Improving Student Writing Skills - cse crafts

Improving Student Writing Skills
read as a whole; the author could vary his sentence
structure to create more flow. Paragraphs also would
increase a score in Organization.
Two Methods for Adjusting the Scoring Rubric
If using the Traits of Good Writing in your content
area classes or with content-specific assignments, you
may want to use one of the following two methods for
transforming the basic rubric.
• Weighting the Traits
The relative importance of each trait is not the same for
every assignment. For example, after reading a current
events article, you may wish to check a student’s
written response for comprehension, thus choosing to
place an emphasis on Ideas; likewise, for an illustrated
poster, you may weigh Presentation higher than the
other traits. Using a flexible rubric to weigh the traits
has the advantage of accentuating the most important
points of the assignment, while continuing to give at
least token credit for writing style. Use the Weighted
Scoring Rubric Template on page 86 to emphasize
whichever traits are most important in any given
assignment.
• Personalizing Assessment Criteria
In some assignments, the standard assessment criteria
for the Traits of Good Writing don’t speak specifically
to what you want. For example, if the assignment were
to create a comic strip showing the journey of food
through the digestive system, you might score students
based primarily on their demonstrated knowledge of
the parts of the digestive system (esophagus, stomach,
etc.). The standard method of scoring Ideas might not
be quite enough. By “plugging in” a separate rubric
to the Ideas slot, you could give students points for
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