jen_journal+7

March 26, 2009 The students have been working on writing a couple of short drafts of papers and today they divided into two groups (half of the class for each the cooperating teacher and I). The students were at different steps along the procedure so some students had not filled out the story map for their narratives while others were on their third drafts. The students were supposed to write a narrative that included humor/suspense, dialogue, and that was either a real trip they had been on or something imaginary. The students came to the working table one at a time during a one hour period; if they were not at the working table they were completing some other assignment. I worked with the students to edit their stories for grammar, content, and clarity. If I ran into an unclear sentence or fragment I would have the student read it aloud and see if they could catch the mistake. The students were given their teacher edited drafts and asked to continue work on them. The students are still working on their papers so they do not have final outcomes yet in terms of grades. However, after the editing session the students readily fixed grammatical errors and worked through the unclear portions of their writing. The editing session was successful. For the most part the students stories had good ideas but poor execution that may reflect their age or schooling. I felt that the mid-way check in assessment was successful; the teacher had an idea of how far along the students were as well as a grade for her book for participation and effort, and the students had some help so that they had a clear direction. I would use this assessment in my class, it is an important step in the writing process to focus on and the students gained a lot from having their work reviewed by others.