Writing can be a very difficult thing to teach and an even harder thing to grade objectively. Making sense of planning, teaching, and assessing writing is a challenge at every grade level. The purpose of having Norma Jackson come and work with us was to provide you with practical tools for the writing process and to begin building vertical alignment with our approach to writing at Walker Creek. The focus is on excellent writing and not on STAAR. We want excellent results on STAAR of course, but we are really looking at something much bigger. We want to develop life-long writing skills in our scholars that will continue to build throughout middle school and high school. As I listened in the afternoon session yesterday, I thought about two things. If we all have the same framework for the writing process and if we use the same tools for assessment, our scholars will be better equipped to write as they move into fourth and fifth grades. While we don't have a writing crisis at Walker Creek, there is room to improve. I believe this is a matter of getting on the same page with instruction and assessment and not about more, more, more writing. What are your thoughts about the tools from the Norma Jackson's workshop and how they apply to us?
9 comments:
I have used the Norma Jackson rubric the past 2 years at my other campus. I like having a common tool across the grade levels so that everyone is on the same page. I do have a hard time objectively scoring my students on the rubric though. I often find myself scoring them a little tougher than Norma would. It takes some time to let go of every little period, space, capitalization and see the writing as a whole piece.
Angela LeRoy
I will admit that I was not looking forward to the writing workshop yesterday, so I was VERY pleased to come away with something that made common sense, made my life much easier, and that I can use right away in my classroom, (not necessarily in that order of importance). Sometimes when changing grade levels, we miss the consistency that follows from all being on the same page--so this workshop, the practice scoring, and how to hold our scholars accountable to what we KNOW they should know is truly valuable.
As a visual learner I appreciate the simplicity of the12 Stage Analytic Writing Rubric. As a former 1st grade teacher I can picture that rubric on my wall. I would take a picture of my whole group, glue it inside of a rocket and have the sentence: Reach for the stars! The rubric can be used as a visual representation of a system that provides opportunity for self evaluation and goal setting. As a pre-k teacher I’ll keep working on vocabulary, letter knowledge and formation, phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension and fine motor skills to prepare and inspire my scholars to reach their best as future writers.
I have used a few of the Norma Jackson writing techniques and the rubric with my scholars in the past. I was excited to hear her speak again. It was just the jumpstart I needed to begin incorporating her ideas right now! My students will be publishing books in April so I am looking forward to seeing writing improvement in my scholars.
I was excited to have Norma Jackson visit us again. I find her workshop to be informative, engaging and worthwhile. I hear new "nuggets" each time I attend her workshops. It would be valuable to invite her back every year. Like Angela, I tend to score my scholars writing pieces harder than what Norma does. Using the rubric to assess our scholars writing from kindergarten on would be beneficial for everyone. We are able to know exactly where our scholars should be by May. The rubric will help us be on the same page. I agree with Jo, this is the jumpstart I needed right now!
I think the rubric is a valuable tool to teach scholars what to look for in their writing as well as allow our school to be consistent in it's evaluation of student writing. I realize time is an issue in some grade levels and a separate writing time might not be available but allowing the writing to be incorporated into another content area gives the scholar a purpose for writing other than STAAR practice and the rubric lends itself to be easily used regardless of the writing purpose. Research tells us that providing scholars with feedback in their learning increases achievement. I think that the visual cues used in the wall rubric and the rubric itself will help scholars understand their writing proficiency. This will enable them to set goals and work toward mastery of a skill or level.
Like Jo, I am excited to use the rubric with scholars on our book publication. I love hearing Norma Jackson speak. She always brings fresh new ideas, and I always leave with at least one new strategy to try. I also like how she has adapted the rubric to a smaller scale.
I too am excited to use the rubric as we prepare to publish our books. I loved hearing Norma Jackson last time she was here. However, after having had time to use it a bit, it all made more sense to me this time.
JoAnne shared with me how she showed her scholars the sample Norma Jackson gave us for second graders. My class was impressed to see how they've already grown as writers when i explained to them how they once could only write letters, but can now write developing stories!! The rubric is a great tool and a great connector for our campus goal of strengthening our daily writing.
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