Formative+and+Summative+Assessments

What About Grades??

Donald Murray, the famous writing professor from University of New Hampshire, would purposely delay grades because he found that once a grade was attached, the writer felt finished and very rarely went back to revise (//A Writer Teaches Writing//). He and his classes certainly had many discussions/mini-lessons about the criteria of a effective piece of writing. But once the grade was attached, the student rarely returned to reconsider. In fact, researchers have found that very little transferrance occurs between one paper and the next--in terms of skills learned--as a result of teacher-graded papers. Following suit, the other proponents of the Workshop approach--Donald Graves, Lucy Calkins, Nancy Atwell, Peter Elbow, Randy Bomer--concur on this point, and wait.

But What's a Teacher to Do? We need GRADES! . ..

I Give Students a FORMATIVE grades for:
 * == Daily "Work." I use Donald Murray's idea (//A Writer Teaches Writing//) for this. For me, daily work consists of==
 * ==brainstorms==
 * ==free writes==
 * ==peer reviews==
 * ==thinking==
 * ==response to readings==
 * ==experiments with leads, endings==
 * ==drafts==
 * ==outlines==
 * ==copied poems==
 * ==beautiful language or quotes==
 * ==etc.==
 * ==I create a rubric--based on Volume, Variety, and Thoughtfulness . At least one and one-half pages in a 45-minute workshop satisfies the volume criterion. Evidence that they are trying my suggestions from the mini-lessons and that they are "experimenting" with writing satisfies the the variety criterion--and possibly the criterion of thoughtfulness. (Refer to the Rubric for notebooks earlier in this section.)==


 * == Homework in their notebooks (see earlier hw discussion).==
 * == Responses to reading (again, using a rubric).==
 * ==text to self==
 * ==text to text==
 * ==text to world==


 * == "Quizzes." These can take all sorts of forms and I may "test" them on their knowledge of:==
 * ==the writing process (open or closed sorts)==
 * ==criteria used to evaluate different genres of writing==
 * ==questions good writers/readers ask==
 * ==three different ways to begin==
 * ==something in my mini-lessons==
 * ==a certain skill based on observation in my running record==
 * ==These "quizzes" are often coopertive in nature.==


 * Other ideas
 * ==Explanations (with support) about how the writer feels he or she has grown as a writer (metacognition).==
 * ==Publishing to a real world audience==

I give SUMMATIVE grades for 1-2 finished products of writing for the quarter.
 * ==the student picks the pieces for evaluation and provides a self-evaluation of his/her work and process==
 * ==we have a discussion/conference==
 * ==the summative is based on the //6 +1 Traits of Writing,// unless it is poetry. (I use a different rubric for that.)==