Kathleen provides kindergarten and first grade teachers with a tool that reliably helps them assess the development of their young students' writing progress. Her ideas for assessing writing come from her own practical experiences working with teachers and children and have been informed by her extensive research into emergent writing processes. In this book, she describes in detail how children's writing emerges. She then focuses on seven essential components, or domains, of emergent writing (letter formation, capitalization, punctuation, spacing, spelling, style, and content) and how to assess them. -from back cover
Evaluating Children's Writing: A Handbook of Grading Choices for Classroom Teachers, Second Edition introduces and explains a wide range of specific evaluation strategies used by classroom teachers to arrive at grades and gives explicit instructions for implementing them. Samples of student writing accompany the instructions to illustrate the techniques, and an appendix of additional student writing is provided to allow readers to practice particular evaluation strategies. More than just a catalog of grading options, however, this is a handbook with a point of view. Its purpose is to help teachers become intentional about their grading practices. Along with recipes for grading techniques, it offers a philosophy of evaluating student writing that encourages teachers to put grading into a communication context and to make choices among the many options available by determining the instructional purpose of the assignment and considering the advantages and disadvantages of particular grading strategies. Specific grading techniques are integrated with suggestions about the craft of evaluation--guidelines for instructional objectives, for student audience analysis, and for teacher self-analysis that help define communication contexts. New in the Second Edition: *a new chapter on state standards and assessments; *a reorganization of the chapter on approaches to grading; *additions to the chapter on management systems; *additions to the chapter on teaching yourself to grade; *additions to the annotated bibliography; and *updated references throughout the text.
Introduces statement from preface about application activities for a wide range of writing evaluation strategies elementary classroom teachers can use to determine a grade. Txtbk for undergrad. & graduate elementary language arts&writing methods courses
With this updated document, IRA and NCTE reaffirm their position that the primary purpose of assessment must be to improve teaching and learning for all students. Eleven core standards are presented and explained, and a helpful glossary makes this document suitable not only for educators but for parents, policymakers, school board members, and other stakeholders. Case studies of large-scale national tests and smaller scale classroom assessments (particularly in the context of RTI, or Response to Intervention) are used to highlight how assessments in use today do or do not meet the standards.
An invaluable resource for professionals who wish to write book evaluations—and for all serious fans of children's literature! This revised edition of From Cover to Cover offers a fresh, up-to-date look at some of the best examples of children’s literature and also includes practical advice on how to write clearly articulated, reasoned opinions so that others can learn about books they have not yet read. A brief, updated introduction clearly explains how children’s books evolve from manuscripts into bound books and the importance of the many different parts of a book (jacket flaps, title page, copyright, etc.) and changes in the children’s book industry, such as the creation of two new major genre awards. In addition, the author demonstrates how to think about and critically evaluate several different genres of children’s books. Included are sections about books of information (and the author’s responsibility to document sources); traditional literature (myths, legends, tall tales, folktales); poetry, verse, rhymes, and songs; picture books; easy readers and traditional books; and fiction and graphic novels. There is also a concluding chapter on how to write reviews that are both descriptive and analytical, including a segment on children’s literature blogs. Updated material includes: •An introduction that reflects the many changes in the children’s book industry •A section on genres, including a discussion of graphic novels •A section on children’s literature blogs •An introduction of two new major genre awards: the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award and the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award •And more than 90% of the books cited have been updated from the first edition to more recent publications!
