Smagorinsky Saves the day!!!

For this week Sam and I have been working on our final project assessment. While constructing my unit chunk for this week I found myself revisiting Smagorinsky. One chapter that was helpful was chapter 5, “Goals for Conventional Writing Assignments” because for my final projects I want the students to write an essay about power and personal responsibility. There are other opportunities throughout the unit where students can express themselves in more creative mediums (presentations, speeches, journals, and propaganda project).  In this chapter Smagorinsky discusses five key elements for assessments:

• To provide students with a clear set of parameters for producing their texts
•  To provide students with an understanding of how their work will be evaluated
• T provide the teacher with a set of goals to guide his teaching
• To identify for the teaches what he needs to teach students how to do  
• To provide the teacher with criteria to guide his assessment

“The assessments do more than simply tell students what to do. They also outline responsibilities for you in your teaching” (Smagorinsky, 76).

I feel that these ideas have made me rethink parts of my unit calendar; I am collecting ideas for revisions but will wait to adjust my calendar when I get feedback on it.

As I mentioned above, I will be incorporating “unconventional writing assignments,” many of which are discussed in chapter 6. I will be using journals that students will maintain throughout the unit (answer prompts and reflecting on the course material). In my original calendar I allowed time for writing workshops where students could peer-edit drafts of their final paper. After reading Smagorinksy’s chapter 7, “Responding to Student Writing,” I decided to incorporate writing conferences during that period as well. I realize that the students may need more time to work on this final assignment therefore, I will be reworking my calendar and extending workshop days.

Final Summation: When in doubt, read Smagorinsky!!!

  

Hope everyone’s unit planning is going well!

~Estela