Chelsea Mueller April 9, 2013 ELD 307: Professor Rich Writing Analysis A writing analysis is done in order to determine

a students progress in writing over the year. A teacher can look at student writing samples periodically throughout the year, or even just at the beginning, middle, and end. When they look at the students writing they are checking to see what the child has learned or is currently learning in literacy, and even what they are thinking. Teachers may also check writing samples from previous years in order to see how the child has progressed from year to year. This writing analysis contains two parts an interview and a review of the students work. By conducting this interview the teacher will be able to see how the child views him/herself has a writer. This can also help the teacher determine what to help the student with next. For the second piece, the teacher will use a rubric and look at work samples. This rubric will help the teacher focus in on what the student needs to focus on to enhance their writing skills. The rubric will also help see what the student is doing or not doing correctly. Shane is a bright student in Mr. Joness third grade classroom. He is always talking to his classmates about his writing that he does in class and at home. The students in this class are required to write in their jot notebook once a week and hand it in the following Monday. Their jots contain their thoughts, problems and ideas which are written in the back of their writing notebooks. Each student writes something different about their week. This is the students chance to share their opinions and stories to Mr. Jones. Shane loves to share stories about his weekend and will be quick to tell his table mates that the story he is telling is in his jots and they can read it there. In the front of their writers notebook the students write assigned writings. Compared to the free writes in the back, this section is more structured and clearly involves more thought process because of the length of writing that is put here. Students are given topics that are hand selected by the teacher that they need to write about in this section. The writing that goes in this section is never a final

draft. The students do a lot of editing and rewriting to their formal work. The finished copies get rewritten on legal ruled paper and handed in to Mr. Jones. There are never any teacher corrections in the front of the book. The only time Mr. Jones writes in the writers notebooks are when students hand in their jots. I chose to use writing samples from Shanes writers notebook. I did this so that I could compare and contrast how Shane writes freely and with a prompt. In order to go along with the rubric, I chose writing samples from September, November, January, and March. For each month there are two samples: a jot and a prompt. To do the writing analysis a few materials were needed. First, there were two writing rubrics from the book Kidwatching. The first rubric was called Note-Taking Form for Observing Writing. On this rubric it gave a list of this to look for in the writing and then a column to put examples and instances. The different items to look for were: Knowledge about the functions of writing, knowledge about written language formats, knowledge about ideas and content that are expressed in writing, knowledge about orthography and phonology, knowledge about punctuation, knowledge about grammar, processes of getting ideas on paper, social processes, and view of self as a writer/author. The second rubric was called Profile for writing knowledge. This contained columns for the months September, November, January, and March. While going down the rows each had what the students knowledge demonstrated such as use of spacing, self-evaluates, and chooses own topics for drawing and writing. A check mark was then placed in which month the student showed this knowledge. If needed examples, descriptions, and reflections could be written in the last column. Next there was an interview that was adapted from Kidwatching called Childs Concepts of Writing. This interview contained ten questions to ask to the student in order to see how they see themselves as a writer. The last material necessary was the students writers notebook which contained jots and prompts.

The first step to the writing analysis was to conduct the survey. I asked Shane all of the questions during some free time after Spanish class. Shane was eager to answer the questions and seemed interested in the survey. After, completing the survey I took Shanes writers notebook and made copies of jots and prompts from September, November, January, and March. After compiling Shanes work I went through both checklists to see Shanes strong and weak points. Shane knows that he is a writer and feels strongly about his writing. Shane said that he learned to write by reading books and recognizing the words. After, he recognized the words he started to write them down. Ever since then he decided that he loves to write about small moments because they are important to him. Shane feels that he learns to write every day during writing time. Throughout the school year Shanes writing has expanded in length and details. In September he would write a page with little details. In March, Shane was writing anywhere from two to three pages and he included a lot of descriptive words and dialogue. Even though Shane thinks that writing is fun, he feels that learning writing can be difficult. Shane said, That when you are young it is hard to learn to write, especially because you dont learn when youre old like third grade. Shane also said that writing can be a new thing to people they may be learning a new language and learning how to write. Shane is aware that other people around him write but, he isnt sure why they write. Shane also does not show a process of writing. When Shane writes he just writes without asking for help and looking around the room. Writing seems to come naturally to Shane. When it comes to writing words and sentences he does not use invented spelling. He can also properly write a sentence and use proper spacing between sentences. In order to help Shane see that others write for the same reasons he does, I would do a few things. First, I would have him listen in on what his peers write about. If Shane gets a chance to listen to his peers it will help him see their reasons for writing. Shane can also take part in peer editing. When Shane is exposed to his classmates writing this will show him that they are all still learning to write and

they write for the same reasons. Having Shane become exposed to his peers writing will help his writing and editing skills as well. I would also work on the process of ideas. During writers workshop I would talk about making a list of ideas in their writers notebooks. Along with writing their ideas for different essays they can then write their ideas for the essay they choose. After they have their ideas, they can learn to make outlines. This will help Shane with the structure of his paper by looking at his outline of ideas. By having his ideas outlined this will also help him add more details and see where to add more dialogue. Although Shanes writing is already detailed and strong for a third grader, doing these different strategies will help his writing improve even more.