Murphy, MyLe

MyLe Murphy December 2 Case Study Amy Piotrowski Perspective and Reasoning: Figuring out how to read and evaluate student writing. As teachers, we are dedicated and determined to take our own education as well as the continuous education we will go through to teach all that we have to our students, especially when it comes to life-skills like reading, writing, and editing. Based on the essays that were provided and the Q and A with Mr. F., I have found that there is a lot to look at about how we teach our students, what is to be expected and how we critique their work. I noticed that students had a lot to say about the prompts that resonated something within them, but that they did not provide specific, detailed examples or clarity on exactly what they intend to say. For instance, while reading multiple essays written by different students that by the end of their responses the reader (myself and other peers) were confused on what points were made or what side the student had chosen or if the student had really understood the prompt this mainly based on the prompt that asked students to write whether the main character of Metamorphosis was either sympathetic or unsympathetic in which students generalized or did not provide any evidence for their view points. On the other hand, some students provided specific examples that the main character refused to get up in the mornings or had been dedicated to his family every day only to be squashed in the end. There was a point that I questioned what Mr. F. had been teaching the students because personally I had learned to write in FCAT style prompts that evidence and clarity was what took the writing up to the next scoring level; but when Mr. F. explained that his

Murphy, MyLe

students are level 1 and 2 who need assistance in almost every aspect so that he focused on having students to just get their ideas down and to work on their structure, evidence, and grammar after they had been able to think of responses. After learning that Mr. F.s students were students that needed more assistance in creating responses because they are level 1 and 2 readers and writers made their writing more reasonable, especially when Mr. F. mentioned that he has some ELL (English Language Learner) student amongst his students. This provided perspective on how I should be reading the prompts and distinguishing what aspect of the writing process I would want to focus on with my students if they were similar to Mr. F.s students. I would first start of by asking students to write, edit, re edit, and self-evaluate what they had written while teaching lessons on word choice, mature voice, and evidence (that analyzes and provides perspective and understanding). Mr. F. explained that he works one portion at a time in order to get each component down before moving onto the next component he begins by working on the first part (the idea) before moving to structure, then support, then voice - I think that I would do this similarly. I, also, learned that although the holistic rubric that was provided to grade the work the students provided was not as thorough as the rubric that Mr. F. and his peers came up with in order to better evaluate their writings. I think that the holistic rubric focuses more on sentence structure and grammar than on the content and perspective of the prompts; I do understand that the scoring has to be non-biased and that by having a rubric that focuses on concepts that cannot be argued about, but that the scorers have a consensus that yes-this is an error or no-this is not an error without issue. Not only have I understood the reasoning to the holistic rubric, but I have a better understanding how I should critique by providing helpful and respectful comments as well as honesty about the work. It cannot be for the student to hear only praise or to only hear

Murphy, MyLe

negativity, but to keep students encouraged in writing while keeping in mind that they need to work to improve their writing. Overall, Mr. F and his students essays have provided me with a greater understanding of what it takes and what is involved in helping and teaching students how to write, how to improve their writing, and in what ways I should be critiquing their works. By keeping in mind their strengths, my comments, and the rubric that will evaluate them I can teach my students how to be good even great writers who have a well-developed and mature writing style.