Beginning in 2009, the
Lower School
teachers began to discuss ways to refine the students’ writing to approximate
and complement the high levels of achievement evidenced in reading. As one of her professional development goals,
Janet Zanzinger, first grade
teacher, received a summer stipend to read myriad genres of picture books written
for children, to select those books which were deemed exceptional in
demonstrating the 6+1 traits of writing and to provide instruction to fellow
teachers on the use of these mentor texts. Under the direction of
Lisa Bloomfield, literary specialist, and
Pat Davis,
Lower School Head, the teachers kept the momentum going and helped to create a list of
objectives to shape the work of the writing initiative. The
teachers decided to:
- Define
the objectives of each writing activity beyond the types of “pieces” of
writing.
- Gather
data on each student
- Keep
effective (and non-cumbersome) records
- Improve
the breadth and depth of writing conferences with students
- Communicate
strengths and weakness of individual students to Lisa
Bloomfield, our literacy specialist, related arts teachers,
parents (in parent conferences and on report cards), the leadership team
(where applicable) and most especially to the child.
- Help
students to create personal goals for writing
- Update
our existing “writing” curriculum document to reflect the objectives of
each genre of writing and the assessment process.
- Acquire
the services of an objective agency to measure progress in students’
writing skills.
As a support for this initiative,
Lisa
Bloomfield designed and created a binder for each teacher in
the LS. These literacy guidebooks
provided information on conference reporting sheets (which included the
objectives for each piece of required writing at each grade level), rubrics for
scoring, student planning sheets (which addressed the multiple ways students
learn best) and finally a teacher resource section. This last section offered information on
strategies, structures and qualities of fine writing, definitions for different
genres (mysteries, realistic fiction, fantasy, etc.), tips and tools for
writing topic sentences and thesis statements, and self-evaluation and
reflection documents for students. The
teachers used planning and faculty meeting time to confer and collaborate on
the goals for this project. Grades K – 4 unanimously adopted a common language
for writing conventions that included a list of copy editors’ symbols and a
uniform editing procedure with a color-coding system. During a professional development seminar,
some
Lower School teachers learned of this
successful color coding process and brought the demonstration to a faculty
meeting. The results to date have been very encouraging; the students are empowered
by this new skill. It should be noted
that the expectations for self-editing increase with each grade level.
In an effort to support writing across the content areas, Linda Perkins, LS science specialist, has
collaborated with Lower
School teachers to
provide opportunities to incorporate both fiction and non-fiction writing
experiences in the science lab assignments.
Whether writing from the point of view of an aging tree or analyzing
evidence and comparing results to a hypothesis, the students are broadening
their writing skills. Writing skills are
also being honed in religion, art, library and music classes.
In order to provide accountability for the students’ work
and the professional writing initiative we contracted the services of a standardized
testing publisher to provide an objective analysis of our students’ work; the
students were given the WrAP test.
Students in 3
rd and 4
th grades submitted writing
samples for review by a professional writing analysis team from (ERB)
Educational Records Bureau. Each entry received
an individual report with raw scores for the six elements of writing. In addition to the report and the child’s
writing sample, we also received a copy of the writing rubric used in the
standardization process to help parents, teachers and students to decipher the
expectations that accompanied each score. The results also provided scale
scores which were computed from the students’ total raw scores; these scores
are critical since they provide a convenient means of measuring growth over
time. The percentile rank and stanine
numbers demonstrated how our students performed compared to the results of
students at the same grade level in suburban and independent schools using the same
writing test. We were pleased to learn
that 65% of our third graders scored in the high average range and 55% of the 4
th
graders achieved this distinction as well.
As with the other standardized tests administered at St.
Anne’s we use the results to develop plans to meet individual children’s needs
as well as make improvements and/or adjustments to our writing program. In addition to providing specific goals for
each child, this year the third grade teaching team used the test results to
focus on specific target lessons in “mechanics and sentence structure” while
the fourth grade teachers provided lessons on “supporting details.” We are
delighted to report that the Middle School teachers also have embraced the work
of this initiative and consequently middle school students will be taking these
tests beginning in the 2012-2013 school year. In addition the Middle School Language Arts teachers attended another workshop on writing instruction on Monday and we have plans to build on the writing initiative with our entire staff when we return for our August in-services.
