Lauren Walters Email: lauren_walters@pasd

1. Lauren Walters Email:lauren_walters@pasd.us Resources: Colleagues: Talked about student ability. Student Assessment: Noticed student ability in the classroom and geared writing activities towards abilities. cie.asu.edu/volume9/number4: Writing checks student abilities, promotes critical thinking, and helps students reflect on taught knowledge. Loss of instructional time. wac.colostate.edu www.portal.state.pa.us: PSSA writing rubric. Practice writing questions. Successes: Students excited about sharing different scenarios dealing with personal situations in class. Connections being made on how material being taught in class can be used in their every day life. Excited about learning. Structure in the class. Encouraging students to read and follow writing guidelines. Essential Question: How can PSSA scores increase through writing across the curriculum? Struggles: What guidelines should be set for sharing information from writing. Keeping students focused. Having students imagine themselves in situations they are writing about. To grade or not to grade the journals. Encouraging struggling students from feeling though as they are free to express ideas because they are scared. Changes For Next Year: 1. Debating about not reviewing journal questions out loud every day due to time allotment. 2. Debating on not reviewing journals aloud in class due to privacy issues and giving the students a daily grade for completing writing assignment. 3. Having students reflect on different issues seen on TV, in music, in magazine articles, and in comic strips. 4. More consistent writing grading rubric bases on the rubric used on PSSA tests.