ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCES
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCESTRACKING STUDENT PROGRESS
PEER COACHING
Peer coaching or peer editing allows students, with the aid of teacher-structured materials, to give feedback to other students about their writing. Clearly, putting this ownership in the hands of students has its advantages and disadvantages. However, the disadvantages are reduced if the teacher models how to edit by using a student's paper and the materials she has created for student use.
Another way of reducing the chance for mistakes in peer editing is to identify the "Student Experts" in the class. As the year begins, notice students who are strong in specific grammatical skills, such as commas, verbs, complete sentences, dialogue, spelling. Create grammar groups using one of each of these students; therefore, each group will have one comma student expert, one verb student expert, etc. When the students in this group exchange papers and edit, they will only look for errors in their area of strength. The comma editor, for example, could use a blue colored pencil. He would underline where the mistake was made and then put a "C" above it to indicate that a comma needs to be inserted.
In the scenarios below, three types of peer editing are used to help track student errors: Underlining & Abbreviations, Sticky Notes, and Color-Coding.
SCENARIO #1: UNDERLINING & ABBREVIATIONS
Through whole-group instruction, Mrs. Helms has focused on five grammatical
errors: subject-verb agreement, verb tense, commas, fragments, and spelling.
Before asking students to edit a
classmate's paper, she passes out the
editing sheet below, discussing the directions. Then she gives out the writing
sample. The teacher reads the student paper aloud once. The second time she
stops to do a "think aloud," explaining why she stops at certain
points. Sometimes when she stops, she asks the students why they think she has
underlined a specific part of the paper. After "marking" the writing
sample, the class completes the editing sheet.
SCENARIO #2: STICKY NOTES
Mrs. Jeffries has learned that manipulatives help students in her 3rd period
class understand what she is teaching and stay on task. When her students enter
class, they have small sticky notes often used for marking pages in a book on
their desks. She has placed a writing sample on the overhead and will model,
with the aid of student volunteers, how to edit using sticky notes.
Sticky Note Records
The teacher or the student places a sticky note over the area where the error
occurs. The student writer reexamines the area, writes the correction to the
problem on the sticky note, and places the sticky note in his/her grammar file
folder. The student arranges the notes in categories. After each targeted mini-lesson,
the student should no longer make the error. Each time the student does not
make an error in a category, he may move one sticker to the right side of his
file. When all notes in a category have been moved to the right, the student
is declared an "expert" in that category.
SCENARIO #3: COLOR-CODING
Students in Mr. Adams class have been using underlining and abbreviations during
peer editing. Since it is mid-year, Mr. Adams knows what grammatical strengths
each student has, so he has filled out one Editing Tag for each student and
assigned them a color. Beth, for example, is an excellent speller, and the teacher
gave her the blue tag. Robert was given a green tag for punctuating dialogue
well, and Andrea received the pink which indicates she uses verbs correctly.
Color-Coding
Peer readers use different color markers to place dots in the left margin on
lines where grammar errors occur. The writers then reexamine their own works
to determine what errors they can find and fix. The teacher may also use the
colors to determine which students are effective proofreaders and which proofreaders
may need to participate in minilessons along with student writers who cannot
find and fix their own errors.
When the man discovered his cable costed
too much, he decided to
have a plan. He disconnected his phone
line from his satalite box
and thought the company could never stop his service. What he
did not no was that the company would
send a person to his door
to
find out what had went on. When the representative come up on
the porch, he said sir I am here to check
your cable service. Oh
no, the man said. The party is over now.
Rubrics
Another strategy for tracking student progress is the use of rubrics. Just as
the teacher has been using her instruction to focus on specific grammatical
areas, so should the rubric.
SCENARIO
The students in Ms. Davenport's class have been asked to select a character
they have studied during the year and then research a topic that would interest
that character. During their research, Ms. Davenport has been using mini-lessons
and daily language practice to teach semicolons. As the students finish a draft
of a speech that their character might give on his topic, she creates a peer
editing sheet for them to use. The peer editor has been instructed to either
1- check to see if the writer has used semicolons correctly or 2- suggest at
least one place where a semicolon might be used.
On the rubric, the teacher has included two sections that focus on grammar and language usage. The first allows the student to select an area for teacher assessment and write it in the blank provided; the second lets the teacher choose.
Student-Selected Grammar or Writing Focus ____________________________
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|
No evidence you learned how to improve this area of writing; continue in this area.
|
|
Some improvement in this area. to work on it. |
|
Paper shows mastery |
Teacher-Selected Grammar or Writing Focus ____________________________
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| No evidence you learned how to improve this area of writing; continue in this area.
|
|
Some improvement in this area. to work on it. |
|
Paper shows mastery |
SCENARIO
Mr. Potts' students have been writing short stories for the past month.
Students are at different stages in their writing; some are finished while others
have started over after throwing away several drafts. The teacher encourages
these differences and uses daily language practice to teach students elements
that make effective stories. One of the lessons is on improving nouns. Others
include use of semicolon, colon or dashes, adding sensory descriptions, including
a preface that thematically relates to the story.
To improve nouns, Mr. Potts explains that a writer can give a noun a name brand to make it more effective. To give an example, Mr. Potts writes the noun, jeans, on the overhead. He then asks students to give him several brand names of jeans-Levi's, Tommy Hilfiger, Lee. Students are then directed to look in their own drafts and find a noun that can easily be improved using the brand name method. He takes volunteers and students offer suggestions to one another.
Knowing that creative writing can be difficult to grade, Mr. Potts creates his rubric based on his daily language practices. Students are asked to mark on a final draft of their paper where they made specific revisions. For example, a student might circle the word Levi's and write, "specific noun" in the margin.
Examples from Short Story Rubric
___/3 added three effective and specific nouns
___/10 added two new forms of punctuation: dashes, colon, and/or semicolon
___/10 stated & incorporated three effective sensory images
___/10 selected a preface that thematically relates to story
Gather Exit Information
Just as the teacher gathered diagnostic information at the beginning of the
course, the ending of it requires similar assessment. One way to monitor student
growth is to ask the student to look back through his writing portfolio and
then complete a self-evaluation.
SCENARIO
Ms. Davis, a 10th grade teacher, pulls out the diagnostic checklist she followed
at the beginning of the course. Now she will use it to create an evaluation
tool so the students can assess the grammatical skills they have targeted as
a class and as individuals.
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