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Franconias On-Demand Writing Performance Assessment

Expectations
2014-2015
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At Franconia Elementary, we believe
It is essential to explicitly teach the following three domains of
writing:
o Narrative (so that their whole lives every job interview,
college application, etc. our children will be equipped to
tell their stories well)
o Informational (our children will learn and must know how to
write to teach others)
o Opinion/Argument (our children must be able to advocate
for themselves and others)
It is important to assess writing
o in order to ensure that our teaching is resulting in student
learning
o to identify student needs and inform our instruction
We will not focus on assessing individual student writing, but on
assessing students growth as writers.
We will periodically assess what writers have internalized and can
do with absolute independence.
Therefore, we will issue common school-wide on-demand
writing pre- and post- performance assessments at the
beginning and end of units of study. We will do this at least
once each quarter.
Narrative Narrative On-Demand.docx
Informational Informational On-Demand.docx
Opinion/argument Opinion Argument On-Demand.docx
Future curriculum mapping will enable us to more thoughtfully map out
these units of study and plan for when pre- and post- on-demand
assessments should occur.
We recommend that the following protocol be followed, for the
following reasons:
Topic

Expectation

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Why

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Prompt
Language

Common school-wide
prompts (K-2 and 3-6).

Prompt
Administration

Prompt is both read aloud

and displayed or distributed
visually.
Assessment may be spread
out over two days if team
feels this would provide a
more accurate demonstration
of students writing ability.
Total time of assessment
should not exceed:
1 hr in grades K-2
2 hrs in grades 3-6
Time limits and distribution
should be the same for all
students in grade level.

Timing

Assistive
Resources

Use of
Assessments

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Students are encouraged to

utilize all resources with
which they have become
familiar throughout the unit
(e.g. checklists, booklets,
computers, word
books/walls); however,
students are not given any
teacher-created materials
and told to use them.
Assessments are used to
inform instruction and help
students set writing goals.
Especially in grades 3-6,
teachers may have students
keep their pre-assessment

While we realize that this will

result in language that is not
child-friendly for many students,
this approach will allow capable
students to show us the highest
level of their true abilities. This
consistency will also allow us to
better examine student writing
across our school.
To support all learners.
We want to limit the time
dedicated to assessment to
provide more time for
instruction. In real life, writers
have to write both over long
periods of time and with
automaticity in short periods of
time. Working towards the goal
of this short snapshot will help
us to constantly be teaching in
ways that affect our writers not
just today, but when they are
working independently
tomorrow.
This will provide a crystal-clear
picture of what students have
learned to do without
assistance. It will allow us to see
how well students have
internalized and transferred our
teaching.

Showing students concrete

evidence of their growth helps
them to create an identity of a
constantly improving writer.

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Use of
Assessments

Scoring of
Assessments

writing on hand to strive for

subsequent writing to show
improvement.
Additional data besides these
on-demand assessments
(e.g. students work in
folders, notebooks, drafts,
publications, etc.) should be
taken into account when
assessing our students as
writers.
Pre- and post- assessments
should be scored, using
common rubrics.

These on-demand assessments

are only one piece of the picture
of our writers.

We are issuing these

assessments to inform our
instruction. If we do not score
the assessments we cannot
adequately use the information
to inform our instruction.

We invite teacher feedback to continually improve this assessment

process!

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