Reflecting on the On-Demand Performance Assessment

This week's learning has been around the On-Demand Performance Assessment of narrative writing from the Calkins units of study.  Eight teachers, myself and our interventionist are planning to support one another as we study, implement and reflect on the use of several elements of the units of study.  We began by administering the on-demand assessment. 

This was a long 45 minutes for some.  The teachers and I took anecdotal notes on post-its and documented anything we could see.  Such notes included: Students who started right off, those that didn’t, those that engaged in pre-planning, the amount of time students could sustain their writing, rereading, revising, editing, getting up, sharpening pencils again and again and long pauses with lots of looking around only to come back to writing again.

I thought about the environment of that long block of silent writing and what it did or didn’t do to support writing.  And I thought about the environment of our writing workshops and what we can do differently to shift student writing.  Clearly routines and procedures such as sharpening pencils need to be established.  But I also think that students need to be made aware of their own process, what they need as writers and how that changes throughout the process.  Some environmental and instructional considerations might include a very quiet room so that a long pause in thinking doesn't end up in a distraction because of class noise.  This would require a place in the room where talk in whispers could happen.  Or maybe it means a location of inspirational resources (books, maps, brochures, video clips, poems) for those who just can’t get an idea to start. 

I’m planning to celebrate when we complete the next on demand assessment and more students effectively use those 45 minutes for writing!