The aim of this blog is to allow teachers to develop skills in writing moderation and to add comments/votes to help find accurate writing levels. Hopefully it is a safe and productive place for people to practise levelling children's writing and engaging in discussion.
Using this blog has been the most worthwhile CPD experience I have had in 18 years as a teacher. I especially valued the discussion which took place about Modblog 5
(written by my daughter, Evie) and since then I have felt so much more confident in my own judgements and more at ease with the necessary dialogue and challenge which is central to effective moderation. For their work and contributions I remain grateful for the personalised training given to me by Emma Dawson, Claire Bills, Pete Curtis, James Town, Rebecca Stacey and Ros Wilson. I haven't done too much with Modblog since then because the blog had done it's job, and made me much more confident in this area of my work.
I do hope that teachers are willing to send in samples of writing to me at modblog@hotmail.com to allow visitors to this blog to continue to engage in productive dialogue about children's writing.
The writing sample below was written by Hollie ( year 6) after a visit to Eden Camp Museum in North Yorkshire. Please add your comments/votes.
Criterion Scale: Level 3,4,5 ( reproduced with kind permission from Ros Wilson)
APP Writing Grids: Level 3/4 Level 4/5
Hard. This girl uses some fantastic vocabulary but its lacking in basic punctuation in places (although other punctuation like commas is good) and structure could be improved (introduction and first paragraph need splitting, lack of time connectives/adverbial phrases for clarity). I want to give it a 3 a but see others have given it a 4. I am sitting marking all my big writes which are also recounts and wondering if I am being too harsh on my kids! Also, we have just changed to a new assessment method which I think is confusing me!
ReplyDeleteWould love to hear what others think.
Thanks for commenting, Emma. I think your assessment is fair. Its interesting how the level 3 votes can be an influence
Delete(on me too!) It reminds me of some of the reasons I started this blog - walking in to a moderation meeting with my books, watching the loudest voice in the room quickly infuence opinion, and then not feeling able to challenge a decision that has already been made. I am much better at this now (but would always change my mind after listening and reflecting if the argument is convincing)
I put the basic errors in this piece down to typos ( it was written straight onto the computer without drafting and only a very brief plan). I agree with you Emma about the srength in vocabulary and that time connectives are lacking. I think with a little more thought in sequencing the work and adding some depth to the paragraphs it wouldn't be far from 5C s the phrasing, sentence structure and readability is strong. I think I would say level 4A
ReplyDelete(5C borderline?) but would love to hear from people who would level this at 3.