Think and Write
• Make a short list of memorable
evaluation/assessment moments in your
life.
• What made them difficult or challenging?
• What experiences do you have with
failure?
Encouraging Student Self
Assessment:
The Key to Growth and
Independence
Tasha A. Thomas
Spartanburg Writing Project
Summer Institute 2011
Carol Jago
Papers, Papers, Papers
“ I am increasingly persuaded that
students most need, vitally need, to
acquire the ability to assess their work
for themselves…Students need to
grasp for themselves the evaluative
criteria that readers use when
determining whether a piece of
writing has value.” (61)
My Practice
• To gauge previous experience, attitudes
and skill sets, I survey students at the
beginning of the semester, in both reading
and writing
• I encourage self-reflection and assessment
throughout the writing process in a variety
of ways, verbally and in writing, giving
credit for meaningful, insightful reflection
• The semester ends with a culminating
reflection and another survey
Your Experience?
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In your own classrooms, do you struggle
with helping students become more
independent learners?
What are you already doing to help
students learn to self-assess their effort
and progress in all areas?
What might you do to give students more
opportunities to self-assess?
Essential Questions
1. What is(are) the goal(s) of teaching
students to internalize the tenants of good
writing?
2. How can we move students toward more
independence, using self-assessment to
ensure growth?
Carl Anderson
How’s It Going
“Students must be able to work on their
writing independently for a sustained
period of time—a half hour or more—if
we’re going to be able to confer
effectively.” (175-76)
Methods and Strategies
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Daily Contracts/ Work Logs
Goal Setting
Process Shares/ Modeling
Read about the processes of professional writers
Give students input into the criteria for evaluation
Make certain students understand the components of the
rubric
• Portfolios: Published vs. Process
• Letters: to self, classmates, and teacher
• Use Dialogue Journals or Reading Reflection Calendars
(see Tovani)
Process vs. Focus Reflection
• Help students develop a bank of reflective
questions so that they become more aware
of their own aims make more relevant and
meaningful connections
1. Process Questions(meta-cognition)
2. Focus Questions (specific to the
piece of writing)
Focus Questions
• What did you learn from this piece of
writing?
• What surprised you in the draft?
• Where is the piece of writing taking you?
• What are you most proud of in the piece?
Note: you might also create questions
specific to the assignment or genre
Process Questions
• How did you select your topic?
• What was the hardest part for you?
• What revision strategies did you use? Did
you get any useful advice?
• What do you intend to do differently in
your next draft?
More Methods and Strategies
• Create mini-lessons to give students an opportunity or a
context for reflection and self-assessment.
• Help students understand that fluency in both reading and
writing may be different in different instances, and that it
doesn’t mean they are poor readers or writers when they
take more time—help open the door to the “club of
literacy”
• Model and help students create “Thinking About My
Story” sheets
• Make reflection an integral and every day occurrence
• Encourage student ownership
~ Joni Chancer
A Few Examples
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Student Survey: Writing Self-Assessment
Student Survey: Reading Self-Assessment
Revision Survey
Question Papers
Student Daily Contract
Instructor Conference Record
Record of Conferences
Independent Reading Record
Process Revision Sheet
Reviser’s Checklist
Assignment Specific Self-Assessment
There are tons of great student self-assessment examples out there,
but try to design tools that best fit your assignments, standards, and
most of all, your students’ needs.
Give Students Freedom to Fail
• For most, grades are the end-all, be-all
measure of success and progress
• We need to allow our students the room to
take risks
• Our students know we are the experts, yet
we want to build their confidence and skill
to the level that they can examine their
own work through the “teacher’s lens.”
Carol Jago
Papers, Papers, Papers
“You will notice the tentative nature of
my response to Alice’s draft…I don’t
want to suggest by word or deed that
mine is the last word in her writing.
Every revision decision should be
hers.” (69)
Letters from the Fray: Comp 102
“There are still areas in Composition in which I struggle, including
constructing a strong thesis statement and concluding papers. I also
struggle with finding relevant information in a timely manner. Some
areas in which I see as my strengths are analyzing texts and annotating
texts. I also find it easy to read and think like a writer.”
~ Keya
“The one area I feel I should focus on more is planning. I feel that if I
were to brainstorm more and create an outline, my papers would be even
more effective. This semester I procrastinated a great deal and would
write my paper all at once. I believe if I had put more time and planning
into the assignments, new ideas could have came to mind as I worked on
it that would have been beneficial to my paper.”
~Erin
Letters from the Fray: Comp 102
“Most of my writing improved. I see that I am getting stronger with my
grammar as well; my structure is getting better with each and every
paper I write. I learned that I should put myself in the reader’s shoes, and
make sure as a writer I feel confident that my work will grasp the
reader’s attention and that he/she can follow my points of view.”
~Tyrie
“Overall I think I have improved, but I still have some points that need
to be improved such as my vocabulary. It is really hard for me to
incorporate sophisticated words in my writing. I need to follow steps
when I’m writing. First I need to find the word that I would like to use in
Spanish and then translate it, because in my mind I still think in Spanish
instead of English. Sometimes there are words or phrases that don not
have an exact translation. Or if they do, when they are translated it
changes their meaning.”
~Fiama
Jim Burke
The English Teacher’s Companion
“If they say critical things about their own
work, they have to listen; if I say it, I am
perceived like Charlie Brown’s
schoolteacher, droning on like all other
authority figures about the need to work
harder, do better.”
Reflect and Write
• What is one idea from this workshop you
will try to implement this school year?
• What questions do you still have regarding
student self-assessment and/or methods
such as portfolios?
Resources
• Anderson, Carl. How’s It Going.
Heinemann, 2000.
• Burke, Jim: The English Teacher’s
Companion, 1999.
• Chancer, Joni. “The Teacher’s Role in
Portfolio Assessment.” nwp.org, 2011.
• Jago, Carol: Cohesive Writing, 2002.
• Jago, Carol: Papers, Papers, Papers, 2005.
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