Writing Sample Writing/Scoring Procedure

(To be used by ESs for the yearly writing samples)

Writing Assignment

Each year the school will focus on a different type of writing. Each ES will collect a sample of that writing by the December LR meetings. These samples will be scored according to the school rubric in January, and saved as our school writing samples for that year. Parents/students will receive feedback in February. A copy of the writing for each year will follow the student throughout their school career to be used by the ESs as needed. All students may participate, but 2nd to 11th graders, and 12th graders who have not yet passed CAHSEE ELA are required to participate.

Our school goal is to improve everyone's writing skills through this process, provide support to our parents in this important area of their student’s education, and remove the fear and mystery for students around their STAR writing and CAHSEE ELA assessments, as well as prepare our students for various college admission essays.

Specific Directions for Writing

• The ES is not required to be present while the student completes the writing sample.
• The student must handwrite the writing sample, as typing is not accepted. If the student is unable to write on his own the student may dictate orally to the parent in the student’s exact words or draw a picture and label it. Any other exceptions must be approved by the school directors. The parent may choose or ES may give the writing prompt that correlates to that year’s writing assignment. All prompts must be included with the writing sample when it is collected.
• Grades 2-11 and 12^th graders who have not passed the CAHSEE-ELA are required to submit a writing sample. K-1 or other 12^th graders may submit one if they choose, for school feedback.
• There is no required length for the writing sample.
• The student should complete the writing sample in one sitting, not over a period of days; it should be an edited sample.
• This is a required assignment that must be collected. If a family is unwilling to participate in this assignment, please discuss this with your advisor. Be sure you have clearly communicated the purpose of this assignment (listed in the above section).
• Here are some more guidelines to help you communicate this assignment to your families:

o Students in grades 2 through 11/12 are asked to write from a writing prompt for that school year.

o Students will complete one sample for the assignment.

o We suggest that the students write on every other line, so they can make any necessary corrections to their rough draft.

o ESs will read and score the student sample. We will use specific guidelines (rubrics) to score the student writing samples found on the writing portion of the handbook.

o We will examine essays to see if ideas and concepts are thoroughly developed and supported with appropriate details. We will also evaluate the essays for organization, sentence structure, grammar, and mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, capitalization).

o This assignment is designed to be a positive experience for the student to encourage and build on their writing abilities.

Preparation for Scoring

ESs will collect all writing assignments and the prompt they used at the December LR meeting. Each ES will print out the rubric for that year’s writing posted on the school website (Curriculum/Writing Assignment) to attach to the front of each student’s assignment along with the writing prompt used (if not written out on the student’s sample), complete the info at the top and bottom (if applicable) of the rubric form, but DO NOT SCORE! ESs will bring these to their January ES Group Meetings.

Specific Directions for Scoring

At the January ES Group Meeting, these steps will be followed:

• ESs will separate their collective writing samples by grade level
• ESs will choose the writing samples from the grade level they feel most comfortable with to score first.
• ESs will use their professional judgment to score each sample according to the school rubric.
• If a 2^nd opinion is needed while scoring, ask your Area Facilitator to work with you on that difficult sample.
• Continue to work through the stacks of samples in your group until all are scored.
• Separate them out by ES, as each ES will need to take their samples with them at the end of the meeting.

Scoring Feedback

After scoring the samples, ESs will be asked to provide feedback to their AF who will collect and pass the information to the school admin on the following:

• How did our student’s writings compare to students in regular classrooms (should be answered by those ESs who have recent experience in a regular classroom of similar grade level)?
• What elements of writing did you note that our students tended to do especially well on?
• What elements of writing did you note that our students overall tend to need more work on?
• What suggestions do you have to share with others to help improve writing?

After Samples are Scored

• ESs will take their original scored writing samples with them at the end of the January ES Group Meeting.
• Make 2 copies of the scored rubric and writing sample and disseminate as stated below:

1. Mail the Original writing samples with scored rubrics in one packet to the school office by the first Friday in March. Mail originals to: (school) Writing Samples, 4535 Missouri Flat Road, Ste. 1A, Placerville, CA 95667.

2. One copy is to be kept in the ESs student file to follow the student while they are enrolled in our school. It can be used from year to year to show student progress/suggest areas to work on/etc.

3. One copy should be given to the parent/student at their February LR meeting. Use this as a productive educational session. Plan to explain to them why they received the scores they did, and what they can do to improve their writing. It would be a good time to provide some helpful writing curriculum ideas and/or weblinks for further practice. You might want to ask your students to do a rewrite based on the scoring info that you will score for them at the end of the year. Website writing helps are posted at: http://www.ieminc.org/handbook/curriculum/writing/index.htm .

• The ES will enter the student's score in ES Webfiles View/Students on the Student detail/TestingAssessment button/Writing tab in the Writing Assignment section . Enter the student's grade level that year, the school year (200X), and their overall score.