Writing improvements!

We have some preliminary data in on writing improvements at Challenger Middle School. The charts below show writing scores on student essays as scored by Criterion. For the initial baseline done at the beginning of the year, most students were in the 1 or 2 range. By the Benchmark 3 essay done in the spring, most students had moved to scores of 3, 4, and 5.

This is great news. Congratulations teachers and students.

Accelerated Writer

This week in PAWS, we're all working on Accelerated Writer. The schools had a visit from Renaissance trainer Mrs. Spangler, who came all the way from Virginia. During her visit and after, we've all been rating writing samples for good and bad examples of using vivid details. Students have been busy scanning their rating cards and getting feedback. It's been a lot of fun!

Parent Technology Night Pictures

Casey at the Bat

Today at Hillview in Ms. Crosser's class, students read the poem "Casey at the Bat" at discussed rhythm, rhyme, and repetition in poetry. We used Word on the handhelds
to mark the stressed syllables.

The students then took a quiz about this poem using Quizzler.

We also used Inpsiration to brainstorm details about another sport, so that kids could later write a poem about it.

PAWS Parent Technology Night slides

These are the slides that were presented at the PAWS Parent Technology Night meetings. Thanks to all who attended! Please feel free to post any comments or questions you have.

Color poems

In December, Ms. Wapner's class wrote color poems on their handhelds using Inspiration and Word. Here are the beautiful results. Good work, students!

Concept maps!

These are pictures from Ms. Irvin's 3 little pigs project. (See previous post.) These concept maps were made into outlines that were then used to write persuasive essays.

Making quizzes at Del Sur

Students in Ms. Rickert's and Ms. Wapner's classes today made quizzes in Quizzler about a story called "Amigo Brothers." Students used the handhelds to create multiple choice and true/false quizzes about the story's setting, characters, and major events.

This higher level thinking activity prompted students not only to recall the details of the story, but also to write thoughtful questions about the story. After each students completed his or her quiz, he or she beamed it to another student to take. This gave students extra reinforcement, and it was fun!