to know more about. Give them a general topic that students would have an opinion about. For example, you could ask them what they like to do outside school or what they like or don’t like about school. Then ask all the students to write in English about the topic for a set amount of time, but at least for ten minutes. These samples should give you a general idea of the students’ English literacy level. You can also ask students to write about a topic in their home language. Even if you can’t read what they write, you can gauge their general ability in the language based simply on how much they write. Looking at their handwriting in either English or their home language will also give you an idea of how much formal schooling the student has received. Usually, students who have attended school have been given some formal instruction in penmanship.
Teachers can share their students’ writing samples with other teachers to compare and contrast and analyze writing samples together. They can discuss writing samples, looking at students with same home languages and different home languages and considering students’ length of residence in this country and previous schooling. Teachers can refer to the proficiency level descriptors to determine their students’ written proficiency level.
Standards based skills: analyze, evaluate, use evidence to support ideas
Using Formative Assessment
The On Demand writing sample is a good example of formative assessment. Formative assessments are designed to help teachers determine students’ current ability in order to plan the next steps in instruction. MacDonald and her colleagues (2015) state that formative assessment “occurs in the midst of instruction and compares students’ ongoing progress to possible trajectories of learning. It can help identify the most productive next steps in instruction” (p. xi). Formative assessment is one component of an overall assessment system that also includes interim and summative assessments.
MacDonald and her coauthors describe a four-stage process they use to integrate formative assessment into teaching. The first step is to design and teach lessons that have a consistent focus on developing both academic content knowledge and academic language. These lessons have clearly stated language objectives. The second step is to sample students’ language by planning lessons during which students will produce language in oral or written form that can be collected. In the third step, teachers analyze student language samples. They use different tools to conduct their analyses and use this information to plan further instruction. The final step is to provide formative feedback. As MacDonald et al. comment, this stage is designed to
give students clear, progress-oriented, and actionable information about their language use—both what they’re doing well and what they can do to become more effective users of English—and to adjust instruction to meet students’ needs. (p. xix)
The four steps form a cycle. The teacher plans instruction, gathers language samples, analyzes the samples, and provides formative feedback.
Teachers who use formative feedback develop different tools to assess language for formative purposes. Three useful tools are checklists, rating scales, and rubrics. Checklists contain items that students or teachers can respond to with a simple “yes” or “no.” For example, with a checklist a student or a teacher could answer questions like “Did I use descriptive adjectives?” or “Did I write complete sentences that start with a capital letter?” Checklists are very useful when students self-assess.
A rating scale moves beyond “yes” and “no” to indicate how well something was done. For example, the teacher or a student could decide whether the writing contained many descriptive adjectives, some descriptive adjectives, or no descriptive adjectives. Similarly, the rating scale could ask if all the sentences were complete, most were complete, or some were complete.
Rubrics are more detailed than rating scales. They outline the criteria students should meet in different areas. Figure 1.9 shows a possible rubric for a short descriptive writing assignment.
Figure 1.9 Writing Rubric
Developing checklists, rating scales, and rubrics helps teachers make their expectations clear to their students, helping students know exactly what they need to do to succeed. These types of assessment can be used by teachers, by students working in pairs or small groups to assess one another’s work, or by individual students.
In many schools, student-led conferences are a type of formative self-assessment used so that students can explain their current work to their parents or guardians. Figure 1.10 shows one young student discussing his work portfolio with his mother.
Figure 1.10 Student-Parent Conference
Develop a Formative Assessment
We have suggested several ways teachers can use assessment to inform instruction. Get together with others who are teaching the same materials as you are and develop a simple formative assessment you could use with your students. Some of these can be effectively used by the students themselves as a self-assessment, as explained above.
Using a Gradual Release of Responsibility Model
One way to support reading and writing development for English learners at different levels of language proficiency is to use a gradual release of responsibility model. In this way, students who are less proficient receive more support either from the teacher or a more capable peer as they acquire more proficiency in reading and writing English. In the model below, beginning ELs receive lots of support from their teacher or a more capable peer, and then, little by little, they move toward independence. This model is also recommended for use with students whose home language is English.
The gradual release of responsibility model of reading and writing (Pearson and Gallagher 1983) involves several steps. Effective instruction involves gradually releasing responsibility from the teacher to the student. At first, the teacher performs the task and the student observes and begins to engage with it. Next, the teacher helps the student perform the task. Gradually, the teacher removes the support and releases the responsibility so that the student can complete the task independently. Figure 1.11 shows how the gradual release model is applied to literacy instruction.
Instruction moves from teacher support (the area below the diagonal line) to student independence (the area above the line). As the figure shows, responsibility for reading and writing rests at first entirely with the teacher. The teacher models reading by reading books aloud or telling stories. Read alouds and storytelling model for students how texts are structured and introduce the academic vocabulary and syntax of written language. A teacher models writing by engaging students in language experience as students dictate stories or information. The students can see their oral language being written down, and then the students and the teacher read the writing together.
Figure 1.11 Gradual Release of Responsibility Model
During the next stage, the teacher and students take joint responsibility for reading and writing. In shared
