Assessment in the No-Grades Writing Workshop: What did you write? What did you learn?

This is the first sentence of the “final exam” in our seventh grade writing workshop this quarter.

This school year, as I discussed in last week’s post about assessment in the reading workshop without grades, I am piloting a no-grades classroom. I do not assign grades to any assignment or activity during the quarter; instead, I focus on narrative feedback (written and verbal) and ongoing revision. I do have to assign a grade at the end of the quarter, which makes me feel like a no-grades cheater. That said, I involve students in this process by asking them to write a summary of their learning and conferencing with them what “grade” best matches their evidence and experiences in class.

A Brief Overview of Our Workshop this Quarter

• Students wrote argument essays inspired by current events. We took some time to consider the two sides to the argument, and then students selected an argument about which they wanted to learn more. They read Upfront  and Scope magazines for their initial research and then added research and/or their personal experiences as evidence and examples to support their arguments. Here are  few examples: “Clothing Crisis Overseas,””Migrants Traveling Through Pain and Hope,” and “Is There a Crisis in Youth Sports.”

• After several revisions, students presented their argument essays to the class in a formal speech. They were assessed for VEEPPP: volume, eye contact, expression (voice/body), pace, pronunciation, and professionalism.
• For the interviews, we are doing a StoryCorps-inspired project called the  Winston Community Story Project. We learned how to conduct interviews and use digital recorders. Each student contributes one story per quarter so that we can archive the stories within and beyond our school — stories that inspire and shape the lives of the human beings who walk our halls each day.

• For grammar, we had a teacher-for-a-day project. Students worked in partners to study a grammar topic, collaborate on a slide show, and teach the class. Two days a week, I turned over the class to these co-teachers as they taught their peers about grammar topics (e.g., conjunctive adverbs and dashes) before leading a writing exercise where they revised or wrote new journal entries to apply the grammar topics.

Now for the “Test”(or 2nd Quarter Summary Instructions and Excerpts)

 

During this quarter we did a lot of fun things. Well the speeches were a little stressful I do have to admit, but it was great to listen to other people’s arguments. My favorite speech was by Kaityln. She was very professional and always looked up at the audience instead of down at her paper. She was also able to empathize some points in her argument. There were very strong points in her argument and she spoke very clearly so that everyone could hear her. Surprisingly, I did a good job at giving speeches than I expected. In the beginning I was extremely nervous, but I had a long time to review my speech so I was prepared for it. Some of my strengths were that I spoke loudly so that everyone in the audience could hear me. I also wrote my speech down on note cards so that it will help we look up more. It did help me out a lot actually and I was looking at the audience most of the time. Although from time to time I did need to look down at my note cards for some parts. Next time that we do speeches I would like to improve on showing more emotion and doing more body movements instead of staying in one place.

 Next, I would like to tell you a few things I learned from people doing their speeches. Some people from our class gave interesting facts that I think are quite amazing. Like Hunter for example. He gave a fact that stated one of our smallest states here in the U.S eats 180 pounds of sugar a year. That’s a whole bath tub! Someone else that gave an interesting example was Kylie. She said the amount of people that die just trying to get to Europe or the U.S. I thought this was interesting because I never really took the chance to understand how big of a problem migration is for human beings trying to survive and also the countries involved.

The person that I think used the most evidence was Rand. He had a lot evidence to support his cause, like for example he wrote that those little cans of soda can cause up to 25,000 deaths a year. This was surprising to me and it helped support his argument on why the government should control how much sugar we eat. It proves that some people can’t control themselves and it starts to cause a lot of illnesses. I wrote about if our cloths should be made in factories overseas. I am very proud of it and the best piece of example that I wrote about is that most of the workers are between 10 to 19 years old. I think that this put the audience in shook a little because it’s hard to imagine young kids working in harsh conditions making stuff for us. For my next argument essay I will add more of my personal story. When you add a personal story it helps show the reader/listener how much you care about the topic. I did add one for this argument essay, but next time I want to add more detail to it.

 

C.Interviews: Listen to at least three interviews for the Winston Community Story Project. Tell me which ones you listened to and what parts of the interview were most interesting, enjoyable, memorable? How did you feel listening to these stories? What do you think is the benefit of listening to stories about the people who are important to the students at Winston? Please comment on the interview’s, too, using the three-perspectives approach we use.

The three interviews I listened to were from Luke, Izzy, and Brady. I chose to listen to Luke’s because there were not many interviews with grandparents so that seemed interesting. I chose Izzy because she was the only person to interview an orchestra teacher. Finally I chose Brady’s because the title immediately had my interest and attention. While listening to Luke’s I was very inspired hearing how his grandma moved from east to west Germany then to Florida, and finally to Illinois. It made me realize what things are like for immigrants and how its not always easy. Listening to Izzy’s was very happy because it was good to hear that her teachers dream and life has turned out they way that she had wanted. Hearing Brady’s I was moved to hear when he asked his dad why he joined the military he instantly replied, “to serve my country.” It really goes to show how much he cares about America. The benefit of listening to these stories is to understand why these people chose and care about the people they interview.

I listened to three different interviews this quarter. They were all very well done and fun to listen to. The first interview that I listened to for the Winston Community Story Project was Cat’s interview with her mom. Her parents are divorced so she had to interview her mom through the phone. My favorite part of the interview was when Cat asked her mom if she had any funny story to tell about when she was little. Her mom said that one time her and her brother dressed up as zombies and scared their little sister. That made me laugh a little because it’s very interesting and I never thought about doing that. So that made the interview really enjoyable. This impacted me because it made me realize how important siblings are because you make a lot of great memories with them.

Next, I listened to Natalia’s interview with her cousin to talk about her life in college. It was so interesting to hear her cousin’s view on college and how the experience impacted her. I liked how her cousin gave input on the good and bad sides of college. For example she said that you get to meet a lot of new people and join a lot of clubs which is always fun to do. Although you do have to start getting used to living on your own. There is no one to wake you up so that you can go to classes and for her second year at college she decided to live in an apartment. Once you take that step in your life you have to start to learn how to cook and manage bills. This made the interview very interesting because it was nice to learn about the good sides and bad sides of living on your own, since we all are going to have to one day.

Lastly I also listened to Elly’s interview about her grandfather’s experience as a principal with a child with AIDS. Back then things were so different, so it was very interesting to hear about how people judged each other back then. Nowadays it’s so weird for us to hear about a case where a principal had to chose whether or not to allow a child with a disability into the school. Luckily things are different now so that everyone is treated equally. This interview really made me start to think about how much things have changed since the past.

When I listen to these interviews it feels very special because someone is sharing a little bit of a part of their life to me. It’s so amazing to be able to listen to other people’s experiences and thoughts about a topic. I think that the benefit of listening to stories about the people who are most important to the students at Winston is that we get to learn more about them outside of school. Which is important because this gives us a chance to connect on a topic that we both care about and just listen to one another. After all we only have two years left at Winston and we aren’t sure if we will see each other again in high school.

D.Interviewing Skills: Which of your classmates did a particularly good job of interviewing? What made those interviews good? Listen to your interview again. How did you do with your interview? What can you do better next time to get more details from the person you interview? Who will you interview for 3^rd quarter?

Overall I think that there are two classmates that did a really great job at interviewing and they are Natalia and Kaityln. They were both able to ask really good questions and ask even more to try to get more details. They also seemed very professional because it seemed like they knew exactly what to say and you can hear them laughing a little bit which shows that they are truly listening to the person that they are interviewing. I did two interviews this quarter. One was with my dad about moving to the U.S with my mom and I. The other one was with my uncle about his job. I think that I did pretty good job and I made sure to ask them questions that I knew that they were going to feel comfortable answering. I hoped that other classmates found them interesting, but lately I have been getting good feedback about them. Although next time that I do an interview I want to try to ask even more questions so that they don’t leave a single detail. I was nervous because I had never interviewed anyone before, but now that I know what I have to do I will be prepared to ask more questions. I also have to make sure that I give them enough time to look over the questions and give them a day or two for them to figure out what to say. I think that will allow them to really think about it and be more prepared when I am interviewing them. For third quarter I really want to interview one of my teachers, but I am still not so sure. Although I definitely want to interview my mom about her childhood. To be honest I don’t know a lot about her growing up so I feel like this would be the perfect opportunity. She kind of got away with it this quarter because my cousins were coming for winter break, and I decided to interview my uncle because I had no idea when they are going to be coming the next time. Overall, I really enjoyed doing the interviews and can’t wait until I start another one.

Overall, I am discovering a lot about writing. I am discovering that writing can expand farther than I previously thought it could, for example, it can even connect to audio interviews. What I am discovering about myself as a reader is that since all the grammar projects and things like that, it makes it very natural for me to include so much more in my writing, such as colons. What I want to do a little more about is hearing the interviews like the ones that we heard about the man asking his daughter about Instagram and how it is used. Once again, and I could keep saying this, but I want to thank all my classmates and teacher for making this an unforgettable 2nd quarter.

 

Overall, I think the first two quarters went really well.  I am discovering that I can write funny stories that can make people laugh.  I love writing the billy maze stories because I can use my silliness to make stories that doesn’t make sense, but in a way it still does.  I liked choosing my own topic because I can write down how i’m feeling, and feel better.  I would like to write more silly stories, and make more people laugh.  I love how you give us options, and how you aren’t as strict as other teachers.  Writing class is a good way to start the day!

 

Overall, writing has been really interesting so far because we have learned a lot of things. For example we learned how to write an argument essay and we also learned how to give out interviews. I have discovered that writing is more than just words on a piece of paper. Whenever someone else reads your papers they discover something new about you. This quarter has made me discover that whatever I write people actually do care about it and learn from it. That makes me feel like a good writer because I am able to make the reader interested in my topic. For the next quarter I want to learn about how to use more imagery in my writing because that helps paint a picture in the reader’s mind. I have learned a lot from 2nd quarter and I am prepared to work hard for the 3rd one. I also want to thank everyone in the classroom that made this quarter very special to me and I hope that you guys also enjoyed this quarter too.