Here is Utah and the bottom right corner is San Juan County. That is where I live (and love it)! Our school district is our entire county which is almost 8,000 square miles. We have only 12 schools (if I am counting right) in our district.
Anyway, we have an annual District Writing Assessment where each grade level is given a topic and they complete an essay. The essays are graded by a selected group of educators. The results of this assessment lets the teachers know the strength and weaknesses of their students writing based upon the six traits.
The parameters pretty much follow any type of testing such as no outside help, can only work on the assessment when directed, etc.
This week is the District Writing Assessment and my students will have five days starting tomorrow to complete an essay from beginning to end. I will find out the topic tomorrow morning when I look at my materials. All I know is my students are required to write an argumentative essay based upon evidence that will be given to each student. There will be one topic in which my students can make a claim either for or against the topic.
I will post more about our District Writing Assessment once it is over.
Do any other districts out there do any type of writing assessments??
My current school does this when we do our practice LEAP assessments (our state standardized test), but my previous school (in Illinois) did one district-wide writing assessment each year. We couldn't even grade our own students; instead, we had an in-service day where ELA teachers were taught how to rate consistently. Then, we spent an ENTIRE day grading. To be honest, we all thought it was a HUGE waste of time!
ReplyDeleteWe have our district writing this week as well. In 4th we will have them read a short story and write a response to literature including the lesson the author wants them to learn. Then in a couple of weeks all the different grade levels will meet through the city and score them.
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