 |
| REVISION TOOLKIT: Assessment for Improving a Piece of Writing |
| Self Assessment � During revision, good writers hone the rough ideas and words of each draft into a finer product. To do so, they read, re-write, re-read and re-write various sections of a draft, always keeping audience, purpose, clarity, and meaning in mind. During the process they hold an ongoing silent conversation with themselves. Experienced, professional writers are sometimes the severest critics of their own work, because they understand the value of revision. It is said that Tolkien was a painstaking reviser of his work and that he was still revising after publishing each of his books. Louis Sachar, the young adult book author of Holes, re-writes each draft three or four times before he senses that this ideas are really coming together. And he is not ready to share his writing to get feedback from others until draft six. Beginning writers may do some revision on their own, but they usually need guidance to develop the skill.
All three Informal Assessment Instruments in the MEASUREMENT TOOLBOX can be used as reference points to assist students in evaluating their own writing. As students develop, they will build a stronger intuitive understanding of what makes for good writing and what they can do to improve each piece of writing during the revision stage. |
|
|
|
| Peer Conferences � when students share their writing with peers or the teacher, this is another form of assessment. Conferencing is valuable at each stage of the writing process except for the initial drafting stage when the student just needs to get his/her ideas down on paper. Once the initial draft is completed, it is recommended that the student share writing by reading it aloud. This keeps the conferencing partner from being distracted by spelling and punctuation conventions and directs the attention toward the author�s message. Also, hearing his/her words read with his/her own voice validates what they want to say and leads the writer to understand his/her words in a new way. This will lead the writer to make changes for clarity. During later phases of the writing process students can use checklists and rubrics to focus attention on specific aspects of a piece of writing. |
| Responding to writing in a deeper way is a developing task, even among honor students in advanced classes. Teachers often assume that a student's ability to analyze and discuss what they read is equal to the level of literature they are able to read. This is not the case. Students continue to develop analytical skills into college (and beyond?) Students need both direct instruction in how to respond meaningfully, and practice. Modeling by the teacher is an effective and easily implemented teaching stratgegy for accomplish the goal. taught how to respond meaningfully to the content of writing so that their comments are helpful. Helpful responses include engagement with ideas in the writing, suggestions for steps that other writers might take, and thoughts that the writing elicited. Discussion rubrics and checklists can be developed to lead them toward meaningful responses. Experience with analytic scoring guides also helps students to develop as peer reviewers. |
|
Teacher Conferences � It is widely agreed that the most effective form of feedback for students is face-to-face, one-on-one. In the classroom setting providing this is the biggest challenge, but the non-traditional education setting is optimal for providing this kind of assessment. Guidelines for teacher conferencing include the following strategies:
conference content reflects the writing stage the student is at conference responses should address content and effectiveness of communication conferences are opportunities for instruction, but first the student must write conferences should transfer responsibility for writing to the student by leading him/her to express his/her opinion of the text conferences should be short, addressing one concern @ a time conferences should be frequent Experienced writing teachers suggests questions that direct students to reflect on their own writing during any phase of writing: |
 |
|
| DeFina, Anstendig & De Lawter (2001), Jones (2001) |
|
| Murray (1982), Routman (2005), Spandel (2005) |
| Saddler (2003), Van De Weghe (2004) |
|
|
| What did you learn from this piece of writing?
What do you intend to do in the next draft? What surprised you in the draft? Where is this piece of writing taking you? What do you like best in this piece of work? What questions do you have for me? What do you think you�ve done well in this piece? What is keeping you from moving forward? |
| Bratcher (1994), Puhr & Workman (1992), Routman (2005), |
| Murray (1982), Saddler (2003), Routman (2005)
|
| Handwritten notes, and comments at the end of a digital file are meaningful forms of amended face-to-face response that are also meaningful to students. |
|
|
|
Computer Tricks � Use editing features of Microsoft Word to insert comments and feedback into a student's digital text. There are many ways to do this. Here are two ideas: Idea 1- Color Coding and Fonts- The student keeps an original copy of the text titled draft1.doc and submits a copy titled draft2.doc for your comments. The reviewer can then insert coments by using colored text, a strike through font, or highlighting to indicate suggested changes. Create your own legend to indicate purpose of color and font changes. Each subsequent draft is noted with a change of the draft number. Idea 2- Use the Comments feature of Microsoft Word. Find this feature in your top toolbar by clicking "insert" . Follow these steps: 1- With document open, highlight a word or phrase with your cursor. 2- Click "Insert" 3- Click "Comment" 4- type your comment into the dialog box 5- press "Enter" 6- Save the document 7- Continue inserting comments as desired. 8- be sure to make a final "Save" before closing the document When the student opens this document s/he your comments will be indicated by highlighted text. Your comments are accessed by placing the cursor over this highlighted text and clicking. |
|