Literacy Response Journal

Readings
Lamott pg 185-237
Writing Essentials Chapter 10
Elbow (ER)
Literacy Journal Entry (Blog) Online

Blog Prompt: What are the key points you want to keep in mind as you assess students? Why?

From the readings, it appears that the best forms of instruction focus on the positive aspects of student work. Student assesment as described by Elbow, can be in three judgemental forms of ranking, evaluating, and liking. According, to Elbow, the best assesment of student writing is evaluating. This is because the student can receive feedback of their writing from the teacher and learning then becomes a positive process. This method of evaluating is preferred by Elbow for assessing student writing because students also create portfolios to reflect progress. Although, Elbow presents good reasons for evaluating student work, it is interesting if this same assessment would also be applicable to other subjects such as science or math where ranking is the predominant assessment style.

If the evaluating system were applicable for these subjects where the ranking system exists, this would alleviate some of the student anxiety over grades which Elbow writes. One other aspect which Elbow describes is of creating the 'H' for honors or 'U" for unsatisfactory progress. This system may be applicable to science or math, but the nature of the subjects may leave less room for teacher evaluations for what would be successful in subjects such as writing. From Elbow's article, it seems that the systems are more or less applicable depending on the subject material.

In terms of assesment for younger children, I really enjoyed learning from Routman's creative approaches to "child-friendly rubrics". Learning the six traits of writing through daily writing seems that it would help children to learn best. Another commonality with Routman and Elbow is focusing on the positive aspects of students' writing for them to learn from and 'like' their own writing. I found this to be an important point along with what Routman writes as "the best test preparation is excellent teaching" (Routman, p.244). Routman continues to write that these aspects in addition to relieving anxiety, and positive encouragement help students improve their writing on testing assessments. However, the most fascinating concept that I learned from Routman, chapter 10, was incorporating "humane guidelines for grading" (Routman, p. 253). Writing then becomes a shared process of learning, which reflects what Routman has written of in her optimal model of learning.