Rubrics for Writing Assessment

One of my favorite tools for assessing writing is a rubric.  The above writing check list hangs in our classroom, and students have a smaller copy in their Writer's Notebooks.  I use this as the framework for our writing rubrics, making adjustments depending on the project.  This checklist covers all the points that I feel are most important.

This week I am holding writing conferences and students are using a rubric to self assess their writing on our December Writing project.  Our writing project is a collection of the pieces we wrote during the month.  While rubrics work well for me, I like them even better when students are using them to think about their own work.  Students are usually much tougher on themselves than I am.   More important, it nudges them to really study their writing.

It may seem wordy and sometimes I do simplify them to just cover the main chategories, Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation, Spelling, Sentence Structure.  Other times kids need to have things spelled out explicitly.

I am always on the lookout for a better tool. How do you assess student writing?  What is your favorite assessment tool?

Talking About Books

20 Day Blogging Challenge, Day #4:  What's one thing you did with your students that you will or will not do again?

We started back to school on Thursday and Friday, but we are home again today.  It is freezing out there!  It is -12F this morning with a feels like temperature of -37F.  Brrrr!  We are all safer and better off at home.  During the two days we did have back at school, we did some "Book Shopping" in our classroom library, and I held reading conferences with students during small group reading time.  I wanted to find out what reading, students were doing over vacation.  I had students give impromptu book talks to tell others about the books they were reading.  It's a good way for me to assess what kids are doing, and as an added benefit, it lets kids hear about new books they may wish to read in the future.

During the month of December I had students present a more formal book talk to the whole class.  I have been trying to offer my students more choices when possible, so they could choose between three options for presenting their book talk.  They could write a blog post on their Kidblog, and present that to the class.  They could use Keynote on the iPads to create a presentation, or they could make a poster and present that to the class.  I just started using Keynote myself recently, so I modeled it's use by creating slides for math as well as reading activities.  I did that as part of the instruction, and talked about how it worked as I went.

I was very curious to see how many students would choose technology over pencil and paper, or in this case, crayons, markers, and poster board.  As it turned out, the largest group chose the poster, but the second largest group were those who chose Keynote.

Whichever presentation method they chose, they all were required to talk about the basic story elements of characters, plot, conflict, resolution, and theme.  Our first step was to use this form, to organize our thinking. Over the course of the month, 2-3 students presented their book talks each day.  Let me just say, they were awesome!  I was particularly impressed with their use of Keynote.  Students used the iPad camera to add photos of the book cover, photos from the book, and in some cases, drawings they had created from the book.  I had a couple kids, who are often reluctant to share during class discussions, that really took off with this.  It was a great way to hear more about the books the kids are reading.  Since that time I have seen other students reading some of the books that were shared through those book talks. This is a project I will definitely try again.

How do you get kids to talk about the books they are reading?

Favorite Geometry Activities, and I Found Them on Pinterest

Whatever would I do without Pinterest?  It is such a great resource, as well as a great place to organize information.  That is never more true than it is with our Geometry unit.  We do not have an up-to-date math book that reflects the Common Core, so I am constantly looking for resources to utilize when teaching a unit.  I have found so many wonderful ideas on Pinterest, including the one above.

Right before winter vacation my math groups reviewed lines, angles, plain figures and geometric solids using marshmallows, toothpicks and pretzels. Needless to say, the kids loved it, and they got to eat their math when they were done.  It was the first day that kids would rather be in my math small group than working with the iPads. I found the idea here.  We discovered that the toothpicks worked a lot better than the pretzel sticks, but they are not as tasty.

Another idea I found was this art activity for symmetry.  It was also a good opportunity to talk about how to hold the ruler to draw a straight line, as well as using it for measurement.  I find that fourth graders do not always know how to do this well.  You can see the original idea here.

There is so much new vocabulary connected with Geometry, so anchor charts are very useful.  I also have my students create foldables to keep in their math notebooks.  I have found many great ideas for both on Pinterest.  I created a Geometry board on Pinterest, which makes it easy for me to share these resources with my colleagues.  All I have to do is send them the link to my board.  Here is a link to my Geometry Board.



 We started back to school on Thursday, and now we are working on area and perimeter.  No matter how much we practice, the kids still get confused about which formula they need to use.  This video has a catchy tune that helps them keep it straight.

Next week we will get another chance to eat our math, when we use Cheese Its for area and perimeter. Another clever idea that I found on Pinterest!

Using Wibki to Organize Shortcuts

People often tease me about all the shortcuts I have sitting out on my desktop.  I found a solution to that problem recently when I started using www.wibki.com.  Wibki is a great way to organize shortcuts to the websites you use most often.  You can sort them according to subject by setting up multiple pages.  The real advantage is that is very easy to set up.  Now I can easily access websites I need from any computer, whether it is at home or at work.  No more wasted time trying to find the shortcut among all the ones I have saved on delicious.


It has worked so well for me personally, that I have now set up a separate account for my students. We have 9 laptops in our classroom. In the past I either set up shortcuts on the desktop of each computer, or on one of the wikis we use.    Now instead of running around to each computer to set up multiple shortcuts, I only need one for Wibki.  When I want to add shortcuts, I just do it once, and it shows up for everyone.  This lets my students have much easier access to the websites that I want them to use.

Meeting the Challenge

Every school year I make a vow to blog on a more regular basis.  I usually start out the year well, but before long I am posting less than once a month.  That's why I was excited when I saw the "20 Day Blogging Challenge" on Kelly Hines' blog, In The Trenches.  Even if it takes me two months to accomplish, I will be way ahead of where I am now.  So here I am on New Year's Day, hanging out at Caribou Coffee, writing my first post.

Day One:  Tell about a favorite book to share or teach.  Provide at least one example of an extension or cross curricular lesson.

We start back to school tomorrow.  Right before winter vacation we finished reading The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Spear.  This is definitely one of my favorite books.  Tomorrow we will begin reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I love these books, but I only do the first one with the class.  When I choose a book for read aloud, I usually look for books that are part of a series or by a great writer.  When I am sharing a book with the class, students look for additional copies and other books by the author in our classroom or school library.  It is one of the best ways to hook a child into wanting to read.

Key for me is great character development, and a well crafted plot.  The Harry Potter books definitely have this going for it.  The first time I ever read this to a class, I remember that when I would reach for the book, students would hush each other with "Sssshhh!  She's going to read."  I had one little guy in my class who asked his grandma to buy him the second book in the series,  "The Chamber of Secrets".  I know this boy had never asked for a book in his life, but he loved these books.  All year he kept that book on the corner of his desk, pulling it out to read when he had time.  The Harry Potter books are magic!  What teacher wouldn't like that?

One problem I do have when I read the Harry Potter books is that I often have a student who is not allowed to hear them, due to religious reasons.  When that happens I just pull out one of my other books on tape for them to listen to in the hall.

I like to focus on the character development.  It is a great opportunity to discuss character traits and how we can identify those traits by the the things the character does and says.  Sometimes I have students take notes as we go.  Here is a document I may use.  Feel free to use it if you wish.

I love the way J. K. Rowling uses language.  Character names reveal a lot about them.  I always like to do a lesson about how the author names some of the characters and the text books that the students use. We talk about meaningful parts of words.   A perfect example is the villain Voldemort.  My high school French helped me to identify that "mort" means death.  I point out words in English like mortuary and mortgage.  We used the dictionary to look up vol and found volition which can mean power.  Voldemort = power of death.  Is that how Rowling came up with the name?  I don't know, but I find it very interesting.

l have these books on tape.  I love hearing them read by this wonderful actor and reader.  If you have never read the Harry Potter books, give them a try.  The movies do not do it justice. 

Creating an Avatar

The students in my class each have their own blog on our class Kidblog account.  Some of them have been very excited about this and have posted several times this year, but others have been slow to get on board.  Sometimes it is difficult to devote the necessary time to building our writing skills through blogging.  During the two weeks before winter vacation, I reminded my students that ideally blogging should be a conversation.  We took some of our writer's workshop time to read each other's blogs and write comments.

To make their blogs more individual, I had each person create an avatar using either Doppel Me or Build Your Wild Self.  I had not done this with a class before.  In the past we just used the avatars that were available through Kidblog.

The kids LOVED this.  I gave them the option choosing which avatar maker to use.  This lesson also provided a great opportunity to teach the class how to upload a photo to their blog, as well as upload an avatar. 

I found Build Your Wild Self avatars easier to download as jpgs, but both websites worked.  Some of our avatars are pictured above. 

Is It Symmetrical?

We are working on symmetry.  We had one of those moments that I had to change my lesson plans on the spur of the moment.  I had my small groups work with a partner to create a design with geo blocks.  The design had to have at least one line of symmetry.  I photographed the designs they created.  Later I showed the designs to the rest of the class.  We had to determine whether the design was in fact symmetrical.  Students used a yard stick to show where the line of symmetry was.

This lesson turned out to be a home run.  It was a quick and easy lesson.  The kids loved doing it and they were excited to see their designs on the screen and to have them used in a lesson for the whole class.. 

Now we are following up with a lesson I found on Pinterest.  Students are using rulers and other drawing tools to create a symmetrical design.  Here is the link to the original post on the blog Art Lessons for Kids.