Developing Writers: A Workshop for High School Teachers

Workshop 6

Things To Consider

"In student conferences, I share my observations of their work. It becomes a dialogue."

- Charles Ellenbogen

JUMP TO WORKSHOP

What kind of evaluator are you? Think about the last few papers you graded. What percent of your comments were:

Praise comments (Comments such as "Good word choice" or "Nice transition.")	%
Question comments Comments such as "Did you mean to add more supporting information here?" or "Could you clarify this point?")	%
Instructional comments (Comments such as "Please check the meaning of this word" or "Try varying the length of your sentences here," offered as suggestions.)	%
Directional comments (Comments such as "Change the order of these two sentences," given as a command.)	%
Answer comments (Comments that provide only the answer, such as circling a misspelled word and writing in the correct spelling.)	%
Attention comments (Comments that use symbols such as "awk" or "!," or circling a word.)	%
	% TOTAL

Find out how your commenting style impacts students in this article.

In the workshop videos, the teachers talked about evaluating student writing on a holistic basis.
Read this explanation of holistic versus analytic evaluation and rubrics.
Share your opinions on these two kinds of evaluation on Channel-Talk.
To investigate the evaluation methods teachers have used (and researchers have investigated) throughout the past 25 years, take a look at Evaluating Student Writing: Methods and Measurement, a synopsis written by Nancy B. Hyslop for the ERIC Review.
The Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Minnesota offers a collection of thoughtful articles on responding to student writing from the perspective of teachers and peers in the writing community.

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