BCTELA

Nicole Widdess teaches in Richmond and is the Curriculum Co-Chair for BCTELA. She is committed to teaching diverse learners and is passionate about literacy. Her current focus is teaching students in the middle years.

Click here to open a PDF version of this article.

As one of the Curriculum Coordinators, I am pleased to share that our Curriculum Pack sub-committee has developed new submission criteria that reflect current thinking, research and pedagogy. These criteria are also aligned with the ideas and research presented in the pedagogical considerations section of BC’s new K-7 and draft 8-12 English Language Arts IRPs. We hope that the new criteria will support you, our members, in writing up and submitting units of study for publication.

When you submit a curriculum pack, a member of our committee will provide descriptive feedback to assist you in revising and readying your unit for publication. Once accepted for publication, you are eligible for curriculum resource funds ($400). If you are interested in crafting a unit to be published by BCTELA please be sure to review the criteria below. Please send your unit (or proposal for a unit) to Nicole Widdess at NWiddess@richmond.sd38.bc.ca. Once your proposal or unit has been reviewed, we will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.

 

Overview

• Identifies essential questions and enduring understandings

o These are the big ideas/inquiries that will guide the unit and the skills/strategies (including cognitive and metacognitive) that will be used/developed by students

• This overview should demonstrate links to the 2006 K-7 and/or the 2007 Draft 8-12 ELA IRPs m cuts across outcomes from the 3 organizers and 4 suborganizers of the ELA IRP

Assessment

• formative assessment/metacognitive activities

o formative assessment practices that help students learn to analyze and critique their work and to set personalized goals in relation to shared criteria

o offer students opportunities to generate criteria and strategies that are both contextual and meaningful

o a variety of assessment activities, including performance-based assessment

• summative assessment m performance-based assessment that includes detailed rubrics and links back to enduring understandings

Lesson Sequences

• a clear, detailed outline of suggested lesson sequences including m gradual release of responsibility

o assessment-to-instruction m metacognitive activities (e.g. using and/or generating criteria, self-assessment, goal-setting, and reflection)

o reading, writing, and oral language activities

o well-structured lessons that help students connect, process, and transform and personalize texts, concepts, and/or understandings

Diversity Considerations

• suggestions for adapting based on students' individual strengths and needs

• ways to differentiate based on student interests and context (e.g. text choices, variety of output options, variety of instructional modes)

Additional Documents

• performance rubrics

• handouts used in the lessons

• resources used, and suggestions for alternative resources

Reflection

• what worked especially well

• what came before this and after this in the year

• how this unit built on or was able to be built upon by other inquiries/units

Would you like support in developing a unit that integrates strategic teaching, formative and summative assessment, gradual release and the use of diverse texts using learning outcomes from the new IRP? Consider attending the Saturday Institute at our Fall Conference October 25, 2008. The 2008 Conference will be held at the Delta Hotel in Richmond this year. BCTELA Executive members Krista Ediger, Joanne Panas, Leyton Schnellert, and Nicole Widdess will be facilitating an institute on backwards design tentatively called "Designing Units with the End in Mind." A description of this institute follows:

So many best practices...how do you put them all together to create engaging, pedagogically-sound units that will help your students learn what they need to? Come and spend the day with us-learn about inquiry and backwards design, modeling and gradual release, assessment-to-instruction-and put it all together in a framework for a unit you can use. To get the most out of this session, bring a topic for a unit and sample texts you might use, and any brainstorming you might have already done.

The Curriculum Pack sub-committee members are looking forward to a year of learning together as we explore the new English Language Arts IRPs and develop new curriculum packs to support their implementation.

 

Leyton Schnellert is Co-Editor of Update and and a part-time Faculty Associate, Field Programs, Faculty of Education, SFU. leyton_schnellert@sfu.ca

Why spend the entire summer assembling an edition of Update? Good
question. Apart from the collective sigh of relief from the
contributors to this edition (who doesn’t want an extra six weeks to
rework the last draft of a piece?), it gives Krista and I a chance to
sit back and reflect on how the year has gone and what lies ahead. We
have recently done the same together with your BCTELA Executive.

 

In BCTELA’s effort to better support English Language Arts teachers we
traverse the landscape of adolescent literacy research and practice.
It’s an exciting and daunting task. In this edition of Update, Chelsea
Prince talks of how teachers in her school shared ideas and lessons and
approaches online. Similarly, at our Spring retreat the Executive
looked at the BCTELA website and realized that in this information age
we need something more interactive. How can members access past
editions of Update and get the latest news in the most intuitive way
possible? Stay tuned.

 

And then there are the new ELA IRPs. Important research-based and
classroom-tested ideas and approaches – pedagogical considerations –
BCTELA members have been exploring for years have found themselves in
the Considerations for Delivery section of the new IRPs. What can we do
as a collective body to support one another in exploring the clearer
focus on oral language, the emphasis on formative assessment, outcomes
specific to cognitive strategies, or ways to design curriculum with
enduring understandings in mind?

 

BCTELA thinks that initially we can help in two ways. First, you’ll notice
that our Fall conference (see the Check This Out department) is
organized in strands based on the pedagogical considerations section
and learning outcomes of the new K-7 and the draft 8-12 ELA IRPs (the
latter will be posted on the Ministry’s website in September). Indeed,
we have sought out leading educators from across the province to
initiate thoughtful explorations of relevant and innovative practices.
Faye Brownlie will start us off on the Thursday night with a “fireside
chat” exploring interesting and exciting ideas to pay attention to in
the new IRPs. We think that our program for Friday (the provincial
pro-d day) may be the richest we’ve ever assembled with a careful
effort to feature innovative work from around the province.

 

Secondly, we see the time is at hand to re-envision our Curriculum Packs. Using
the same current research around unit design, formative assessment and
strategies instruction, we are developing updated criteria for
curriculum packs that we hope will better support those submitting
units and, in the end, provide exemplars for BCTELA members that help
to link student learning, practice, and research. See Krista Ediger’s
piece in this edition as an example of a teacher working (with the
support of colleagues) to incorporate these ideas into her planning and
practice.

 

While BCTELA always strives first and foremost to nurture and address the
questions and needs as they pertain to the teaching of English Language
Arts, we also see how, across the province, more and more English
Language Arts specialists are collaborating with and/or supporting
generalists, special educators, content area teachers (i.e. Math,
Science, Social Studies), teacher-librarians, and applied skills
teachers (e.g. Fine and Performing Arts, Home Economics). When we start
to have conversations about the students we teach and what learning is
in this information age we cannot help but begin to look across the
arbitrary divisions in the school day and see how our goals for our
students can overlap to create more engaging and meaningful curricula.
Reading and writing, speaking and listening, viewing and representing –
the use of language and literacy practices - are crucial to learning
and are present in pedagogy across the disciplines.

 

In this edition we take some initial steps to draw together underlying
concepts that inform literacy-related practices across the curriculum.
From Sue Schleppe and her colleagues’ inquiry unit in Science, to
Carole Saundry’s work on inferring with text in Math, to Joanne Panas’s
update on “second shot” approaches to literacy instruction for
struggling adolescent readers in Richmond, there is a common underlying
message. When teachers are creative and take different avenues that
support students’ active engagement in creating understandings,
students have opportunities to build content knowledge as well as the
strategies they need to make meaning, link ideas across texts and
contexts, and apply what they know to authentic tasks. Colleagues
working together help one another to model and explain their use of
strategies, and emphasize that the more students understand strategies,
the more likely they are to use them and help students to self-regulate
their meaning-making and application of key concepts and approaches.

 

Mara Brkich’s piece highlights how dedication to improving students’
literacy skills – particularly higher-level thinking skills – has
significantly more impact at the school level and not just at the level
of the individual teacher. Students build their ability to
self-regulate when they develop and use a repertoire of strategies that
are needed to accomplish complex tasks, and when introduced to similar
thinking skills in different classes and contexts, they have the
opportunity to understand themselves as learners who can apply and
generalize strategies and approaches. When teachers work together to
implement common goals across a school, classrooms, and disciplines,
they build better learners and thinkers.

 

We do make a difference when we work together to make a difference for
kids. Hopefully, as the Executive focuses on a few key approaches that
can make the biggest difference for members of the Association, you
will feel better supported in making the changes that you feel will
best lead to authentic and meaningful learning for your students.

 

Leyton for Krista and the rest of the Exec.

 

 

Stacey Wyatt teaches Grade 5/6 in Richmond. She is currently working on her Masters Degree  at Simon Fraser University in Educational Practice. Some of her interests include student diversity, literacy education and assessment.

Contents:

Methodology

Student and Parent Surveys

Developing Criteria

Using Criteria

Reflecting on the Criteria

Conclusion

References

"When we set criteria for assignments,
we establish what counts. When we involve
students in setting the criteria, we increase
their understanding and ownership."
(Gregory, Cameron and Davies,
1997, p.58).

As an elementary student, I remember my teachers explaining an assigned writing activity, and then doing my best to work through the task in the hopes of producing
what my teachers wanted. At no point do I recall being involved in the process of building the criteria for the assignment, nor was I given an assessment rubric ahead of time to help me with the writing task. Today, as a teacher, I realize students need to know the criteria in order to be successful. Without having a clear picture of the expectations of the assignment, student progress is impeded and it is more difficult for them to succeed at the task.

This past year, I have spent time investigating my assessment practices. From current research, I understand how vital it is to have students involved in the assessment process, and in particular, to have students and teachers working together to develop the criteria to be assessed. In their book, Knowing What Counts: Setting and Using Criteria,
Gregory, Cameron and Davies found that "when students take part in developing  criteria, they are much more likely to understand what is expected of them, ‘buy in', and then accomplish the task successfully" (1997, p. 7). Clearly, students who do not know the criteria of the assignment have little direction for success and end up trying to guess what the teacher wants, much like my elementary school experiences. Obviously, I do not want this to be the case for my students.

Establishing criteria with my students and working collaboratively to develop the rubrics used to assess their fictional writing pieces is an area of my teaching practice that I have spent a considerable amount of time investigating. Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe note that "by considering in advance the assessment evidence needed to validate that the desired results have been achieved, teaching becomes purposeful and focused" (2006, p. 59). I believe this statement can also be applied to student learning as it, too, "becomes more purposeful and focused" when students know the criteria.

Both teachers and students need to know what they are working towards and how they are going to get there. By creating assessment rubrics together, teachers and students come to share a common language, students know what is expected, and they understand the purpose of the assignment. Thus, creating rubrics collaboratively with  my students became one of the parts of the assessment process I focused on improving this past year.

As my students and I used the assessment rubric for fiction writing, I was faced with my next query. I discovered that when I asked my students what they could do to improve their fictional story writing, they were adept at naming their next steps. They simply read what I had circled on the rubric we created. In reality though, many of my students didn't really know how to improve. This realization prompted my next inquiry questions: How can my assessment practices provide students with a clearer picture of their next steps in writing development? How can my students use descriptive feedback to provide them with their next steps in writing in relation to collaboratively developed criteria?

In order for children to move forward in their learning, they need to know what they are doing well, where they need to improve and how they need to go about improving. Through examining my assessment practices, I learned the type of feedback I was giving my Grade 5/6 students did not help to point them in the direction of what or how to improve in their writing. Listening to my students' conversations and watching how several struggled to identify the areas they needed to work on led me to investigate my practice further, looking specifcally at the nature of the feedback I give to my students and the quality of feedback they give to each other.

Methodology

Throughout this inquiry I used several strategies to collect my data. I conducted surveys with my students hoping to gain some insight into how the students felt about having their writing assessed by their teachers, peers and parents. I gave a questionnaire to the parents in my class asking them to recall their writing experiences as elementary children. Specifically, I wanted to know whether or not they remember developing criteria or being involved in self-assessment or peer assessment during writing instruction. I read recent literature on formative assessment practices, wrote in my journal and reflected on what I learned. Later, I read back through my entries looking for patterns in my reflections and changes in my thinking. I listened to the students' conversations while they were developing criteria, collected samples of their work and had discussions with colleagues.

Student and Parent Surveys

This year I moved from teaching a Gr. 4/5 class to a Gr. 5/6 class. Because I essentially moved up a grade with the students, I had taught 19 of the 28 students last year. We therefore know each other quite well and have developed a trusting and safe classroom environment. To start the school year, I began by surveying my students' attitudes about assessment and in particular asking how they felt about having their writing assessed by their teachers and peers. The data revealed that most of my students were comfortable having their teachers assess their writing as most commented, " I know they are trying to help me" and "it's their job". When asked about having their peers assess their work, students made comments like, "we are friends and I know they are trying to help me"; another student wrote, "I am okay with it as long as they don't say anything mean." I have no doubt the trusting environment that had been built in our classroom over the course of the previous year made a difference. For the most part these children were comfortable when sharing their work with others. In Jeanne Gibbs's book, Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communities, she states, "the power of being included and valued by peers motivates students to active participation in their own learning" (2006, p. 10). I am not saying that we did not need to continue to work on maintaining this relationship and environment in our classroom; we simply had a strong base already developed from which we continued to build.

When I read the responses from the questionnaire I gave the parents, I noticed their writing experiences as children were much like my own. Most of them do not recall being involved in the assessment process or know that they were not. Many of them reported that they did not assess their own writing. While some parents remembered listening to students share their stories, they were generally not encouraged to give the student author feedback. The comments and the experiences of the parents completing the questionnaire were not surprising. Many of them are similar in age and completed their elementary school years around the same time as I had. I feel that several parents and I missed out on a valuable part of our learning in elementary school by not being involved in our own assessment. I wanted to make ensure my students had the  opportunity to experience what we had not.

Developing Criteria

After reading the students' and parents' responses to the surveys, we began the task of collaboratively developing the criteria for writing a fiction story. I asked the students to think about this question: "What makes a story good?" I recorded all of their ideas on the chalkboard. A few days later, I sent them off in groups of three with the task of organizing the brainstormed list. In their triads they were asked to group the criteria by looking for similarities or perhaps crossing out suggestions that were redundant. As each group worked together they devised their own system for categorizing. Most groups used different colours to represent each category. The students worked diligently on this activity and took it very seriously.

As students worked on this task, I listened to their conversations and took photographs and photocopies of how they organized the criteria. As I circulated and eavesdropped on conversations, there were discussions within the groups and students were questioning each other's ideas and suggestions. While a few groups struggled to come up with the categories for the criteria, the majority were able to group the criteria in a way that made sense and were able to explain their thinking to the class.

All triads commented on how important it was to consider the audience when writing a fiction story and for the story to have feelings, details, and good description. Most groups said the story needed to have a problem, a strong lead at the beginning, and a beginning, middle and end. They were clearly becoming more involved in the assessment process. Not only were they deciding together what were the important criteria to include, they were organizing the criteria and then writing their stories with these criteria in mind. I was pleased.

After the small groups of students finalized their way of organizing the criteria, each group shared their design with the class. I recorded their reasons for organizing the criteria in the ways they had chosen and listened to the comments and questions from the audience. One of the great things about sharing the criteria this way was all the students were involved and they were able to question each others' system for organizing the criteria. Students were free to agree and/or disagree and were able to listen to another group's point of view. Towards the end of this process, students
individually voted on the collaboratively-generated sample that worked the best for them. Once the votes revealed the most effective sample, we discussed the format
for the rubric and I typed it up for the students to use (Figure 1).

Content Area	3	4
Snapshot:	My story is complete, easy to read, and uses enough description and detail to catch the reader's attention. There are not many errors	My story is original, very easy to read, and uses description and detail that holds the readers attention from the beginning to the end
Meaning: Have I included important ideas & information? Do I use descriptive details? Am I thinking about my audience? Does my story impact the reader?	My story includes my own ideas. I use descriptive words and details to develop events, characters, and images. (SDT: Show Don't Tell and MIM: Movie In my Mind) I know who I am writing for and I get their attention.	My story is original and leaves the reader with something to think about. I use a large amount of detail and specific words to fully develop the events, characters, and ideas. SDT and MIM is effective and throughout story. I "hook and hold" the readers' attention and I make them think.
Style: Is my language clear? Does the language I use make my story interesting for my readers?	I use descriptive language that is clear. I use different types and lengths of sentences. I use different words at the beginning of sentences.	I use language that is clear, expressive and figurative. My sentences flow smoothly. My sentences are written with different lengths and patterns.
Form: Does it have a beginning, middle, and end? Are my characters described? Do I use dialogue?	My lead is written with dialogue or action. My story has a beginning that hints at the problem and makes the reader wonder or worry about the character right away. The events in my story are in order and are easy to follow. My ending attempts to solve the problem. My characters are described beyond what they look like. My dialogue sounds realistic.	My lead is written with reaction. The beginning of my story presents the problem, introduces the main character(s) and catches the readers' attention. My story is in order and is believable. My characters have a S.O.C. (Stream of Consciousness); their feelings, emotions and personality are shown in my story. My ending effectively solves the problem and there may be a surprise. My dialogue is clear and helps the reader see the characters in my story.
Conventions: Spelling, punctuation, complete sentences, grammar, connecting words	I have a few mistakes, but they do not confuse the reader.	I have hardly any mistakes. The errors I made are because of the risks I am taking when using new words or types of sentences.

While I realize how long this process took for us to move from the initial criteria brainstorm session to the rubric stage, the learning that went on during this process was invaluable. It was so important for me to take a few steps back and let the students "play around" with the criteria. Not only did it help students really think about what was important when writing a story, but the process and final rubric became theirs, and they understood it.

Using Criteria

As we drafted our stories, we used the rubric and made changes to it as necessary. I asked the students to take note of any parts of the rubric that seemed confusing or needed further clarification. Sometimes we needed to change the language we had chosen to use within the rubric to make it more clear, and other times we simplified sections of the rubric that were confusing. It was evident that my students were able to complete this task and because they were involved in the process of developing the criteria from the beginning, they had a clear vision and a deepened understanding of what they were working towards. We had succeeded!

At the same time we were working on developing an assessment rubric for story writing, I was also reading research about giving students feedback. Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe agree feedback is necessary in any learning situation as they explain in their book, "all types of learning, whether on the practice field or in the classroom, require feedback" (p. 77). I discovered I was not providing feedback that was rescriptive enough to help my students set their subsequent goals for writing. Gregory, Cameron and Davies write, "teacher-approval phrases, such as ‘I like it; this is great,' do not provide the information or the direction that students need to achieve success" (1997, p. 43). By listening to my students and watching them try to set their next writing goals, I learned that these comments do little beyond letting the student know you liked their writing. Similarly, circling phrases on the assessment rubric, especially one which students were not involved in creating, is not enough to help them set goals. If we want our students to progress, we need to involve them in the criteria development, show them what they are doing well, and help steer them in the direction of what to work on next (Chappuis et al., 2004).

With this in mind, I spoke with Melanie Anastasiou, our teacher librarian, who co-teaches with me three times a week, looking for suggestions to help our students give each other feedback on the stories they had been working on. She
explained a technique the adults in her writing group use to give each other feedback. We decided to try this with my students. Each student was given a blank strip of paper and was asked to read another student's story independently. As peer editors, their task was to write down two things the author did well and one suggestion for improvement.

Melanie advised the students to write down their compliments and suggestions as they were reading, not to wait until the end. She also informed the students that editors read a story several times over and they should do this as well. As students finished reading each other's stories and writing down their feedback, they were asked to give their strips of paper and the story they had read back to the original author. The author of the piece then read the feedback and was asked to reread his/her story thinking about the editor's compliments and suggestion for improvement. Here are some of their written comments:

Todd: "This is good"
Adam: "Some of the words are spelled wrong"
Andrea: "I like how you used talking in the first sentence"
Debbie: "I like how you show and express your character's emotions"
Debbie: "On p.7 you made me say, ‘what' because of Zac ripping the tickets"

While there were some comments that reminded me of my elementary school days, there was definite evidence that my students could give each other fairly specific feedback when they knew what to look for. Creating the rubric together was an important step for students to be able to give each other feedback. Students then made changes based on the feedback they received. The paper containing the feedback was glued into the author's writing book so they could refer to the suggestions as needed. This activity revealed what type of feedback my students were able to give each other.

Tomlinson and McTighe describe four qualities of an effective feedback system in their book. They state, "the feedback must (1) be timely, (2) be specific, (3) be understandable to the receiver, and (4) allow for adjustment" (2006, p. 77). It is important that feedback be detailed, specific and given regularly during the process by the teacher and his or her peers. Students must also be given time, practice and support to retry and make changes. My students were generally given 3-4 blocks a week to work on their stories in class, and several opportunities to self-assess and peer-assess.

Over the course of the term we experimented with the formats we used to self-assess and peer-assess our stories. Students regularly self-assessed using the rubric we created. During these self-assessment sessions, students focused their assessment on only one aspect of the whole assessment rubric at a time.

(see PDF for Fig 2 Meaning Aspect of Writing Rubric)

For example, students read their story looking specifically at the aspect of meaning within their story and then wrote down what they felt they were doing well and what part needed work (Figure 2). Then, they spent time reworking their piece based on what they noticed needed revision. This is a crucial step to the assessment process. Gregory, Cameron and Davies state:

When students assess themselves they develop
insights into their own learning. Rather than relying on
feedback from one person - their teacher- and asking
"Is this right?" "Is this long enough?" "Am I doing it
right?" "Is this what you want?" students begin to monitor
their own learning and consider what part of the
assignment meets the criteria and what needs more
attention. (2000, p. 10)

My students were learning to compare the rubric to their own writing, looking for what they did well and aspects that needed work. This was very exciting!

Students also peer assessed in this same manner and then took the feedback they received and reworked the piece again, focusing specifically on their suggestions. Student editors were forced to focus their editing skills and their thinking by paying attention to one aspect of the rubric at a time. Focus edediting resulted in clearer and more specific feedback.

As the year progressed and the writing rubric we created was fine tuned as needed, students adjusted the ways in which they gave feedback to each other. For example, during our "Writing Share" individual students read their writing to the whole class while classmates and teachers sat with their assessment rubrics in front of them. As we listened, students placed sticky notes onto the aspects of the rubric the author had exemplified in his or her writing piece. Because of the community of trust and level of comfort that was evident in our classroom being the second year most of the students were together, many of the students were comfortable sharing in this type of setting.

At the same time, Melanie and I were using the same rubric to write specific feedback for every student in the class. At the end of the story share, students were invited to give specific feedback to the author of the piece using the rubric as their guide and either Melanie or I gave feedback as well. The students were instructed to give a comment about something the author did well and a suggestion for improvement.
The positive feedback given by the students was relevant and fairly specific, indicating what they liked about the story style or meaning. The suggestions for improvement, while accurate, did not always comment on what I wanted them to. Sometimes comments were based on how the author read the piece aloud, not on the story itself. Once I reminded the students to focus on the rubric, they were able to give more specific suggestions for improvement. At the end of "Writing Share" each student received verbal feedback from peers and as well as two copies of the assessment rubric that Melanie and I used to provide additional feedback.

Students became more confident with the rubric over time. Not only were they self-assessing their writing and peer assessing each others written work, they were setting goals for improvement based on the feedback they had been given from their teachers, peers and from what they had noticed in their own writing. Students had a sheet in the back of their writing books where they began to record their strengths and needs as writers as they worked on their drafts. Each student was responsible for keeping a running record of their next steps they used to improve their writing skills based on the feedback they had received. Students were asked to refer to this goal setting page often, to remind them what they were working on.

Reflecting on the Criteria

At the end of the second term I asked students to reconsider the rubric we made, the feedback they were getting about their writing and to answer some questions based on
these two things. Now that they had worked diligently with the rubric for several months and had experience giving and receiving feedback, I wanted to know what they thought. So in an individual survey I asked this question: "Do you think it is helpful to use the rubric as you write your story? Explain your thinking." The data revealed 22 out of the 28 students surveyed reported that the rubric was helpful. Here are some direct quotes from the students:

Kim: "I think it is helpful because you get to know what you need to work on and what you already did."

Sandy: "Yes because the rubric is like a helper."

Richard: "Yes I definitely think the rubric helps. It helps you pinpoint the things you need to work on."

Charles: "Yes, because it helps that we can go over our story over and over again."

Michael: "Yes, I think my stories have improved a lot thanks to the rubric."

And Travis, who "hit the nail on the head", so to speak, said, "Yes, so you can see the criteria and get motivated to do better than last time."

The comments from the students were very telling. I was extremely pleased that they felt the rubric was helpful and that they were able to use it to help improve their writing next time.

The next questions on the survey focused on receiving feedback from peers and teachers. I wanted to know if the students felt the feedback they received from their peers and teachers was helpful. Twenty-five out of 28 students felt that getting peer feedback was helpful. All twenty-eight of the students reported that the teacher feedback was helpful. One student very honestly shared that he preferred the feedback from students. Here are some written comments from the students:

Andrew: "Yes, feedback from students is very helpful. Most of the time I agree with suggestions they give me, some I disagree."

Paula: "I really like my feedback because it helps me understand what I missed in my self-assessment. Also, I like hearing what could make my story better."

Kim: "I thought that getting feedback from our classmates was helpful because we get to find out what everyone else thinks about your story, not just teachers."

Chris: "Sometimes it (teacher feedback) is helpful, but sometimes I do not agree with some suggestions I've been given. I prefer the feedback coming from my peers."

In addition to the comments about the rubric and the feedback, it is clear that my students were able to identify what they did well and what needed work when they used a rubric they helped create. By being invested in the process and ultimately more involved in assessment, my students were able to set realistic goals and work to improve these goals. Through these exciting realizations, I am reminded of a powerful quote by Tomlinson and McTighe in their book, Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design. They believe that "the most effective learners are metacognitive; that is they are mindful of how they learn, set personal goals, regularly self-assess and adjust their performance, and use productive strategies to assist their learning" (2006, p. 79). At the end of the day, aren't these the habits of mind we all hope to instill in our students?

Conclusion

Through this investigation I have come to realize the importance of immersing my students in the entire assessment process. From developing the criteria to peer and selfassessment, students need to be involved. An equally important piece to the assessment process is providing descriptive feedback to students that helps to further their learning. For the most part, the feedback the students gave each other during writing class was accurate. It highlighted things the author did well and what he/she needed to improve. The students were polite in their comments, but honest and to the point. I discovered too, not only does the feedback benefit the author of the piece, but the editor as well. Because the editor must read the piece with a careful eye looking for successes and areas needing improvement, this in turn helps their own writing. I learned to be more purposeful in the wording of the feedback I gave the students as well, and focused my suggestions only on one or two areas at a time.

In Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind, Lorna Earl and Steven Katz write, "When learning is the goal, teachers and students collaborate and use ongoing assessment and pertinent feedback to move learning forward" (2005, p. 5). I understand this to be the key to continued student success. Not only did my students show me that they were fully capable of coming up with the criteria for a good story themselves, but they were able to use the criteria they created to help give each other specific and honest feedback, with the goal of improving their stories.

While I realize I have more to learn, I now look at assessment differently. No longer is assessment solely my responsibility. My students play an integral role in creating the tools we use together to assess ourselves, each other, and to move forward with our learning. I include myself in this process, but I am not there alone. I have learned how important and valid my students' input is to each component of assessment. And, my students no longer have to guess what I want: we've created what we want, and we work together to pave the path to get there.

References

Atwell, N. (2002). Lessons That Change Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Atwell, N. (1998). In the Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading and Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Chappuis, S., Stiggins, R., Arter, J., and Chappuis, J. (2004). Classroom Assessment For Student Learning: Doing it Right-Using it Well. Portland, OR: Assessment Training
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Earl, L., and Katz, S. (2005). "Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind." Winnipeg, MB: Western and Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Education.

Gregory, K., Cameron, C., and Davies, A. (1997). Knowing What Counts: Setting and Using Criteria. Courtenay, BC: Connections Publishing.

Gregory, K., Cameron, C., and Davies, A. (2000). Knowing What Counts: Self- Assessment and Goal Setting. Courtenay, BC: Connections Publishing.

Gibbs, J. (2006). Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communities. Windsor, CA: CenterSource Systems, LLC.

Tomlinson, C., and McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design. Virginia, USA: ASCD.