Final
Thoughts
Your rubrics
are in, and what a rich variety of reading and writing activities
they will assess! Many focus on some aspect of character analysis
-- for example, how a character solves a problem, the reasons why
a character changed, or a comparison of different characters. One
rubric assesses students' predictions of what will become of the
main character after the story ends.
Some of you
plan to use your rubrics to assess reading notebooks and journals,
as well as content area research papers. One fifth-grade teacher
has even created a rubric for poetry writing. I noticed that most
of your rubrics include criteria for assessing the correct use of
punctuation, grammar, spelling, and paragraphing.
Here are a few
last-minute tips about using rubrics this September. Be selective
and sparing about introducing new rubrics avoid presenting
too many in too short a time. Begin by developing one or two rubrics
to assess the learning activities that you most value, and encourage
your students to use them to assess their own work. You're likely
to find that when students participate in the process, their work
improves.
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