Teaching Writing and Assessments
I found the section on aiming for fluency in Writing Essentials full of useful ideas. If we expect our students to become fluent writers then they must practice, practice, practice. In the classes that I have observed many of them use free writes everyday. The student’s benefit from these exercises, you can see the growth by keeping samples of their writing. I like the prompted writing too because I think for certain students, they can’t think outside of the box and being prompted allows them to think about different subjects (or styles of writing). Obviously students will do better on tests when they are not surprised with content so making sure they are writing everyday is a great idea.
As far as testing students, I think that as long as students are prepared and know what is coming they are more likely to succeed. For assessing students I also like the idea of having students assess themselves. I have seen this in a few classrooms and notice that students are usually brutally honest about what they are doing right or wrong. Having students assess their own work opens up communication between the student and the teacher. It helps the student focus on certain aspects of their work that they need to improve or get help on.
