Update: I don’t know what happened, but the new anchor charts weren’t displaying correctly. They should be fixed now. Please let me know if you can’t see the new charts at the top of the page.
Thanks!
Julie
Thoughts on Assessment (and Weekend Update)
Posted onI’ve been doing a lot of thinking about assessment lately, particularly about authentic assessment. My school district uses the workshop approach to reading and writing, so students are working at their own level. Daily conferring happens in both reading and writing, so informal assessment comes naturally. Working individually with students allows teachers to meet individual needs right on the spot and keep track of how they are responding to instruction. The trick is turning all of this into a number to put in the grade book. At my campus, we are trying something new in writing. I am working with teachers to create simple rubrics for each curriculum unit. When I say simple, I mean 8-year-old simple. We are limiting ourselves to the five most important things we hope they will be able to produce in the writing unit, and we are making the language as kid-friendly as possible, because the whole point is to share the rubrics with the kids.
These rubrics are ideally introduced on Day 2 of the writing unit. (Day 1 is devoted to immersing in the kind of writing kids are about to do.) On day 2, we want to push kids to reflect on everything they noticed as they were immersing in the genre. Then they’ll be introduced to the rubric. (I’m including a picture of a 2nd grade rubric (from Mrs. Scott’s class) here, and I am adding more to the anchor charts page.)
The point of this rubric is not just to show kids one time, of course. The rubrics are being referred to multiple times every single day. Because we developed the rubric based on our curriculum, every mini-lesson should be connected to one of the rubric goals. This will help kids add to their vision of where they are going in this unit. (Like Katie Wood Ray says, if we don’t give kids a vision, we can’t expect them to do any revision.)
These rubrics are also referred to in individual conferences. A conference should include a compliment and a teaching point. If the teacher is stuck, they can certainly compliment the student on one goal from the rubric they are really working on, and they can choose a teaching point based on a different goal.
Finally, teachers are referring to these rubrics during the share portion of writing workshop. I was in a second grade class last week during the share, and one student read her ending. (The mini-lesson that day was about endings.) After she read that part of her piece, the teacher thanked her and publicly praised her realistic solution (one of the rubric goals). This not only made that student feel like a writing rock star – it made every other kid in the class double-check that the solution in their story was realistic, too.
This is a work in progress for us. I’ll update as our work evolves.
Happy Saturday!
Julie
P.S. – I added a few other anchor chart pictures as well. I may add another post about those later. I also reorganized the anchor chart page for clarity’s sake.
Weekend Update
Posted onI just updated the site. I added a few new anchor charts, and I made printables available on the read-aloud, reader’s notebook, and writer’s notebook pages. Also, I’m now using an optimizer that’s supposed to make the pages load faster. Hopefully, quality won’t be sacrificed. If you notice a difference, let me know.
Enjoy! 🙂
Julie
Thumbprint Biography
Posted onI might have a new favorite entry in my writer’s notebook! I finished my thumbprint biography last night, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I love the idea of doing this with older students, but I’m not going to lie. It took me a lot of trial and error to get my thumbprint blown up on the copier. If I can figure out how to streamline that, I may try to convince a teacher at my school to try this project with me. Here is my finished product:
Literacy Station Files
Posted onI just updated the literacy station page. This was for a couple of reasons.
1. I realized that although I didn’t need a visual of the downloadable files, visitors to the site could probably use a general idea of what they could download.
2. I was checking links today, and I realized that the kindergarten and first grade prompt cards were mixed up! This isn’t a huge issue. In theory, however, the cards should become increasingly difficult. Regardless, the links are fixed now! 🙂
In other news, I’m almost finished with my thumbprint biography. Can’t wait to share!
New anchor charts!
Posted onWhen I read through my guestbook, it’s extremely clear that the most popular page on my site is the anchor charts page. I found a small treasure trove of pictures that I (for some unknown reason) never uploaded, so there are tons of new anchor charts in this update! There are also new classroom photos and literacy station photos, including a few of kids working with the Tic Tac Toe grids that are posted on the literacy station page.
The pages for my writer’s notebook and my reader’s notebook are being well-used too. I forgot to bring my notebooks home this weekend, but I’ve got several possibilities for entries swirling around in my head, so those sections will definitely be hit in the next update. 🙂
Pinterest Madness
Posted onI should probably be in less shock by now, but I absolutely am not. I have been in love with Pinterest for many months, but I mostly use it to find recipes and crafty inspirations. (I love anything with glitter and a hot glue gun.)
Last week, some of my charts were pinned, and traffic on my site exploded. To cope with this, I finally took the personal domain plunge and installed a traffic tracker so that I could see how Pinterest was really affecting the traffic around here.
The data that tracker has collected in the last week has left me completely dumbfounded. I’ve had visitors from 49 of the 50 states (Rhode Island is still holding out), Washington DC, Puerto Rico, every province in Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Belgium, Serbia, Qatar, Peru, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, China, Croatia, and the United Arab Emirates!
I can’t help but feel like I’m being virtually punk’d….
Update: Rhode Island finally came around! France, Finland, Brazil, Albania, Venezuela, Thailand, Ukraine, Korea, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Taiwan, Ireland, Romania, Turkey, Denmark, Bermuda, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Malaysia, Greece, the Dominican Republic, the Cayman Islands, Morocco, Hungary, Kuwait, Belarus, Portugal, Moldova, Japan, Colombia, South Africa, Poland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Guatemala, Estonia, the Czech Republic, the Dutch Antilles, Pakistan, the Bahamas, Belize, Uganda, Montenegro, El Salvador, Aruba, Sudan, Jordan, New Caledonia, Sweden, Trinidad & Tobago, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Guam, Latvia, Bulgaria, Israel, Djibouti, Ecuador, Chile, Norway, Kenya, St. Kitts & Nevis, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Papua New Guinea, Austria, Niger, Lebanon, Russia, Slovenia, Palestine, Bahrain, Botswana, Macedonia, Panama, the Virgin Islands, Samoa, Jamaica, Malta, Yemen, Oman, Uruguay, Lithuania, Mauritius, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Barbados, Senegal, Iceland, Cambodia, and Nigeria also stopped by. I need a stronger word than dumbfounded…
Beginning Again
Posted onAs I migrate my site to it’s new hosting home, I’m starting fresh with the blog as well. Using a WordPress blog will allow me to update from anywhere, so I won’t have to go so long between posts. Starting over is never fun, but sometimes it’s absolutely necessary!