Pre-Assessment
Above are the point systems I used for the pre and post assessments. In the pre and post assessment sections, I talked about why I choice the amount of points possible for individual aspects of the essays. I wanted to make a clear line and clear comparison between the two tests to show equal gains and such. The rubric I used for the post-assessment was great. I just printed out a few sheets and it was easy to go back and remind myself what they did well and what they needed improvement on. With the pre-assessment, I used a similar point system, but I did not think to make the little sheets. I did write down most of their scores, but it wasn't as clear at the post. However, it was good enough to find the gains. For both assessments, I tested the same things: Topic, Conclusion, Main ideas, details, transitions, thesis statement, and concluding statement. This made it pretty cut and dry for me. I also kept it so that the paragraph elements (topic, main ideas, details, and conclusion) were worth 6 points, and the Thesis and Concluding statement together were worth 4 points.
Objectives: I am glad to say that the majority of my students achieved my objectives. Below I wrote how.
1) Students will be able to connect their experiences and values to a piece of literature through an expository essay explaining how their ideas relate to the theme in a memoir.
This objective related directly to my post assessment. I had them write an essay explaining how their experience related to those in a memior whether it was alike or different. My purpose of this objective was to meet the common core state WR. 2 standard for analyzing explanatory text with clear support. I thought by letting them use their own experience, they would be able to support their idea of what the theme was with more clarity.
2) Students will be able to organize their ideas and information in an outline before writing their essay.
This objective was met by showing how I used my graphic organizer before writing my essay, by filling in their practice essay's graphic organizer as a class, and then by having them fill out a graphic organizer for their post assessment on their own. This objective was important to me because I wanted to show them how much less daunting a task writing an essay is when you first pre-write--over half the students wrote that the graphic organizers did in fact make writing their essay easier.
3) Students will be able to revise a rough draft of an essay, by identifying any spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors.
This objective was meant to meet the common core state LANG. 2 standard: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. Because of time, and what the PLC's combined decisions, there was no time for final drafts. In effect, this objective wasn't truly met. I didn't think it was fair to assess their language when they were essentially writing rough drafts. I did however pay attention to the language standard by writing on their papers what they would have gotten if I had been assessing that. I also wrote them individual notes on what they needed to work on concerning conventions and what they were doing well. I believe that in just having them write a lot helped them approach this standard.
4) Students will be able to identify a variety of convincing types of evidence from the text and their lives to support their ideas in an expository essay during a twenty minute work time.
This objective was to meet the WR. 2 standard part of selecting effective content for explaining ideas. I did this by showing them the way I supported the theme in my essay, finding details for their main ideas as a class and having them find effective support on their on in their essay. This was a big part of my instruction. I made a point to ask them how how they knew what they were inferring from the memoirs and poems we read and letting them know that those were details the authors used to explain their themes. I also would ask them things not relative to class, such as: did any of you go shopping on black Friday? Then I kept asking deeper questions: what did you get, what color, why did you choose that, who were you with. Then I made sure to say, those were great details. I have a good understanding of your black Friday experience was like.
5) Students will be able to connect the relationship of ideas through clear transitions in an expository essay.
This objective was important to me because transitions can truly make the organization and clarity of your writing much stronger when used properly. In the WR. 2 standard, organization and clarity is a big point. To meet this, I introduced transitions to them in my essay, did the transition chain sentence activity and then I added a transition section to their graphic organizers to show them the most appropriate place to use them. The feedback was that having the transition words before each main idea helped them begin their sentences.
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