Gayle Hyde Fargo South HS Jan. 21, 2013

 Research indicates the importance of writing across the curriculum!  Mike Schmoker, educator, author, speaker, and former football coach, notes, “Schools should establish clear, quantitative agreements about the minimum number of writing assignments all students will complete in the same course” (118).  Current juniors across North Dakota will take the ACT writing test this spring!  Common Core emphasizes writing for all/

 Many years ago (I think in about 2000), our district decided to make Writing one of its district goals.  Because of this focus a cadre of teaches in the district received training in Writing Across the Curriculum

 From this came many initiatives  The Six-Traits Assessment Method (Ideas, Organization, Conventions, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency) was adopted as a common rubric across all grades and disciplines.  This was developed with input from teachers and was adopted at the district level as the expected method of assessment.  What did this do?  Created common language as students progressed through writing instruction  Provided a less subjective evaluation tool  Allowed teachers in disciplines other than English to have the tools to assess writing.

 High School Six Trait 5 point rubric.pdf High School Six Trait 5 point rubric.pdf  Elementary (K-5) Six Trait 5 Point Rubric Elementary (K-5) Six Trait 5 Point Rubric  ELL Six Trait 5 Point Rubric ELL Six Trait 5 Point Rubric

 Fargo began an in-district teacher created and evaluated yearly writing assessment  Given to Grades 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 at first – Modified to eliminate Grade 3 as it didn’t provide data that was useful.  Assessment given in April  Given by the Language Arts/English teacher  Classroom teacher assesses using the six-traits rubric and returns one copy to student with feedback  One copy turned in to the district for grading by a trained group of assessors in June.  This data is reported to parents using a parent report form.

 What did this do for us?  Provided teachers with buy-in because Fargo teachers created the prompts and ran the assessment center.  Fargo teachers paid to assess the writing in the summer – Created a professional development opportunity to help teachers of all disciplines improve on evaluation of writing  Provided feedback to individual schools regarding the writing proficiency of their students  Provided buy-in of other teachers to reinforce writing in all disciplines.

 Building plans  Writing Across the Curriculum became a focus  Academic Vocabulary Word Walls were created  Common Assessment vocabulary was developed. Common Assessment  Started with Vocabulary building and Word of the Week focusing on one content area/month.  Teachers created writing prompts around the Words of the Week for the month related to their individual content.  Scored for Word Choice only  Scores reported to Administration and compared month/month. Explicitly Teach Vocabulary ―Words are not just words. They are the nexus – the interface – between communication and thought. ‖ (Adams, 2009, p. 180).

 It is vital to practice scoring writing using your adopted rubric.  We used department PLC time to commonly score the monthly WAC writing that was done using our common word choice rubric.  We also used one prep period a month being used to meet with other teachers who had that period off to compare scores on a common piece of writing.  The piece that was missing in both of these models was feedback to the students.

 We began by asking teachers one time per month to incorporate a writing assignment of at least 5-7 sentences.  Asked to score it for Word Choice and Ideas  Asked to report the data to our SIP committee  This data was then shared at faculty meetings  The scores were also recorded as part of a student grade and the assessments were returned to students with feedback.

 Second semester teachers were asked to have students create a multi-paragraph writing assignment and this data was also shared with SIP and the staff.  THINGS TO REMEMBER  The writing is directly tied to content  The writing provides feedback to students about content knowledge and writing  Common vocabulary (assessment terms and six traits assessment) helps students to transfer the feedback to other classes

 Because we believe the emphasis is literacy, we also incorporated a weekly Sustained Silent Reading period.  Every Wednesday students read the first 15 minutes of every class.  The last Wednesday of the month, students read a teacher provided Informational Text example and then have a discussion about the information.  Last year we incorporated once a month a character education reading and had teachers discuss with students.

 Need a writing plan  Will you create assessment terms?  Do you have a shared writing assessment rubric?  Will you incorporate Word of the Week?  Is a monthly writing requirement right for you?

Write or steal a rubric – Focus on ideas and word choice Use COPS Work together with other people in your discipline or with other teachers in the building to write prompts – Find a critical friend.

 Know where you’re going... and how to get there... without forgetting the assessment language! COMMON ASSESSMENT TERMS: analyze, apply, compare, contrast, define, describe, discuss, evaluate, explain, identify, persuade, predict, prove, support, summarize Do you have a common definition for each of these terms?

This pedagogical approach values writing as a method of learning. When students write reactions to information received in class or in reading, they often comprehend and retain the information better. Writing can also help students work through confusing new ideas and apply what they learn to their own lives and interests. Also, because students write more frequently, they become more comfortable with writing and are able to maintain or even improve upon their writing skills. WTL assignments are typically short and informal and can be performed either in or out of class. Examples include writing and reading journals, summaries, response papers, learning logs, problem analyses, and more.

 Have students write about the text they read  Have students respond to a text  Have students write summaries of a text  Have students answer questions about a text  Have students increase how much they write Source: Writing to Read by Graham & Hebert