Teaching Writing: Children II

Lesson 4: Wrap-up

Checklists and Rubrics

Checklists and rubrics are tools to help you to teach children to be responsible for the content of their writing. Both are helpful tools, and your school or district may already have some in place for you to use.

Writer's Checklists

Writer's checklists generally fall into two categories - revision checklists and proofreading or editing checklists. On my writing table, I had copies of each kind for students to use when they reached those parts of the writing process. These checklists are also useful if you do any peer editing or revising as it gives some structure for the peer editor to rely on.

You can make up your own checklist as well. This is especially useful if you are focusing on a certain skill, and want to be sure students are focusing on that skill as they revise or edit.

Some good revision checklist questions are:

1. Does my story have a beginning, middle and end?
2. Do I have a main idea?
3. Is my work organized?
4. Do I have a conclusion?
5. Did I vary the length of my sentences?

Some questions for a proofreading checklist might be:

1. Did I begin each sentence with a capital letter?
2. Did I end each sentence with the correct punctuation?
3. Did I check for spelling errors?
4. Did I indent at the beginning of each paragraph?
5. Did I use other punctuation correctly?

Of course these are basic questions, but often putting them on a checklist and having the student actually check them off and "sign-off" on the process makes them more aware of their responsibilities!

Here are some examples of checklists for teachers and students:

Grading with Checklists: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/grants/strateg...

Peer Editing and Revising Checklists: http://www.lapeerschools.org/projects/ka...

Editing Checklist: http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/fiss/editing...

The Editing and Rewriting Process: http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/compositi... Scroll down for the checklist!

And one example of editing symbols: http://webster.commnet.edu/writing/symbo... You might want to use these - I never did as I couldn't ever remember them all and it was easier for me to just make my own notes. But some kids love them!

Rubrics

Rubrics are another way for you to get your students to evaluate their own work. Generally, a rubric sets out to define the qualities necessary for a paper to earn a certain grade. Of course, the most rigorous criteria are needed for an "A" paper, and lesser criteria for each lower grade. Really a scoring tool for teachers, the purpose is for students to know ahead of time what they need to do in order to earn that A. It is also great to use to explain to students why a paper didn't receive an A or B, etc.

The article, Creating Rubrics: http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plan... is a great introduction to what rubrics are and how they can be used.

Rubrics for Grades 3-5: http://teachers.infoplease.com/lesson-pl... has a series of downloadable blank rubrics. You need Acrobat reader version 5 to access these, but some samples are shown to give you an idea of what a rubric can look like.

Here are a few other rubric resources:

Understanding Rubrics: http://www.middleweb.com/rubricsHG.html

Rubrics: http://www.odyssey.on.ca/~elaine.coxon/r...

Rubrics: http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/actbank...

Scoring Rubrics: What, When and How?: http://ericae.net/pare/getvn.asp?v=7&n=3

Links to Assessment and Web Page Rubrics: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide...

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