We had a our family reunion in Michigan last week (woo, hoo!), which was beyond exciting to see uncles and cousins that I haven't seen in 10 years. My mom comes from a LARGE family of 8 kids and everyone is spread out from Texas to Florida to Michigan, so trying to get everyone together at once is difficult to say the least.
The 8 kids and my grandparents
Anyways, the day that we left to make the 12 hour haul back to Tennessee, my mom and aunt found out my grandmother had a heart attack the night before and told nobody (stubborn woman). Long story short, she had to have an angioplasty and stint to her main artery, which has put the breast cancer issue on hold for about a month, but she is doing much better now. :)
My mom's bunch
Every once in awhile we have to get a little personal. Ok, now onto Chapter 6.....
ASSESSMENT- That word gives me the chilly willies if you know what I mean. I guess because I am so bad at assessing (or at least I feel like it). I have really tried to focus this summer on how to make my assessments more meaningful, but once school starts I always struggle to find that one-on-one time.
I'm going to give you the cliff notes from this chapter- 3 different ways to assess ;)
Individual Writing Assessments:
* LOVE how teachers meet together to discuss students work, wish our school had this "workshop" session
*Write WH "with help" at the bottom of page if you gave the student support
*Create mini lessons based on Cumulative Writing Record
Individual CWR includes:
1. Date/Topic/Title
2. what child knows about craft- Organization, information, voice...
3. Conventions- spacing, letter formation, spelling, punctuation....
4. needs to learn (choose 1 thing at a time to work on)
5. When to teach (what mini lessons we will create)
Love this line..."unless we look at students' work regularly, our teaching wont be effective."
Small Group Writing Assessments:
* Start assessing about a month into school to create mini lessons
* Choose 5 students each week to look at
SG Writing Record includes:
1. Child/ writing
2. what I noticed before reading
3. What writers are doing craft/ conventions (separate with spaces)
4. what need to learn- can be about writing or picture
5. When to teach- mini lesson, interactive writing, conference, read-aloud, conversation, morning meeting, word study, reading instruction
Whole Class Writing Assessments:
* "quick read" whole class of drawing and writing books
* Write down what you see doesn't have to be on a form
* note: craft, conventions, strategies and possible mini lessons
I know individual will be hard for me to do, but I definitely want to try small group assessing. I think it will give me more information than the whole class method. What are your thoughts?
Oh my goodness, Nicole! I think you totally had reason to be late. No worries! I feel the same way about assessing. I always feel like I'm not doing enough, too much, not right, etc. I think that the workshop style is perfect but I'm hoping after reading this book this year there will be more organization to my workshop and conferring this year. Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteJennifer
Teaching with Grace