WHAT?
As part of my
assessment and to see where my next steps are for my learners, I decided it was
time to mark my children’s writing in their books against the writing rubric
and gather data on my hunches. The writing rubric has been created using the
literacy progressions and was used extensively when we marked for National
Standards. The children also have a ‘children friendly’ version in their
writing books.
I have been
teaching is mostly guided writing with the class in their writing books and using
the exemplar, scaffolding ideas for the children. The success of this helps the
children to structure the writing. I took some leave before the holidays and
while I was out of class, the children had written using the ideas from their ‘seed’
notebooks to describe their own
‘object’ that they had outgrown and maybe still has special memories for them.
To make the job more
do-able, I decided to mark 9 books at a time. I focussed on the pieces that the
children had written independently and took my time to be fair and highlight
their success on the writing rubric. I systematically worked through the
criteria – Planning, Audience & Purposes, Content & Ideas, Structure,
Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Revising and Publishing.
Due to the explicit
teaching of precise language choice and using different sentence starters and
other language devices, the children’s writing has made shift in the deeper
features of structure and language features. One child (who is one of my low
ability writers) had written without any errors and sequenced correctly – “My
mum knows this book off by heart because she has read it so often.” Another low
writer had written, “This is so special to me because I’ve had it since I was
born, and my friend Ruby gave it to me.”
I also shared the
children’s successes with them in the next teaching session and showed them
where they had made shift on their own rubric. As well as I messaged a couple
of families to share how impressed I was with the improvement in their child’s writing.
From one parent – “That is a
big improvement and a lovely and very correct story about her snuggle. She did
sit down at home over 2 nights I think last term and wrote down all her ideas
about her snuggle blanket and got my help with the spelling. She wrote the
words she couldn't spell either in her note book or on a piece of paper and
took it to school. So maybe not the huge improvement in spelling but I am sure
there is still improvement and certainly with initiative as she knew all about
what she was to do!”
SO WHAT?
Using the rubric help
me to evaluate the children’s success and identify where I show be taking their
writing as we move onwards. It has highlighted that we need to use to work on the
deeper features of Structure especially on sequenced events with time
connectives, e.g. first, next, after that, finally and using linking to show
cause & effect, e.g. so, so that, as a result, this means that. Another
area of need is Audience and Purpose - Recognises they are writing for
others.
Another reason for
marking using the writing rubric was have evidence for my PaCT judgements, that
are needing to be done before the middle of the this term. As a team, we are
going to moderate our judgements to have a clear picture of our cohort and
where to next. I have spoken to Verity on how I have marked my writing and gave
her a couple of pieces to check through and to see if I am on the ‘right’
track. She also suggested that I use the exemplars from tki as they are a great
way to check.
NOW WHAT?
The writing genre that I have yet to teach with
purpose is persuasive writing. Luckily for me, this is also the type of writing
that needs good sequencing with time connectives and uses words that show cause
and effect. Also this is the perfect genre for audience purpose.
I need to gather a range of my children’s
writing for moderation with the team – a couple high, mid-range and low. Armed
with the tki exemplars and the Teacher’s Support Material so that I can guide
my team on where to next.
“No matter how much experience you have, there’s always something new you can learn and room for improvement.”
― Roy T. Bennett
