Assessing and Responding to Student Writing
This microcredential represents educators' effective and consistent assessment of and response to student writing.
This is the fourth microcredential in the Teaching Text Creation stack. This stack of microcredentials fulfills one of the requirements for the Secondary Literacy endorsement. It also fulfills one of the requirements for the Secondary Literacy Intervention endorsement.
To earn this microcredential you will collect and submit two sets of evidence demonstrating your effective and consistent assessment of and response to student writing. You will also complete a written or video reflective analysis.
This microcredential partially fulfills competency 5 for the ELA endorsement. Successful completion of the microcredential will show that teachers assess and respond to student writing using practices that foster recursive writing processes and measure students’ progress toward learning outcomes and established goals.
This microcredential partially fulfills competency area 9 for the Secondary Literacy Intervention endorsement.
Informal Assessments may include teacher observations or students’ self-reports of progress toward learning outcomes; often these assessments may be narrative and may occur during class or student conferences. They are not easily measurable and are not always documented as part of a student’s grade or progress in the course.
Formal Assessments :Formal Assessments include work that is submitted for evaluation by a teacher to measure student progress toward learning outcomes. These assessments are often documented as part of a student’s grade or progress in the course. Formal assessments may be either formative (in-progress) or summative (final).
Formative Assessments :Formative Assessments include in-process work designed to practice writing skills. These formative assessments may be shared with teacher(s) and/or peer(s) to elicit feedback during writing and revision. Comments and feedback from teacher(s) and/or peer(s) are intended to evaluate students’ progress and to foster a recursive writing process that encourages revision.
Summative Assessments :Summative Assessments include final versions of work meant to demonstrate student mastery of learning objectives. These may be published or shared with the teacher (e.g., submitting a final essay), with peers (e.g., screening a video presentation for the class), or with other audiences outside of the classroom (e.g., submitting a college application essay or a letter to the editor).
Mr. Flores wants to develop good writing habits with his 8th-grade students by structuring writing instruction that builds on all phases of the writing process (invention, pre-writing, drafting, revision, editing, and publishing). However, he doesn’t want students to experience writing assignments as jumping through hoops or completing tasks just to earn points. Some students have admitted to him that, in the past, they have filled out a prewriting outline or a brainstorm web after completing their final piece of writing just to get credit for the “formative” writing tasks. Other students have complained that they never know what their writing is being graded on or they just get an “A” or a check mark on their work without ever receiving real feedback. Some even wonder if their teachers read what they write. He wants his students to have a different experience with writing assessment and response in his class.
As Mr. Flores designs his next writing unit, he focuses on building formal and informal, formative and summative, assessments throughout the unit to create multiple opportunities for students to receive meaningful feedback that motivates them to revise their work and activates their independence and agency as writers. He identifies the criteria for success on student writing assessments and communicates those criteria clearly to students throughout the process, including in his feedback.
Category: Preparation and Planning
Submit the evidence below to demonstrate your effective and consistent assessment of and response to student writing.
Submit a writing-focused Unit Assessment Plan you have developed and used as a part of your instruction with students. Your unit plan must include the following components:
- Unit assessment rationale statement, including:
- rationale for the chosen formative and summative assessments over the course of a single unit
- explanation of how students will use feedback (from peers, teacher, etc.) to support mastery toward writing-related learning outcomes
- explanation of how teacher will use data collected from formative assessments to modify instruction to respond to student learning needs
- description of modifications/accommodations for English language learners, students with disabilities, advanced students, and/or students who are not meeting learning goals.
- 1–3-unit learning outcomes linked to Utah Core Standards in writing
- One (1) summative assessment writing prompt written for students describing the context, purpose, audience, and requirements for the summative unit writing task. This writing task should be formally assessed.
- One (1) summative assessment rubric or evaluation criteria written for students describing criteria for success and descriptions of mastery for the summative writing assessment that align to the learning outcomes.
- Three (3) formative assessments across different stages of the writing process with short descriptions indicating when and how in the unit they will be implemented, and which learning outcomes they target. This writing task may be assessed formally or informally.
You may download and use the Assessment Plan Template in the Resources section of this microcredential, but it is not required.
Category: Implementation
Submit ONE of the evidence options below to demonstrate your effective and consistent assessment of and response to student writing.
To demonstrate effective feedback throughout the writing process during the unit, submit three short videos (3-5 mins each):
- A whole-class video presenting the criteria for the summative assessment to help students understand and identify the elements of quality work. The video should highlight the way assessment is presented to foster a recursive writing process.
- A teacher-student conference (individual or small-group) on a formative assessment where the teacher engages student(s) in discussion and provides feedback related to one of the unit’s formative assessments that is intended to develop a learning outcome that will be measured on the summative writing assessment.
- A whole-class video or a teacher-student conference (individual or small-group) where the teacher engages students in discussion and provides feedback (to the whole class, a small group, or an individual) based on the writing process and learning outcomes of the summative writing assessment.
Be sure to follow your district/charter guidelines for student privacy.
To demonstrate effective feedback throughout the writing process during the unit, submit a total of 6 student work samples from 3 target students (one formative and one summative assessment per student) across a range of mastery levels, including one student that required accommodations.
- Three (3) formative assessments (one each from 3 target students; can be the same or different formative assessments). Include the students’ submitted work and any written feedback, comments, grades, and/or rubrics students received in response to their work.
- Three (3) summative assessments (one each from the same 3 target students; should be the same summative assessment for all 3 students). Include the students’ submitted work and any written feedback, comments, grades, and/or rubrics students received in response to their work.
Be sure to follow your district/charter guidelines for student privacy.
To demonstrate effective feedback throughout the writing process during the unit, submit a screencast video where showing a total of 6 student work samples from 3 target students (one formative and one summative assessment per student) across a range of mastery levels, including one student that required accommodations.
During the screencast, narrate while showing the student artifacts and any visible feedback, including your response and assessment students received for each of the assessments included. The screencast should highlight:
- Three (3) formative assessments (one each from 3 target students; can be the same or different formative assessments). Show and describe the students’ submitted work and share any written feedback, comments, grades, and/or rubrics students received in response to their work.
- Three (3) summative assessments (one each from the same 3 target students; should be the same summative assessment for all 3 students). Show and describe the students’ submitted work and share any written feedback, comments, grades, and/or rubrics students received in response to their work.
Be sure to follow your district/charter guidelines for student privacy.
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: Assessment criteria (defined by assignment sheets and rubrics) align with identified unit learning goals; feedback to student writing focuses on student mastery of identified learning goals rather than generalized response to writing.
Criterion 2: Assessment strategies and response to formative and summative work samples demonstrate the implementation of feedback cycles throughout the writing process, not just at the end.
Criterion 3: Unit plan and student samples reflect purposeful accommodations to assessment plans and response to student writing for students with particular learning needs.
How do you use formative feedback during the students’ writing process? How do students’ formative assessments shape their writing decisions? How do formative assessments inform your teaching decisions?
Given the feedback and responses you gave to students’ summative writing tasks during this unit, what specific goals for writing instruction and practice would you identify for a future writing unit? In other words, how will you use this unit’s summative assessment to inform your future instructional decisions?
What challenges did you face in designing and implementing assessment and response to writing during this unit? How do you anticipate addressing these challenges in your future planning and teaching?
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: Candidate understands the difference between formal and informal, formative and summative assessments, and uses them throughout the teaching and learning cycle.
Criterion 2: Candidate uses multiple measures of assessment of student performance to modify and improve instruction.
Criterion 3: Candidate demonstrates realistic and insightful considerations of the challenges related to assessment decisions and how to address them in practice.
https://www-jstor-org.dist.lib.usu.edu/stable/i24483846
In this English Journal article, Heller suggests that teachers’ approach to writing assignment design and response should focus more on a response cycle that prioritizes writing as a process rather than as a product. He offers suggestions for teachers to make this shift in their planning and teaching.
Bardine, B. A., Bardine, M. S., & Deegan, E. F. (2000). Beyond the Red Pen: Clarifying Our Role in the Response Process. English Journal, 90(1), 94–101.
https://www.learner.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/EJ0901Beyond.pdf
In this English Journal article, Bardine et al. apply research on teacher commenting practices (e.g., appearance comments vs. function comments) to the experiences of student writers in the secondary English classroom. They offer suggestions about how to use comments and response to writing more effectively to support student learning in the classroom.
Sieben, N. (2017). Building Hopeful Secondary School Writers through Effective Feedback Strategies. English Journal, 106(6), 48-53.
Building_Hopeful_Secondary_School_Writers_through_Effective_Feedback_Strategies
In this English Journal article, Nicole Sieben offers secondary English teachers a series of research-based principles and implementation strategies for giving effective feedback to student writers.
How Do We Give Meaningful Feedback to Student Writers?
https://writerswhocare.wordpress.com/2018/02/05/how-do-we-give-meaningful-feedback-to-student-writers/
In this Writers Who Care blog post, Ellen Foley offers strategies through a list of Do’s and Don’ts as teachers develop and implement their approaches to giving feedback to student writers. Be sure to check out all of the hyperlinks to see the research and additional resources that support the practices shared here.
Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-point Rubrics
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/
In this Cult of Pedagogy podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez defines three different approaches to designing rubrics to assess student work and provides examples of each, while discussing the benefits and drawbacks of the different models. Teachers may find these resources useful as they consider how they use their rubrics for response to and/or assessment of student writing.
How Accurate Are Your Grades?
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/accurate-grades/
In this Cult of Pedagogy podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez guides teachers to consider how to better define and align assessment criteria with their identified learning goals so that assessment is used to measure student learning progress in writing.
Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/delayed-grade/#:~:text=Read%20over%20your%20whole%20essay,posted%20online)%20to%20grade%20yourself.
In this Cult of Pedagogy podcast, Kristy Louden offers some practical suggestions for teachers to use as they give feedback to student writing throughout the writing process. The goal in delaying the grade is to help students apply feedback rather than see it as a final assessment of their work.
Assessment Plan Template
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nqxXbjxYK35eZ7XDLj21G4jh6XeF8wSMTMjuvnxOHOM/edit?usp=sharing
You may download and complete this template to fulfill the requirements for Evidence of Preparation and Planning.
Robbins, K. (2011). Grading written work: An integral part of writing workshop practice. Voices from the Middle, 19(1), 10-12
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nPU4W_rviNXE7irolCOOdIR8-llxqsnb/view?usp=sharing
In this Voices from the Middle article, Kristen Robbins draws on her middle-school teaching experiences to share with teachers some strategies for responding to student writing throughout the writing process rather than waiting until the end to give grades to student writing products.
Turley, E., & Gallagher, C. (2008). On the "Uses" of Rubrics: Reframing the Great Rubric Debate. English Journal, 97(4), 87-92. doi:10.2307/30047253
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S-mGrNvO0euRWEfKsW_gQ74iBSSWlQdG/view?usp=sharing
In this English Journal article, Turley and Gallagher review the purposes and uses of rubrics as a tool of assessment in writing classrooms. They offer four questions intended to “push educators to deliberately articulate ‘judgments about the uses of rubrics’ and why they will or will not use them for assignments.”
Position Statement on Writing Instruction in School
https://ncte.org/statement/statement-on-writing-instruction-in-school/
NCTE and its constituent groups have developed position statements on a variety of education issues vital to the teaching and learning of English language arts.
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