Nicole Ruggiero Professor Rich ELD 307 Writing Assessment The purpose of a writing assessment is to analyze a students writing

to determine what the student already knows and what they should be taught next during student conferences. It is important that students writing skills be assessed regularly because writing is an essential skill that everyone needs to develop and perfect over time. Writing is used in everyday life from composing simple notes to forming professional letters. If students writing is not assessed on a regular basis, they will not grow as writers. Teachers will not get the data that they need in order to make an informed decision about what to teach their students next in order to help them progress in their writing. Students need to learn specific writing strategies that will help them to turn their thoughts into complete, detailed sentences and to structure different pieces of writing that they will be expected to do in the future. If teachers wish for their students to become successful future members of society, they need to help them develop a solid foundation in writing as soon as possible. I assessed a seven-year old first grade student attending a suburban elementary school in Central Jersey. She is in a class with 22 students14 boys and 8 girls. This student is fairly proficient in math, science, social studies, but she tends to struggle with oral and written language. She often asks for assistance in reading various pieces of text around the room. My cooperating teacher recommended that I assess this students writing because she has many needs in this area. I assessed this students writing ability by looking at a piece about guinea pigs that she wrote during writers workshop.

In order to conduct this writing assessment, I first need to obtain a piece of this students writing. After obtaining the writing, I will look through her writing and record the different aspects of writing that I notice are either present or missing from this piece. After making those observations, I then need to determine the type of assignment for which this student wrote this piece. Then, from the initial observations, I will determine this students strengths and needs. After that, I will try to ascertain what kind of assignment this student believed she was working on. Finally, based on my assessment, I will consider the implications for future instruction and choose one area to focus on for an individual lesson. As I went through this students guinea pigs piece, the first thing that I noticed was that this piece is six pages long. The next thing that I noticed was that this student drew pictures on each page. Her pictures were very detailed and she even added labels to her pictures. She wrote one sentence on every page and each sentence corresponded to the pictures on the respective page. In her writing, I noticed that she used a lot of invented spellings, a mixture of upper and lower case letters in the middle of the sentences, and inconsistent punctuation. The last thing that I noticed is that she did not form complete sentences on three out of her six pages. For example, she wrote: A castle guinea pig home, The body of the guinea pig, and Give it the right These incomplete sentences seem to resemble captions more than sentences. Based on the majority of the content of this piece, it seems that the assignment that This student completed was an informativeor all about piece, about a certain topic, in her case: guinea pigs.

Based on my observations, this student seems to have some strengths in the area of drawing. She is very adept in adding details to her pictures. She also labels her pictures so that her readers will be able to know what she drew. This student is also able to connect her writing with the pictures she draws. In addition to her strengths in drawing, she also has a few areas where she is in need of extra help. One of these areas is her inconsistent use of punctuation. She only used one period in her entire piece and she wrote six sentences total. This student also used a lot of invented spelling and the only words that she spelled correctly were the sight words: you, to, a, do, and the. Along those same lines, when This student constructed her words she used a combination of upper and lower case letters. Finally, This student seems to have a hard time completing her thought while she is writing, so her sentences become incomplete. If I were to consider this assignment from this students perspective, it almost seems like a combination of an all about and a how to piece. She includes details about guinea pigs along with directions explaining how to care for them. For example, she wrote that guinea pigs can do lots of tricks as well as that people need to clean the cage very good. It seems like she lost her direction as she was writing because clean the cage very good is not a fact abut guinea pigs. Since this student is very adept at drawing, detailing, and labeling her pictures, she does not need any instruction in these areas. Her needs in spelling will most likely resolve themselves over time as she progresses in her word study. However, I could do a spelling inventory to find out her specific areas of need and focus on those areas in individual or small group lessons. This student also seems to

have the basic understanding that sentences require punctuation at the end, however she does not always include punctuation, so I could pull this student out for a quick strategy group to remind her. Part of the reason that this might be occurring is because she is not always completing her thoughts. She might have been taught that when writers complete their thoughts, they add a period at the end of their sentences. The punctuation issue and the incomplete sentences could be completely unrelated, but it is possible that these two might affect each other. Therefore, I think that the most pressing need that this student possesses is her lack of ability to produce complete sentences. So, this is the first lesson that I would focus on and thenafter she is able to produce complete thoughtswe can work on her other needs.

It All Fits Together! Individualized LessonFirst Grade Subject/Topic: Stretching a sentence to form a complete, detailed thought Rationale: I am teaching this lesson because this student (and any other students with a similar need) has an issue with creating complete and detailed sentences. Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.5 With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1.J Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts. Objectives: Given a graphic organizer, SWBAT add details to stretch their sentence fragments into complete sentences. Materials: Puzzle Pieces (large, laminated) Puzzle Pieces paper graphic organizer Dry erase markers Sample all about Procedure: Anticipatory Set Call this student (and any other students) over to the back table. Activate prior knowledge: So you have been working on your own all about piece for a week now and you have been doing many important things that all writers do, like adding details to your pictures. Adding details to pictures is important because that shows our readers everything that they need to know about your piece. Well, today we are going to work on creating sentences that tell our readers everything that we would like them to know. We call those types of sentences: complete sentences. Writers use complete sentences to make sure that they tell their readers everything that they need to know in order to make sense of their work. MentorTeach & Model To help us create complete sentences, we have a special graphic organizer. Let me show you how I would use this graphic organizer. So, before I start writing, the first thing that I am going to do is think about what I am going to write. Hmm, well my all about piece is about owls, so I think I would like to create some sentences about owls that I can add to my all about. Let me thinkI remember reading that owls are

able to see their prey at night, so let me use this graphic organizer to help me make a sentence about that. So, lets seein this puzzle piece labeled who, I need to put who or what I am going to write about, so I am going to write owls (write on laminated puzzle piece using dry erase marker) because that is what I am writing about. Now, in the next puzzle piece labeled does what, I need to write what owls do. So they see (write). Now my sentence reads, Owls see, is that a complete sentence? No? Okay well, I have one last puzzle piece (labeled when? where? why?) so lets keep going. Fill out the last puzzle piece. o Write something along the lines of: Owls see their prey at night when they hunt. o Note: If any student want to or try to interject during this time, tell them: I am going to try this alone first and then I am going to ask for your help with my next sentence. Guided Practice Tell this student that owls can also hear their prey from far away and ask this student (and any other students) to help me use this graphic organizer to create a sentence about this. o Owls can hear their prey from far away. Individual Application Have this student (and any other students) create her (their) own sentence using the paper version of the graphic organizer for her (their) all about piece(s). Closure Some possible questions: So what do you think about what we just did? How did we add details and stretch our sentences? Do you think stretching our sentences made our sentences more enjoyable for our readers to read? Why or why not? Now I want you to go off and continue your writing and remember that writers use complete sentences in order to give their readers important details about their story that they need to know. Assessment: The student(s) will have met the objective if she (they) is (are) able to create complete sentences in their own writing. In order to assess whether she (they) met this objective, I will take note of the responses during the guided practice and then I will read her (their) writing to check for complete thoughts.

Who?

Does What?

When? Where? Why?

Name: