School Wide Writing Initiatives

As Literacy Coach at my school this year, improving writing has been a major focus. So one of the first things I did was to try to establish a way to recognize and highlight writers around the building.

One of our school wide goals this year is to increase student achievement in the area of writing as measured by the 5th Grade Georgia State Writing Test.

In grades 3-5, our students are taking or have taken three practice writing tests throughout the year to allow students and teachers to become familiar with the test taking process. It has also allowed teachers to look at objective scoring of their student's writing, as well as to really take a look at strengths and weaknesses of their class according to the writing domains on the state rubric.

It has really been a great learning experience for me also! I have researched and learned so much this year about teaching and scoring writing! I have also read almost every paper each time to assess where we are as a school. Believe me, it's been a lot of reading before and after scoring!

Our principal is rewarding those students that exceed on our practice tests that are scored by UGA's Office of Assessment with lunch from McDonalds. So, I just decided to turn that into the Principal's Writing Club and created a bulletin board by the entrance/exit to the cafeteria to be viewed by all.

Well, this was just the beginning!

I was going to write this series after the 5th Grade Writing test on March 5th but since I've had snow days, I decided I may as well get this show on the road. 

Be sure to stop by 

to see what else we're doing to improve writing at my school!