example Anticipation Guide Literacy Log Entry - View this example of a completed literacy log assignment for this lesson.

• View sample Anticipation Guide for elementary grades.
• View sample Anticipation Guide for secondary grades.

Pre-reading strategies

Prior to reading, students must have opportunities to activate background knowledge, develop an understanding of technical vocabulary they will encounter in the reading, preview and make predictions about the text, examine the features of the text, establish a purpose for reading, and generate questions they have about the topic.

Please click on the Classroom Applications icon on the left for several pre-reading strategies content area teachers can use with their students. Click on each strategy to find out how to use this strategy in your classroom.

During Reading Strategies

While reading, students must construct mental images, reflect and monitor their understanding, ask questions about the text, summarize what they have read, and organize and remember information.

Please click on the Classroom Applications icon on the left for several during reading strategies content area teachers can use with their students. Click on each strategy to find out how to use this strategy in your classroom.

After Reading Strategies

After students have read, they must review, paraphrase, summarize, and interpret what they have read.

How to Use a Textbook

The issue in content areas is not how many pages were covered for the year, but how much understanding really took place. Will students remember anything about the French Revolution by May? Will they be able to draw connections between the French and American Revolution? We have to keep in mind that for meaning to be constructed, students need an opportunity to develop a deep understanding of concepts and ideas presented through the content. Students need time to absorb the concepts, good instruction, support for their learning, and good materials. Teachers must present the content in a logical manner, require assignments that demonstrate varying levels of knowledge, and support students as they learn.

• Readers have insufficient prior knowledge about topics.
• Readers are unfamiliar with the organizational text structures.
• Vocabulary is technical and specialized.
• Students may not understand how to use organizational features such as diagrams, charts, etc.
• Student motivation may be affected as text focuses on information.
• Text may be inconsiderate (i.e., lacking in organization, cohesiveness, engagement poorly written, or inappropriate for grade level; writers of inconsiderate text do not consider what students are likely to know).