maletta_journal2

Michelle Maletta EDC 452 Assessment Journal 2 Context and Structure: The type of assessment that I observed this week was a performance assessment. Everyday students are given fifteen minutes at the beginning of the day to write in their writing journals. At the beginning of the given journal time my cooperating teacher gives the students a prompt by writing it on the white board at the front of the room. Most times it is a set topic that all of the children follow. Some days she leaves it open, and calls it a free write. During the fifteen minutes given the students write on the topic in whichever direction their imagination takes them. There are no set restrictions as to length, my cooperating teacher only asks that they use proper grammar and spelling. Implementation and Results: At the conclusion of the allotted time students are asked to finish the sentence they are working on and put their journals back into their desks. Later in the morning when my cooperating teacher holds “morning meeting” is when three select students for that day go up and orally share their journal of choice with their classmates. During this time each student reads aloud their journal with help from my cooperating teacher if they get stuck when re-reading their work. Once they have completed reading their journal the rest of the class has a chance to ask four questions related to the entry. This allows the writer to reflect back on their work as well as engages the other students in what is being shared. When all of this is complete my teacher takes the journal and reviews the writing. She checks for spelling and grammatical errors and marks any corrections that the student needs to improve on. Along with allowing the students to reflect on their work my teacher uses this review as an on-going record of the student’s progress in writing. Reflection: Reflecting back on this assessment I feel confident in how it seems to be working. Because my cooperating teacher gets to review students work, bi-weekly if not weekly, it allows her to keep track of the student’s progress. Although she does not grade this work, it helps her assess whether there is improvement being made in writing from one week to the next. Aside from the benefit this assessment gives my cooperating teacher, I feel this type of assessment also helps the students. Each day they are challenged to think freely about a topic and use their creative mind to create a journal entry. If they feel comfortable with the topic they can write a lengthy amount as they have a plethora of information to pull from. If they are struggling with a topic, it forces them to be creative and draw from deep within their minds. All in all, I feel that journal writing on a daily basis is a great thing to include in a second grade classroom routine.