Writing Assessment Analysis

Last week I chose to do a new writing activity with my third graders! In our small reading group, I decided to do a lesson on cinquains. For those of you who have never heard of a cinquain it is, at the most basic level, a five-line poem or stanza. It was created by the American poet, Adelaide Crapsey, about 100 years ago and is very popular because of its simplicity. The poem only focuses on one topic, and it involves details that describe the topic’s feelings and actions. Right now in my practicum classroom I do not think the kids are exposed to enough poetry lessons, let alone meaningful writing experiences. Since April is national poetry month, however, it doesn’t hurt for me to try to bring more writing to the table!

Here is an example of a cinquian format:

Line1: A noun

Line2: Two adjectives

Line 3: Three -ing words

Line 4: A phrase

                                                       Line 5: Another word for the noun

None of my students were familiar with this type of poetry and seemed a little hesitant, at first, to try it. As I continued to discuss and reassure them how much fun poetry writing can be, they started to become more and more relaxed and even excited! I shared some examples of cinquain poetry and gave them some information about it. We talked a lot about:

·     What are the reasons for writing poetry?

·     Why is language and word choice important in poetry?

·     How is the form of poetry different from other types of writing?

·     Where can we find poetry in our lives?

·     How is the writing process (that you have experienced in your class) applied to poetry?

·     The similarities and differences of a cinquain vs. other types of poetry.

·     Expectations/guidelines to think about when writing our poems.

·     Brainstorming some possible ideas of what we could write about

After this engaging discussion, I handed the students a rubric and a graphic organizer printout to use to help them organize their thoughts and structure their poems correctly. Then I simply let them get to work. I did walk around to help students who had any questions or concerns but other than that I really made an effort to hand the writing time over to my young writers! 

We needed a couple of days to work in our small groups for this particular writing assignment. I had the students write their first drafts in their writer’s notebooks and then come and conference with me when they were felt ready to do so. I also continued walking around to observe my students at work. According to Carl Anderson, author of Assessing Writers, it is important to gather information about your students and make meaning out of that information during the entire time that I am with them (pg 146). I even used the same record keeping forms as the author suggested to make notes about each student individually, stating what I believe the students need to work on to grow as writers.

After taking time to review my notes from the conferences and student work I realized how much I learned about them as writers. For example student #1 did a very nice job including nouns, adjectives and verbs that were juicy with description and helped the reader see the meaning of the poem. After meeting with student #1, however, I noticed that he needed more experience just going through the writing process itself. For example, he stated that he was bad at self-editing and wanted me to do it for him. We discussed different strategies on how to go through one’s work such as circling words/sentences that we are unsure of or reading a draft aloud to listen for errors. I also suggested that he share his work in progress with other classmates to get feedback. That way, the student can at least attempt to self-revise/edit his or her own work instead of just handing it off to the teacher saying, “I’m done”. Student #2 did a very nice job adding illustrations to the poem that related to her theme and were very well planned! I would say that student #2 and #3 overall could both benefit from learning different strategies for planning a draft. They were both very eager to jump into their draft, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but maybe it would help their final product if they took more time to plan. If they really want to start writing their draft right away, then they should at least think about their structure and let it emerge as they write. Anderson points out in his text, “it’s important to notice which students think ahead and imagine how they’re going to write for important reasons (how to get a piece done so that he/she can get it out into the world) as opposed to being indifferent on how they will approach their writing (pg 35).” It would be really cool, for instance, if my classroom teacher had more examples of various authors who write poetry to allow the students to see how they think thoughtfully about language and word choice. That is one suggestion I have and is why I brought in some examples of cinquains, so that the students would at least have some ideas. Student #4 needed some extra reassuring that he was doing a good job. One idea that came to mind for student #4 is to discuss what a good writer does and then reinforce how that student is working hard to do just that. This student used the entire time dedicated to writing and even needed extra time to think.

The following are just some examples of what we talked about, even though my paper on this assignment has more suggestions and details of what we discussed and how I would plan my teaching around it.

Thanks!