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Measuring Student Writing Skills : Use Rubrics |
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Critical reading and writing skills are essential for success in the
sciences. I assign short writing activities in my physical science
classes, where the students read a science-related article from Time
magazine, then write a one-page summary about what they read and their
reaction to it. I've found it an effective method to build reading
comprehension and writing composition skills.
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Only recently, though, did I implement a strategy which encourages students to self-evaluate. I use a series of rubrics which focus on the areas of conventions, fluency, organization, understanding, vocabulary and voice. I provide the students with the rubrics before the writing activity, with a review of what an excellent example of writing looks and feels like. The students will write their summary and self-evaluate. When they turn the paper in, I will check whether I agree with how they evaluated their work, then expand on one or two elements for improvement.
Rubrics are valuable in that they can increase the quality of a teacher's direct instruction by providing focus, emphasis, and attention to particular details as a model for students. Students have explicit guidelines regarding teacher expectations. Students can use rubrics as a tool to develop their abilities. And rubrics are easily modified for various activities.
You can download the five rubrics in a .zip format from the Teacher Toolbox here. Each of the five MS Word documents have three of the same rubrics per page. I print them off and use a paper cutter to split them in thirds to conserve paper.
Tags: writing skills literacy self-evaluate collaboration evaluation authentic assessment |
