In Gail Hughes' 4th grade classroom, students now know precisely the standards their essays should meet.
An A paper contains long, detailed sentences, at least three of which are special “Plus” sentences exhibiting humor, colorful adjectives, similes, or personal observations. The overall paper is neat, and words are spelled correctly. The essay has an introduction and conclusion, and each sentence begins with a different word.
At the opposite end of the continuum, a messy paper with incomplete sentences, little or no punctuation, misspelled words, and problems with clarity would earn a ✓−. Additional criteria for ✓ and ✓+ papers clearly define the attributes of successful—and unsuccessful—essays.
Mrs. Hughes' 4th graders are comfortable with this evaluation system for an important reason: they helped develop its standards. It is an example of the “collaborative assessment” being done in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Public Schools.
As the district's Classroom Assessment Specialist, I have helped many teachers develop this kind of evaluation system, which can be used in all subjects in all grades. I have witnessed firsthand its profound impact on student achievement at all levels. Though we have not yet performed any controlled studies, teachers using collaborative assessment have documented extraordinary improvement with nearly all students.
Getting Started
When Mrs. Hughes originally approached me, she was dissatisfied with her students' progress in writing. Every week, a different member of the class was designated as a “Special Person” to answer questions about his or her personal life, interests, and ideas. Each student in the class would then write a summary of the significant ideas discussed by the “Special Person.” These compositions were saved in students' portfolios, giving Mrs. Hughes the opportunity to examine each student's writing over a period of time.
After several months, though, Mrs. Hughes felt the quality of writing had shown little or no improvement. When I examined the students' work, from the poorest to the best, I agreed. Despite her efforts to teach students how to make their writing more expressive, thoughtful, and effective, most of them simply continued to list the special person's oral responses.
For example: Andrea is a neat person. She likes rock bands. Andrea thinks reading is cool. Her favorite books are “little House on the Prairie and J. T. She has a cute dog that barks “Rudolph the Reindeer.” Andrea and her family enjoy going out to eat. She likes shopping at Briarwood Mall. She thinks “Home Alone” and “Hook” are neat movies. Andrea is a very neat person and I'm glad I know her.
Articulating Criteria
As I reviewed the graded essays, I noticed that similar papers seemed to have different grades. When I asked for her criteria, Mrs. Hughes realized she had never written them down, and it was difficult to even verbalize what she looked for.
In a summary of his 10 years of research, Stiggins (1988) observed that classroom teachers are assessing at least 25 percent of every instructional day, but the criteria and data are usually stored in the teacher's head. Stiggins urges teachers to ask themselves what they really value in good writing and challenge themselves to put those criteria on paper for everyone, especially students, to see (Spandel and Stiggins 1989).
Mrs. Hughes sought clear and specific language to describe for students what was required to achieve the desired results. Her struggle to avoid descriptors such as thoughtful, expressive, and effective was an ongoing effort. And even when Mrs. Hughes finally arrived at a satisfactory set of criteria, we knew changes were in store. Now it was time to involve the students.
Student Participation
Mrs. Hughes wanted her students to go through the same analytical process of determining criteria for high-quality writing as she had. She gave them four writing samples, each with the attributes of one of the four grades she would give (✓−, ✓, ✓+, and A).
She asked the students to work in pairs to grade the papers using their own best judgment. Students were asked to explain why they thought one paper was better than another, and this way she guided them to think about and contribute to the writing criteria she had shared with them.
As she reviewed students' input, Mrs. Hughes noted they often used the vague descriptor interesting. Consequently, she developed the concept of “Plus” (+) sentences, which defined criteria for sentences that might be termed interesting. Plus sentences display attributes such as humor, author's voice, personal opinion, colorful adjectives, similes, and personal observations.
Mrs. Hughes provided students with models of “interesting writing” and challenged them to select “Plus” sentences from their own work to read to the class. This modeling technique provided an important tool to help students recognize good writing. When students are brought into the process of developing the full range of performance criteria—from poor to excellent—they gain a richer appreciation of the standards for success. They also gain the tools they need to improve their work and judge the worth of their efforts. They are empowered to take control of their own learning.
Evaluation Form
After extensive work, Mrs. Hughes and her students produced a written list of criteria. Using this, I designed an assessment form to be used by each student and the teacher. It showed the performance continuum and the characteristics of papers ranging from poor (✓−) to excellent (A).
It is critically important for a student to have a clear picture of what is not acceptable as well as what is acceptable. When students see that their writing resembles the unsatisfactory model, they become highly motivated to improve. I will never forget the 3rd grade boy who asked permission to redo his paper when he saw how close his writing was to the poor criteria. The paper he brought in the next day (and his assessment of it) were far closer to the excellent end of the continuum—and included a note saying that from then on he was going to get an A every time.
In Mrs. Hughes' class, all students have assessment forms on their desk to be used as a resource during writing. Each week, students complete the self-assessment portion, judging their writing performance against the assessment criteria. The weekly paper and the students' assessments are given to Mrs. Hughes, who writes her evaluation on the same form and returns it before the next week's writing activity. Students study any differences between the teacher's assessment and their own. When necessary, individual conferences are held. With the assessment of their past week's writing clearly in mind, students are asked to set a personal goal to improve the new week's writing activity.
Refinement and Reflections
The original assessment form simply showed a box with the four sets of criteria for each grade. As predicted, the form needed to be changed to reflect student needs. For example, Mrs. Hughes noticed students still had trouble formulating introductions and conclusions. The class studied and analyzed examples from books and eventually defined additional criteria for introductions and conclusions. These and other modifications were incorporated in a revised form.
A significant component of student self-assessment is having students use the criteria to reflect on their growth by sharing their observations with another student, conferencing with the teacher, or composing a written piece for their portfolios. Some of the students in Mrs. Hughes' class have observed: I used to write like this: “I'm going to tell you about Erica's future.” Now I write like this: “Erica has a future that will sweep you off your feet.” I think you can see the difference.I learned that using adjectives really sparks up your writing.I really liked the assessment sheet because it helped me know what to do better next time.
The collaborative assessment process also encourages parental involvement. When they clearly see what is expected of their children, parents can become more active in helping their children learn.
Peer input is important, too. Sometimes a student's most probing thinking occurs during an assessment session with a peer. During one such session, I overheard a student ask her friend, “What do you mean by better?” What an exciting level of critical thinking for a 4th grader to exhibit! Working with assessment criteria has taught her to demand a clear definition of how her paper could be better and not settle for generalities.
Improvement for All
In Mrs. Hughes' class, every student accomplished her 4th grade writing outcomes, and she saw the greatest improvement in her low-achieving students. Other teachers who have used collaborative assessment experience similar excitement at the remarkable success of all of their students. They report that collaborative assessment has revolutionized their way of thinking about instruction as well as the importance they place on student input.
Collaborative assessment requires considerable effort by teachers to develop and articulate clear criteria and to work with students to assess and advance their learning. However, the results far outweigh the effort. Because criteria are clearly spelled out, students can take responsibility to evaluate their own work. They compare their self-assessment with the teacher's assessment, set goals for future work, and initiate corrective action to improve their own work. Because teachers are able to observe the evolving instructional needs of students, and because students become critically aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, they can work together to refine, improve, and add to the assessment.
To that end, I return to the student who wrote about Andrea earlier in this article. Only three months later, this is the way she wrote about her classmate Marty: Marty is one of the twenty-eight students in our fabulous class. Now lets think way back when Marty was a short-snort.In pre-school Marty went to Little Tots Daycare. On Marty's first day she cried. Poor Marty! Anne was Marty's teacher. There was also another teacher that the kids called “Grandma.” Marty thought they were amiable.For kindergarten Marty went to Oak Street School. That was the same place I went to kindergarten. In kindergarten we got awesome treats. Marty liked all the trips that she went on.Lakeshore was where Marty went for first grade. Her teacher's name was Mrs. Blake. Marty's teacher was kind. Gym and music were what Marty liked about her school. There was also a fair Lakeshore had once a year. How interesting!During second grade Marty was still going to Lakeshore. Her teacher's name was Mrs. Kraft. She was nice but strict. Amber was Marty's friend.Mrs. Miller was Marty's outstanding teacher. At this school we get a huge time for our lunch period. Marty's incredible friends are: Paris, Kate, Gary, Wanjiku and Imani.Now you know about part of Marty's school history. I hope you enjoyed reading this just as much as I enjoyed writing this. If you have any more questions just ask Marty.
This is what collaborative assessment is all about!
