Entry #6

The reading I did this week focused on assessing and responding to writing.  I was very glad to read about this topic, because assessing student writing is not one of my strong suits.  In my experiences student teaching, I have graded various writing assignments.  It is a process that I feel uneasy with, because unlike a test it is never right or wrong.  However there are some strategies that I have used to help me grade student papers.  I have utilized rubrics and found that they are very helpful when grading writing.  I want to make it clear though, that if you are going to grade writing with a rubric, you must give a copy to the student when you introduce their writing assignment.  It will help the students to see what is expected, and the meet those expectations.  I have also used the technique of holistic scoring in the past.  I found both to be helpful and help to make sure that my assessment is fair and valid.

Tompkins (2012) offers many more strategies in Chapter 4 of Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product.  Tompkins stresses that "the most effective assessment combines process and product measures to evaluate students' growth as writers and the quality of their compositions" (p.89).  I will remember her advice and use both process and product of writing assessments in my classroom.  Some of the strategies that I found helpful and will try out in the future were anecdotal notes, checklists, assessment conferences, and primary trait scoring.

I found Sommers (1982) article on responding to student writing both shocking and very true.  I thought of all the times I have received feedback on my papers, and most of the time I received the vary ambiguous comments they spoke about in the article.  This happened mainly in elementary and high school.  Now that I am in college, I have had experiences on both ends of the spectrum.  I have experienced times when my professors have given me specific and helpful feedback, and other times when I have received just a number on the top of the page.  I also thought of the times that I provided feedback on students papers and was ashamed to realize that I am one of the teachers who have used "comments [that] are not text-specific and could be interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text"(152).  Now that I have read this article, realized my faults, and learned strategies on how to effectively assess student writing I can go forward and improve my teaching.

References

Tompkins, G.E. (2012). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Sommers, N. (1982). Responding to student writing. College Composition and Communication, 33(2), 148-156.