ASSESSMENT

Co-constructing Success Criteria for Explanation Writing in Grade 3

March 19, 2018

Today in Mr.James’s classroom our Grade 3 students had an opportunity to collaboratively create criteria for writing a successful explanation.

Mr. James chose a “Gallery Walk” activity framework to carry out the task.

To begin with, various explanation samples written by elementary students were pasted onto big sheets of paper and placed in the middle of each table. Our students had to walk around, read the explanations and try to write about the features of the explanation that they noticed.

Next, Mr. James asked each group to discuss the poster at their table and share the three most important features that they noticed. Mr. James wrote these down in a list, while the children were adding their findings.

After that, our students had an opportunity to check this Bitesize BBC site in order to learn more about writing an explanation and see what they missed. As a results of this brief explicit teaching, several important features were added to the criteria list.

The fact that the students, while learning about written explanation structure, were actively involved in creating success criteria for writing their own explanation changed their attitude in a significant way.

Suddenly it became much easier as the children were guided in their thinking: first, during the discussion they had with peers, and then by the teacher who highlighted and confirmed the important components and dismissed the wrong inferences made by the students.

The benefits of criteria co-construction became obvious during the next session when our students had to to write an explanation using their own success criteria and a template provided by Mr. James.

"Research confirms the benefits of involving students in defining the success criteria for a goal or task. By collaborating with the teacher to define the criteria, students begin to develop an understanding of what quality means in the context of their own work. Wiliam (2007) emphasizes that simply sharing criteria with students is not enough because “the words do not have the meaning for the student that they have for the teacher”.

Out of 8 students, only two asked for additional support and modeling. The rest of the students were able to follow the template independently, reminded each other of success criteria and completed the task on time.

It seems the key to success was that students not only learned how to produce a quality explanation in theory but also had a chance to examine and annotate explanation samples. In other words, the children did not only listen to the teacher but also shared their thinking, discussed it with peers, distilled the important findings and finally presented a better product to the class.

Lucas is adding his ideas.

A group discussion took place before sharing findings with the class.