Last month we discussed using regular portfolios for assessment and I offered up a few common terms that would be helpful in this post. This time, I'd like to talk about what kind of work can or should be archived.
The type of student projects that a teacher/facilitator should archive depends on the purpose of the assignment, aims of a particular class, or what is important for students to keep.
Here are the steps to archiving:
1.) FIGURE OUT WHAT'S BEING ASSESSED: The purpose of a particular assignment starts with what is being assessed. When I was teaching high school English, especially in the freshmen year, the first assignment was called the definitional essay.
2.) THE ASSIGNMENT: The definitional essay was, as the name indicates, about the students summer reading (i.e., For A Separate Peace it might be, "What is a friend?"). One of my favorite essay topics is "What is a hero?" This one came right before The Odyssey or Things Fall Apart.
3.) BREAKING THE ASSIGNMENTS DOWN INTO DIFFERENT PARTS:
A.) THE PROMPT: In the drafting process, students should start with a paragraph of their definition. Usually, the writing prompt would ask the students to focus in on the first paragraph, which would be heavily commented upon by the teacher/facilitator.
B.) STUDENTS WRITE THE FIRST PARAGRAPH (WITH A THESIS): In the first paragraph, students should be urged not to use "I" statements, encouraged to go from the general to the specific, and asked that their thesis statement be in the last sentence of the first paragraph. In each of these statements, the teacher acts more like a coach (or a facilitator). The first paragraph has elements of the entire essay in it. Usually there is a thesis and students are sometimes asked to preview the examples before the thesis. The important aspect in all of this is to have students take responsibility for owning their own process when writing.
In Part II, as well as in future posts, I'll discuss the rest of the writing process for the definitional essay. In Part III, we'll talk about putting the students work into e-Portfolios.
