Janet Abercrombie's Blog Posts Tagged 'writing' (4)

Quick Formative Assessment of Student Writing

Since reading Bill Ferriter's post on whether or not true formative assessment is possible, I've been wondering how I could make my own formative assessments more efficient. This post features a screencast of me looking at student work for the purposes of formative assessment.

Formative assessment is continuous assessment. In the context…

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Added by Janet Abercrombie on September 24, 2011 at 1:56am — 2 Comments

10 Ways to Help Students Create Quality Video and Audio Productions

I shied away from tech productions projects. I was a scaredy-cat. Why? Whenever I gave my students a video project, the products demonstrated fun and engagement, but little learning.

I needed to learn how to help students create quality productions.

Over the past three years, I've discovered a system that helps me help students create media productions that…

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Added by Janet Abercrombie on September 19, 2011 at 7:13am — No Comments

Bookcasts: Podcasts that Demonstrate Reading Comprehension

: Photo accessed through Creative Commons, attributed to http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamstanley/

When you talk to a 10-year-old about a book, the child will most often give you a rundown that includes a string of "And then...and then...and then..." How can…

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Added by Janet Abercrombie on September 6, 2011 at 4:29am — 1 Comment

Beginning-of-year Activities

I consciously overplan the first few days. The worst possible first-day scenario is to arrive unprepared. Over the years, I've collected a number of first-day activity ideas - far too many to use.

I've pared down the activities based on the following considerations:

My first goal is to build classroom community, making all students feel comfortable and successful.
My second goal is to establish routine.
My third goal is to formatively assess students'…

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Added by Janet Abercrombie on September 2, 2011 at 5:20am — 2 Comments