Choice Lit Topic: Assessment Tools
Making sense of the enormous amount of student data in any classroom or school is probably the biggest challenge we face individually and in our school communities. Here you’ll find everything from one-page templates created by teachers for use in their classrooms to videos of staff teams poring over large data sets. We don’t have all the answers, but we do provide tools to help you ask better questions as you evaluate students and talk about assessments with your colleagues.
Results
Peer Evaluation of Student Writing
We all know we need to incorporate writing into every aspect of what we teach. We love writing ourselves. We love getting out the thoughts and tweaking them and rearranging...
Jumping Off the Buzz Wagon: The Value of Reading Logs
During a recent workshop I was leading, a teacher came up to me shocked that I had shared a student reading log in one of my slides. She sounded confused...
Reading Passports
Has the traditional reading log run its course in your classroom? I have found that by the intermediate grades, the typical nightly reading log no longer has a useful purpose...
Giving Audio Feedback to Student Writing
As a writing teacher, I have always struggled with giving students timely and meaningful feedback. I’d pore over my students' writing and spend hours, pen in hand, writing comments in...
Tutoring Ruth: Designing an Assessment
My telephone rings. It's an unidentified number but in my area code, so I pick up. A concerned mother whispers, describing her daughter Ruth’s reading struggles. I listen to more...
Planning for Instruction: Sea Glass
On a recent trip to Lake Erie while walking along the beach, I spied something glistening in the sand. I bent down to pick up the tiny shiny nugget, and...
Final Literacy Contracts: Student-Generated Themes
It is hard to believe we have reached the end of the school year and this series. We hope you have gotten a lot of ideas on how to use...
The Data Wall Debacle
One of the things that we seem to like to do in education is take a good idea and misuse it. If picture walks work well in helping to prepare...
Student Work Ethic: Overcoming Spring Fever
A few weeks ago I had to be out of the classroom for one day. I left my substitute—a retired art teacher who is amazing—lesson plans that involved collecting a...
Understanding the Summer Slide: Sharing Data with Parents and Students
Without school support, many of our students stop reading. It is as if we are taking two steps forward during the school year and one step backward during the summer....
Reading Interviews: Part 3
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: How does your reading...
Writing Interviews: Part 3
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as writers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: How have you changed...
Reading Interviews: Part 2
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. Questions in this installment include these: What do you need to...
Writing Interviews: Part 2
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as writers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What's something you do...
Reading Interviews: Part 1
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What's a book you...
Writing Interviews: Part 1
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as writers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What writing from this...
April Literacy Contracts: Discovery
Since April is National Poetry Month, we have incorporated novels in verse and poetry anthologies for our reading focus, and students will be creating their own poetry reflection books. Poetry...
Remembering to Slow Down at the End of the School Year
Life moves quickly for all of us. But as I listen to my students share all of the activities they are involved in every day I realize that it is...
March Literacy Contracts: Nonfiction Curiosities
Spring is arriving in March, and with it, a renewed sense of curiosity and enthusiasm. Spring gives us a bounce in our step, more energy, and a desire to learn...
15 Minutes on Friday: Writing on Demand with Students
I have learned that if I wait to write until I think I have something to write about, it is often a very long wait. On the other hand, if...
Jennifer Serravallo on Formative Assessment (PODCAST)
Franki Sibberson chats with Jennifer Serravallo about formative assessment in this podcast. Jennifer is the author of The Literacy Teacher's Playbook, Grades 3-6: Four Steps for Turning Assessment Data into...
