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The Challenge of Writing
Giving my students the Student Writing Survey was an interesting experience. I was only able to give it to three of my classes, two regular eighth grade classes and one Honors. They always welcome the...
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A Missing Link – Explaining and Incorporating Evidence
The LAUSD student survey conducted in November and December of 2014 with reference to Interim Assessment 1 indicated that “explaining my thinking” was among the top challenges for students as writers...
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Providing and Interpreting Evidence – Cecilia Goldhor
One of the revealing outcomes of the Student Writing Experience Survey for middle school, in the area of Greatest Strength as a Writer, is the acknowledgment that only 3.2% of the students feel that...
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The Power of the Mentor Text
One question stands out for me while analyzing the results from the Student Writing survey. When students were asked, “Please tell us the different types of writing you have been assigned this...
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Building Academic Language
The survey results from the Fall Interim Assessment (IA1), revealed that the ability to locate and explain evidence to support an assertion is an obvious skill that needs development. When this...
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Importance of Timed Writing
In reviewing the student survey data, I noticed that timed on-demand essays were rarely assigned by teachers. According to the survey, timed on-demand essays were assigned only 1.4% of the time in the...
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Writing Scaffold: Sentence Starters
Throughout the course of the writing fellowship, the topic of students not being able to understand how to analyze the evidence that they cite in their essays has come up repeatedly. As was evident in...
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Revisit, Revise it, Reread it – Teresa Gonzalez
After analyzing the student Survey data, the results show that students in the middle school are given on average 3-5 extended assignments per semester. On the other hand, very small percentages of...
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Cross Curricular Writing Strategy
When assessing the importance of teaching and writing strategies needed to address the Interim Assessment, it was clear that the strategies we adopt in our classroom on a daily basis clearly impact...
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Using College Board’s Levels of Questions to Encourage Breadth of...
Prior to learning to annotate and/or beginning a discussion of a text with Socratic Seminar, I teach students College Board’s Levels of Questions (Building Success) in an interactive format. I first...
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