2 Narratives about Teaching Writing - National Council of Teachers ...

▲Narratives about Teaching Writing 61a research paper project. Building on your discussion of goals(see item 2 above), how would you guide students throughthe research process? What guidelines would you set for theirfinal papers? Rubrics are lists of criteria that the teacher willevaluate when assessing a paper, as well as the number ofpoints or percentages of value placed on each characteristic.Rubrics can be holistic, requiring teachers to assign one numberor point value to a paper after reading the entire piece;analytical, breaking down the characteristics of the paper intovarious statements that describe necessary qualities (e.g., under“organization” a teacher might include such items has “hasstrong thesis statement, contains topic sentences, or uses adequatetransitions”); or checklists that simply note if varioustasks were completed. Create an assignment sheet and a rubricor scoring guide for the paper that shows how you wouldevaluate students’ work.2. What alternatives can you think of for the traditional researchpaper? Make a list of different possibilities. These could includeperformance-based projects, visual projects, art projects,etc.Writing Narrative 3Most teachers hate to grade. The idea of putting scores on what we seeas creative works can be very disconcerting—and time consuming. Butgrading is a necessity and unavoidable for most English language artsteachers. Many alternatives for grading exist, however, including process-orientedgrading such as portfolios, and rubrics or scoring guidescan make our task easier and evaluation more useful for students. Inthis story, we see a teacher who avoids grading and tries to focus on“bigger issues.” But in doing so, he sets himself up for some end-of-termdifficulties. How can we strike a balance between graded and nongradedwork? Which things should we grade? Which should we simply respondto? This story takes place in a midsize suburban high school inthe upper Midwest.Buried under the Paper LoadI remember my first year as a teacher. I was teaching ninth-grade Englishand loving it. My students were fun and full of life. I was teachingliterature and writing that I enjoyed. My principal and departmentheads were both supportive and committed. It just seemed toogood to be true. And then it happened. I guess I shouldn’t describe it