Assessing Research-Based Literacy Practices
John Collins,EdD
In The Elementary School Journal article, "Research-Based Writing Practices and the Common Core: Meta-analysis and Meta-synthesis," Graham, Harris, and Santangelo describe "research-supported practices that can be used to meet Common Core State Standards writing objectives in kindergarten to grade 8." (p. 498) This review is the most comprehensive analysis of research to date.
I have taken the authors' recommendations and created a self-assessment so teachers can determine how their practice aligns with the research. After each question, I have included quotes from the article to add detail and specificity. Before you begin the survey, realize that it would be very difficult to score 76 points (all activities done on a daily basis) especially in grades that are not self-contained. Nevertheless, use the results to help you focus on a few practices that could have a substantial impact.
Use the key to answer each question with a number.
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4 = daily
3 = two or three times a week
2 = two or three times a month
1 = once or twice a term
0 = never
Collins Education Associates, LLC
320 Main Street, PO Box 957, West Newbury, MA01985
800-932-4477
1 / How often do you create a writing environment that is positive and supportive?"... develop a writing environment that is motivating, pleasant, and nonthreatening, where teachers support students and their writing efforts and students support each other." (p. 507)
2 / How often do you establish writing routines that create a pleasant and motivating writing environment?
"... establish a stimulating mood ... making their excitement visible to students ... made students' writing visible ... encouraged to try hard ... attributed success to effort and the tactics they are learning ... sharing writing in progress and completed papers with peers ... set high but realistic expectations ... encouraged students to act in a self-regulated fashion." (p. 507)
3 / How often do you implement a process approach to writing?
"... creates routines ... with extended opportunities to write; routines ... to plan, draft, revise, and edit their text ... personalized individual assistance and feedback ... brief instructional lessons..." (p. 508)
4 / How often do you create routines that ensure students write frequently?
"... extra writing made students better readers ..." (p. 509)
5 / How often do you design instructional routines where students compose together?
"... students were provided with specific directions for what to do when working together and then taught how to carry out these guidelines ..." (p. 509)
6 / How often do you establish goals for students' writing?
"... exceptional literacy teachers supported their students ... by setting high, but realistic expectations.... Examples ... included ... add three new ideas to their paper when revising ... address both sides of an argument, providing three or more reasons ..."(p. 510)
7 / How often do you use 21st century writing tools?
"... acquiring keyboarding skills and using technology to produce and publish writing." (p. 510)
8 / How often do you provide feedback?
"... formative assessment ... when teachers monitor students' progress as writers, they can adjust classroom practices ..." (p. 511)
9 / How often do you teach text-transcription skills?
"Skilled writers rarely think about handwriting, typing, or spelling ..." (p. 511)
10 / How often do you teach sentence construction skills?
"... teacher modeling how to combine two or more sentences into a more complex one." (p. 512)
11 / How often do you have students gather ideas and information to write about?
"... locating possible writing content through brainstorming, reading, drawing, the internet, and/or by using graphic organizers." (p. 513)
12 / How often do you teach students the basic elements of different types of text?
"... text-structure instruction had a positive impact on the quality of text produced ..." (p. 514)
13 / How often do you provide students with good models of written text?
"... provide students with good models of a specific type of text and ask them to emulate it when they write." (p. 514)
14 / How often do you teach students vocabulary that will improve their text?
"... specialized vocabulary ... teaching topic- or genre-specific vocabulary to students ... improved writing quality." (p. 514)
15 / How often do you teach students strategies for planning?
"... explicit teaching of these kinds of strategies [planning, drafting, revising, editing] ... teachers explained the purpose and rationale of the strategy, modeled how to use it, and provided students with assistance in applying the strategy with the goal of independent and effective use ..." (pp. 515-516)
16 / How often do you teach students strategies for drafting?
17 / How often do you teach students strategies for revising?
18 / How often do you teach students strategies for editing?
19 / How often do you use writing as a tool to support students' learning?
"... Writing ... requires that students decide what ideas are important ... allows students to review, reexamine, critique, and even construct new understandings ... think more carefully about what the ideas mean....writing short answers to questions, taking notes, writing a summary, and writing more extended responses such as explaining ..." (pp. 516-517)
From "Research-Based Writing Practices and the Common Core: Meta-analysis and Meta-synthesis"by Graham, Harris, and Santangelo, The Elementary SchoolJournal, Vol. 115, No. 4 (June 2015), pp. 498-522
Collins Education Associates, LLC
320 Main Street, PO Box 957, West Newbury, MA01985
800-932-4477