Writer's Workshop-Focusing on particular skills

Sixth grade wanted a way to zero in on particular skills they wanted students to focus on in their revising process.  They have spelling out what students are working on in their revisions and are tracking that using their status of the class.

Learning Targets

I love as I've been in teacher's rooms that most teachers are using learning targets!  These seem so much more kid friendly than simply posting the objectives.  Using learning targets students know why they are doing thing.  I found this power point that I think does as good job talking about learning targets.  Remember the target is what the students will be able to do after the lesson, not what they are going to do.

Learning Targets

How else can students annotate the text?

Some students love color marking, others hate it.  If they hate it how else can they annotate their text so that they are REALLY thinking about their reading.  Maybe they would rather use symbols instead of colors.  This would work great if students are not able to write in the books.

Formative vs. Summative Assessment

For those of us that have been out of college for awhile I thought a refresher on formative and summative assessment would be helpful.  The chart below does a good job explaining what we do in our classrooms that is formative and what is summative.  Chances are you are doing formative assessments all the time and not even realizing it!