writing assessment

Throughout the week students have been working away on their beginning of year writing assessment. Today is really the day when the essay takes shape. There's quite a bit of thinking and planning that goes in to the formation of the essay, and that process is an important piece to the writing assessment.

No essay simply appears on a page (or on a screen) out of the blue; behind the scenes there is so much thinking and decision-making necessary, and that is not easy. It's important to me, to recognize the good work that students do to get to the point of writing an excellent essay. I do my best to encourage them through this process, and I hope they understand the emphasis I place on the process, rather than purely the product. Without the good work through the process, the product can not and will not be as effective.



Everyone have a great four-day weekend. Be safe, and read a good book.
See you back on Tuesday--in September!

constructed response practice

Constructed Responses (what I would just call a paragraph, or an extended answer) have once again become a fashionable discussion point in literacy education, mostly because these types of responses ground student writing in a text.

With a new literacy emphasis taking place throughout SPS, constructed responses are a good way to assess students' reading ability--much better, I would say, than a multiple choice test like the one every student is submitted to three times a year during the Performance Series Test. In a constructed response, students must use evidence from a text to support their answer, which is a skill that is necessary and will become more and more important as 8th graders continue in their education.

So, for the last two days we have gone over a three step process that the students should use as they write constructed responses. We've also looked at and even used a new scoring guide for constructed responses; the students read and scored three constructed responses written by students from previous years. It's good practice before writing their own constructed responses.

Yesterday students in pairs and using the computers practiced writing their first constructed responses of the school year. Things went well, from my observations. The time was rich with conversation as students explained their thinking to one another, dug in to the text (it was all about Wilson's Creek National Battlefield), and worked together to form their best answer. The answers that I have read so far have been great, considering a new three step process and a new scoring guide. There is always room for improvement, and we'll be identifying those areas and working toward improvement throughout the year.

Today students will take their first Article of the Week quiz, and individually students will have to answer an extended answer question--my version of a constructed response. Hopefully the students have been studying their vocabulary words, and hopefully they have their article with them, because they get to use the article on the quiz. It will be interesting to see how things go.

The next two weeks will mostly be dedicated to district mandated testing--first we'll do the beginning-of-year writing assessment and then we'll take the Performance Series Reading and Language Arts tests. Students won't have any other homework other than reading for 30 minutes during this time.

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns regarding the schedule or assignments or anything. I feel like it's been a very good start to the year, and if we continue with this focus and work ethic, lots of progress will be made for each student.

classroom expectations

On Monday students discussed, decided, and shared their classroom expectations--for attitude and behavior. It was nice to see some of them incorporate some of what they read in the article of the week. In each class we chose the top four or five expectations, along with the order in some classes. So, here are our class-by-class expectations for 2013-2014.

2nd period

3rd period

4th period

5th period

6th period

Let us know what you think!

article of the week - week 1

Vocabulary words/phrases and questions for each class' article of the week quiz on Friday, August 23.

2nd period

3rd period

4th period

5th period

6th period

The red circled words and the red circled questions will be used for the quiz. Five of the words and one of the questions will be on the quiz.

Here's a bit of a student discussion that led to the vocab word choices and questions the students chose.

what is success?

Day one is in the books!

Lots of papers and organization for the students. But luckily we were also able to do some actual English work as well. Here are a few pictures of students doing some sharing after they wrote about what they think of success. Students also practiced sharing, as well as listening and responding.

Don't forget to get all the papers signed, or choose to complete the online syllabus sign-off form.  

a brand new year!

Another school year is beginning today.

It's an exciting time for so many reasons: new ideas and thoughts and learning to be had, new friends to make, new activities to try. I hope that we are able to take advantage of every day that we have this school year, including today, to make the year a great one.

This blog will serve as the 8th grade English class web presence, and my primary method of communication with parents and the community--those who don't get to share the physical space in room 146. My contact information is available on the next page. Please email or call (email is best though) if you have questions or concerns.

The first day of school can be a hectic, stressful time for parents and students. We in the 8th grade team hope to help alleviate any of those unnecessary stressors. We will help students get oriented to the building, if not already, and help ensure they have everything they need for their classes--as well as identifying some needs that may yet be met.

We know that it is difficult for any learning to take place when students are stressed or uncomfortable or uncertain. These first few days will be used to instill a calm routine into the 8th grade, to help students get started down a comfortable path from which they can learn and grow and explore (to use a metaphor).

Let's hope for a great year. And let's work to make it one.