Autobiography/Biography Writing Unit
Below is a sample set of three students’ writing throughout the biography unit. The sample set consists of samples from a student with lower writing abilities, average writing abilities, and high writing abilities. The first sample from each student is a journal entry in the students’ writing notebook. The prompt was to write a letter to Ms. Heiting about a time when you were young. This assignment was a pre-writing activity to prepare them to write their own autobiographies. The second sample set from each student is their “Me Quilt” autobiography, in which they wrote about events in their life. The last sample is the students’ biography information poster from their individual biography study. Each sample measures the students’ writing abilities using the five starts of writing: punctuation, capitalization, spelling, sense, and spacing. The rubric for the “Me Quilt” and information poster are attached.
The three work samples from each student demonstrates my positive impact on student learning, more specifically, the students’ writing skills. In the beginning of the unit, the students were assigned to write about a time when they were young. As seen by sample one from each of the three students, they struggled with making sure their writing made sense. Bill, the student with the highest writing abilities, struggled with spacing and punctuation in his letter. The students overall created meaningful letters about a time when they were young, but they did not edit and revise their writing to make sure it made sense and follow the conventions of writing.
In the next writing sample sets, each of the students demonstrated great improvement. After reading through each of the journal entries and grading them for the five stars of writing and for “juicy” details, we engaged in mini lessons regarding our writing, more specifically, editing and revising. For the “Me Quilt” assignment, the students first created a rough draft. The students then went back to their drafts and edited them using a writer’s checklist. They had not used this type of checklist before. After the students edited with a checklist, they revised their drafts on the final “Me Quilt”. Through learning these writing strategies, the students created fabulous products that followed the conventions of writing while writing their own autobiography. Each student received the highest mark for each of the five stars of writing on their “Me Quilt.” The same results were found the biography information assignment.
Overall, analyzing these samples has provided me with information about my own teaching and my future teaching. For the future, I would like to introduce the stages of the writing process earlier in order for students to articulate their thoughts more clearly, whether it is a friendly letter, a made up story, or a biography poster. The students need to have the tools in order to reflect on their own work, and analyze the quality of their writing. Through the check lists, peer editing, and clear drafting, editing, and revising stages, this can be done. I am proud to see that the students made such improvements from the first sample set to the last. No matter the ability level, each student’s writing improved throughout the unit.
The three work samples from each student demonstrates my positive impact on student learning, more specifically, the students’ writing skills. In the beginning of the unit, the students were assigned to write about a time when they were young. As seen by sample one from each of the three students, they struggled with making sure their writing made sense. Bill, the student with the highest writing abilities, struggled with spacing and punctuation in his letter. The students overall created meaningful letters about a time when they were young, but they did not edit and revise their writing to make sure it made sense and follow the conventions of writing.
In the next writing sample sets, each of the students demonstrated great improvement. After reading through each of the journal entries and grading them for the five stars of writing and for “juicy” details, we engaged in mini lessons regarding our writing, more specifically, editing and revising. For the “Me Quilt” assignment, the students first created a rough draft. The students then went back to their drafts and edited them using a writer’s checklist. They had not used this type of checklist before. After the students edited with a checklist, they revised their drafts on the final “Me Quilt”. Through learning these writing strategies, the students created fabulous products that followed the conventions of writing while writing their own autobiography. Each student received the highest mark for each of the five stars of writing on their “Me Quilt.” The same results were found the biography information assignment.
Overall, analyzing these samples has provided me with information about my own teaching and my future teaching. For the future, I would like to introduce the stages of the writing process earlier in order for students to articulate their thoughts more clearly, whether it is a friendly letter, a made up story, or a biography poster. The students need to have the tools in order to reflect on their own work, and analyze the quality of their writing. Through the check lists, peer editing, and clear drafting, editing, and revising stages, this can be done. I am proud to see that the students made such improvements from the first sample set to the last. No matter the ability level, each student’s writing improved throughout the unit.