Because our district values writing, we give our own assessment in the Fall and Spring to help us determine our students' strengths and struggles with writing. These writing samples provide us with valuable data that informs many aspects of the operation of our schools.
Purpose: The DWA provides us a platform in which we are able to read student writing across classes, grade levels, schools, and district.
- Teachers analyze the writing to inform instruction. (Formative or summative in nature)
- Teacher teams analyze the writing to improve horizontal and vertical alignment.
- Leadership analyzes the writing to inform decisions about professional development and curriculum.
- By analyzing student writing, teachers improve their own communication abilities.
- The process focuses on Disciplinary Literacy
Specific Skills Developed By Students Over the Years:
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Comprehend spoken, visual, and textual information (input)
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Analyze more than one side of any argument
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Form a claim or hypothesis on a chosen topic
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Select and plan the appropriate evidence to communicate your stance (Executive Functioning)
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Formulate and write a logical, source-based argument
Structure: Different testing structures are used. This is based on developmental and age appropriateness.
3rd-12th: Students are provided with stimuli (usually articles and sometimes a video) about a topic of debate and asked to compose a logical, source-based argument. This structure incorporates several elements of literacy including reading, speaking and listening, and writing.
Kindergarten- 2nd Grade: Students are provided with a prompt and are asked to write a narrative story.
Pre-School: Students are asked to write their names and draw a picture.
Alternately Assessed: All students participate in the DWA. Some students are given a life-skills writing task.
Process: The English department and elementary teachers have created an aligned set of assessment prompts. Tests are administered in the fall and spring. The writing is scored by Kimberly teachers that have taken on the extra duty. The scoring process includes training on the rubric and a calibration process is used to insure accuracy. All papers are scored by at least two scorers.
1st & 2nd Grade Narrative Rubric
DWA Scoring Attributes for Argumentative Writing
Organization/Purpose: This attribute describes how effectively the writing establishes an order and arrangement that creates a coherent argument/opinion.
Evidence/Elaboration: This attribute describes how effectively the writing provides support/evidence that includes reasoning from the source materials, using appropriate attribution and style to establish credibility.
Conventions: This attribute describes how effectively the writing demonstrates age-appropriate control of sentence formation, punctuation, grammar usage, and spelling.
Results: Scores are recorded on the student writing so that teachers are able to understand why the writing was evaluated as such. Scores are also studied in aggregate form to look for patterns.
Resources for Teachers:
1st and 2nd grade Testing Protocol
3rd-5th grade Testing Protocol
6th-8th grade Testing Protocol
Understanding and Using DWA Scores
KSD Scoring Training Slides, Fall 2015
Argument Writing Scoring Training from the SDE