We spent a great deal of time talking about our writing process, how we choose our topic for writing (these are based on what our big idea topic is), Our porposes for writing, the process we have for writing, looking over both schools rubrics (which had many similiteries, but some differences) and how we get students to conferece and discuss thier writing.
We felt that our grading of childrens work was consistent between the schools, and found children at similar levels were doing similar things.
Some Interesting Observations:
- No portfolio or learning logs. Teachers report back to parents using samples taken at the beginning of the year that the teacher keeps in thier own ringbinder. Children are not invovled in this process.
- Children are not invovled in the goal seeting process. The teacher choses the goals they have for writing, and there is no pre/post samples of writing completed for genre areas.
- ICT technology is not used as a tool for teaching writing
- Had some great discussions, and the teachers rooms have some fantastic displays around writing. Very inspiring.
