Formative+Feedback+Strategy

In this unit, think about a learning activity you are using or are planning to use in your classroom or professional work, and share one way that you will provide feedback regarding that activity while using that information to guide your next instructional steps. One thing I have been trying to do more of is allow for students to participate in the full spectrum of the writing process. My seniors are required (by the school) to complete a senior project. This includes creating some type of product and writing an 8-10 page research paper that relates to their product. For example, one of my students is getting her CNA, so her paper was on influence of nurses in WWI and WWII. Another student is making his own felt cowboy hat, and his paper was on the fur trade. In order to provide feedback to my students and allow them to improve their research writing, I required my students to turn in a completed rough draft of their paper prior to Christmas. I then read each paper and provided feedback in terms of content, organization, unclear sentences, and the guidelines of including research, which for us is MLA formatting. When I returned the papers to students, I had compiled a list of common things to re-teach to the class. I re-taught integrating quotations into sentences, making sure to have a balance between quoted, paraphrased, and original material, and writing topic sentences and concluding sentences for paragraphs. On the rough draft of the paper, there was not any type of score. Students had been provided with a copy of the rubric and the rubric had been explained to them. Students were then given a week to revise their papers before turning them in for a grade. Based on the differences between the rough draft and the final draft, I now know what I still need to cover in order to prepare my students for college writing. I use this feedback strategy as often as I can with my students. In addition, I would like to incorporate conferences with my students where we sit down and discuss the comments on the paper and develop ways to make the necessary changes (as of now this is an option for students who choose to come in before or after school, but it is not a required component). I plan to incorporate this step in the feedback process with my AP students in the next few weeks. It is important for students to learn to talk about their writing and make their own observations and changes as well as receive feedback from me. In this situation I am more of a facilitator who gives guided feedback.
 * Formative Feedback Strategy **