Today I returned my English students first essay. In my formative assessment manner, I carefully explained that I want them to improvement in their writing during the course and to do so, I had to identify what they have done well and what they need to improve. Í reminded them that the rubric checklist has a plus (+) for doing well, a question mark (?) for inconsistent work, and negative (-) for needs improvement. I marked 20+ items on their checklist. I did not give them a grade like a B since the grade tells them nothing about what they did well or have to improve in. I also explained that, for each student, I have identified the three areas that will lead to the greatest improvement. I stressed that I expect to see improvement in those three areas on the next essay. They copied these three improvement areas on an Essay Improvement sheet that they will hand in with their next essay. I explained that I will provide new strategies for those learning gaps demonstrated by the greatest number of students at the beginning of each class. More ideas are in my Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment
How do you help your students to continually improve?
My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.
Also, my book, Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.
How valuable is Peer Review?
Published December 15, 2008 Change , Comment , Composition , Edublogger , Education , ELA , English , Feedback , peer , Peer Review , Review , Revision , write , Writing Leave a CommentTags: Change, Comments, Composition, edublooger, Education, English, Essay, Feedback, Improve, peer, Peer Review, Revision, write, Writing
When my students hand in their final English essay, they also hand in their peer reviewed draft. I’ve noticed that usually they do not incorporate the changes that peers suggest.
I gave them a survey on peer review to help me better understand their use of peer’s comments. They admitted that they use very little of peer review.
Some of their reasons:
The reviewer isn’t as smart as I am.
I don’t care what they “feel” about my paper. What is good/bad according to the rubric?
They don’t understand the rubric.
It does not help me when a reviewer finds a mistake if he cannot tell me how to fix it.
They don’t understand my thinking/how I wrote the paper.
The reviewer found some spelling mistakes but missed the big things like my first body paragraph having two topics.
They don’t try/ they do not take it seriously.
How well do your students peer review each other? How valuable is the peer review to the author?
For any one who is interested in implementing formative assessment in the classroom, my book,
Formative Assessment: Responding to Students is available through Eye-on-Education.