Assessing Writing

Why do we assess? Assessing our students is one of the most important things we as teachers can do for our students. Without assessing our students we are unable to identify our students strengths and weaknesses. Identifying these strengths and weaknesses allows us to create our instruction. We must assess to find out what our students know and what they still need to know. When we learn this we are able to form whole group, small group, and individual lesson plans for our students. 

My second grade students next week are completing the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). A great deal of this assessment deals with reading comprehension. The test asks students to read a piece of literature and then summarize the text. The summary should consist of the key events and important details rather than the student trying to recall every piece of information they just read. To aid students in preparation for the test I created a lesson plan to work on summarizing. The lesson “The Sensational Summarizer” was given to two different literacy groups in a second grade classroom. Group One is a below grade level reading group and group two is an at grade level reading group. Each group read one chapter and filled out a sensational summarizer worksheet. The worksheet gives students the words first, then, next, and finally followed by a blank set of lines. They then fill in the lines with a summary of that section of the chapter following one of the words. This lesson plan took place over the course of a week. 

Across the board the lesson went fairly well for all of the students. In every lesson there is bound to be both strengths and weaknesses. For both groups in general I believe that a major strength was the organization of their summaries. All of the students had a firm grasp on the understanding that their summaries needed to be in chronological order. All of the students put their summaries in order of what happened first to what occurred last in the chapter. This strength will aid them in their comprehension retelling of a story but will also help them in future writings. Second grade writing can often be random in order and difficult for a reader to follow and understand. The more students practice having a first, then, next, finally order their writing will improve in structure. This strength will help them communicate with an audience. An example of this from the students work could be seen in all of the students writing. An exceptional example of this would be student A's writing. She filled in the summary worksheet in chronological order. She uses each section to tell the audience what important events occurred in the chapter. She uses each transition to move to the next key event in the chapter. Another strength seen in the groups was writing for an audience. This strength was further developed in group two but it was clear that group one was progressing in the right direction to writing for an audience. The audience for the purpose of this lesson was a friend who missed group and they were filling them in on what occurred in the chapter or a friend who might be interested in reading this book. They used their writing to pick out key events to inform a friend of what was happening in the book. 

An example of this in group two is student B's writing. She wrote first they went into an empty room and saw the “clone” then they got caught by the guards, next they were locked in a room, and last they found the president. Her writing is to the point. She writes to inform her audience of only the important things in the chapter. She does not include a great amount of detail that would be irrelevant to someone who has not read the chapter. An example from group one would be student M’s writing. She follows a very similar format to Lilly’s writing. She also only includes important events in the chapter. Something that separates her writing from others in her group is that she did include some detail that the audience would need to know in order to understand her writing. The others in the group take a key event and only write down what they themselves need to know. They do not include they why aspect in their summary.  

All of these observations are something that allow me to determine what I can do for my students in the future. I take away important information about my students and how I can differentiate my instruction to help all of my students learn at their fullest potential. It is important that we are constantly assessing our students. It is vital that we are setting our students up for success so that when it does come time for that DRA or whatever test it might be our students are ready because we have been guiding them all along.