Assessment Ideas

• Here is a rubric I would use for commercial writing and presentations, such as the Midsummer Night's Dream commercials for our grade 8 class a Hawthorne. It includes creativity and marketing techniques, in addition to other criteria. I definitely like to encourage creativity and critical thinking so I would want to include elements like that in my assessment.

• This scoring sheet shows the criteria against which I would grade my students for creative writing. I would use a similar style of assessment because it is very detailed and reminds students what elements of writing they need to include.

• This website explains assessment strategies for students with learning disabilities. It can sometimes be hard to evaluate a student when you know they have great ideas but they haven't been able to get them down on paper. A checklist system (described on the website) allows you to observe, record, and assess the various ways in which students can demonstrate their understanding.

• Here is a website that lists a variety of creative writing prompts. In addition to the regular academic writing that students do, I would love to assess their creativity at various points throughout the year. I'm a firm believer that nourishing and stimulating a child's creativity is important when you want to teach the "whole child."