Rate Your Writing

As the end of the year is rolling around, I'm identifying areas that I need to emphasize more next year.  One of those areas is writing.  I don't feel like I've focused on it enough this year, so I intend to make it a BIG focus this last trimester and approach it differently next year!

Here is a picture of my writing focus board.

As we are addressing common core this year, there has been a big emphasis on math.  One of the ideas we've talked about a lot is showing examples of student work and talking as a class about strengths and weaknesses.  I see this as a need in writing as well.

I got this "Rate Your Writing" idea from Pinterest, and changed it so that it was more appropriate for second grade.  Click here for the first grade version I stole from :-) This gives students specific examples to compare their work to.  We went over them as a class and talked about adding more detail, staying on topic, etc.  Now as students bring their rough drafts to me I can explain ok, that's a 1 right now, go look at the Rate chart and see if you can add more detail to your writing.

This is a way for students to rate their own writing.  We grade on a 1, 2, 3, 4 scale, but I chose not to use 4 (I used super star instead) because 4's are very difficult to get.  

 

Here are some close ups.  The first picture -from bottom to top- shows examples of a grade of 1 and 2, and the second is the 3 and Super Star.

 

 

 

In addition, students have writing folders that include a writing dictionary, where we can write words they commonly misspell, and a laminated writer's checklist, so they can edit some on their own.  We are working on peer editing as well.

 

If you would like a pdf of the Rate Your Writing, pls. leave me a comment with your email and I will send it to you!

 

Thanks!