Formative assessment in literacy

In the first of a series of four articles inspired by new research into formative assessment and teaching writing, Pie Corbett looks at what makes words work...

I was visiting a school years ago and noticed in a child’s book the following sentence, ‘The clouds crawled through the sky’. The teacher had crossed out the word ‘crawled’ and written, ‘clouds do not crawl – use the right word’! No amount of formative assessment will ever help children if the teacher is uncertain about what constitutes effective writing.

In this country, many children have personalised targets, lesson objectives, success criteria, ‘even better if’ comments – it’s no wonder they get confused. What matters most is that the teacher and children work towards building an understanding about what makes effective writing. This is mainly achieved by reading, savouring and discussing high quality stories, poems and non-fiction. Daily reading to a class, pausing and rereading certain sections, begins to help children catch an ear for ‘what works’ – both the rhythm of good prose as well as feeling the effect.

How to develop effective writers

Start with sentences.Borrow well-crafted ones from great authors and innovate on them so that the children begin to try out the written style of a genius! Or play the game ‘compare’ – which of the following sentences creates a stronger picture for the reader and why?

The man saw the bird.

The policeman stared at the golden eagle.

This focuses children on the idea of choosing powerful verbs that suit the situation and using more precise nouns to help the reader imagine. Now look at this sentence:

The hot flame blazed brightly.

How would you rate it on a scale of one to 10 for impact? Here we have an instance of the reader being told what we already know. All flames are hot! Do we need to be told it blazes ‘brightly’?
Weak writers often over indulge in words. Consider this:

The slender, elegant, graceful flamingo stood on one leg.

Many children might well say that this is a good sentence because it has lots of ‘good’ words in it. However, it is over-written. Which adjective might we choose? Do we need an adjective? It might be worth saying ‘the dishevelled flamingo’, because that adds something that the reader could not possibly have known. Adjectives must earn their place, bringing something to a sentence that is new, and needed. Just chucking them in for the sake of it may well lead to poor writing.

Now look at this:

The snow fell like sparkling diamonds glittering on an ermine blanket.

Once again, many children might rate this sentence highly. However, it is a thumping cliché – I must have read a thousand sentences like that. The rule is – if you have heard it before then try something else.

Measures of success

In our desire to raise standards, many classrooms are packed with success criteria. These may actually make writing more difficult, however – robbing the child of the chance to write independently, creatively or imaginatively.

Writing becomes like painting by numbers. A few years ago, I saw a year 3 child who had ‘adverb starters’ as part of his success criteria. He had done his best and ticked it off – so too had the teacher. The trouble was that he had started every sentence with an adverb and of course, the results sounded strange.

Success criteria can only be used where you can ‘tick off’ something that has been done. However, writing is about quality, so there has to be a discussion about whether it has worked or not. The success of a piece of writing depends on whether it fulfilled its aims. Did you persuade us to your viewpoint? Was your story so exciting that we were on the edge of our seats?

So good writing is an experience. It is about composition and effect. Our word choices and sentence construction (our writing style) allow us to create an impact on the reader. There is more to writing than chucking in adjectives, varying sentence openers and using a range of punctuation. We have to consider the impact on the reader. Accepting this means a culture change for many schools, where the emphasis is on the features of a level at the expense of developing the composition. There needs to be a balance between broadening children’s repertoire of structures and ensuring that they have a story to tell, an argument to make, or fascinating information to communicate.

Everyone’s a critic…

As part of the Transforming Writing research project (see box out), we asked teachers to provide year 5 children with a sample of writing and discuss what made it a good piece. Nearly all their comments fell into the category of transcription: ‘he’s used lots of punctuation, the margin is good, there are lots of ‘good’ words, the handwriting is neat, he’s written loads…’ By the end of the first year of the project there had been a major shift in how the children discussed writing. They were considering the impact on the reader and how the writer had accomplished this.

Try it for yourself. Use a visualiser for whole class discussion of high quality texts, your own model or children’s writing. Focus on ‘what works’ and ‘why’. At first, children will struggle to explain why one idea is more powerful than another. However, the more the teacher talks it through, modelling his or her thinking, the more the children pick up ideas for themselves. Use guided sessions for groups to reflect in a similar way, preparing group feedback on a text, talking through ‘what works’, ‘why’, and ‘how it might be improved’.

Set up response partners. Ensure that children read their writing to each other and then discuss the strengths as well as possible improvements. This can be enhanced by using ‘polishing pens’ – coloured, fine highlighters that make the editing process clear to the teacher (children also enjoy using them). Ensure that you establish a routine whereby response happens in three phases:

a. WHAT has been written – the content, composition and effect. Responding as a reader.

b. HOW – word choice and sentence variation used to create the effect. Responding as an editor

c. TRANSCRIPTION– spelling, punctuation, handwriting, layout. Responding as a proof editor.

Years ago, I interviewed a child about writing. I asked why reading mattered. ‘It’s your yardstick,’ he said. And he was right. We know whether writing is good because we are constantly holding it up against all the reading we have experienced. Schools need a very rich programme of reading the finest literature so that children’s writing can be influenced by the best authors. Hold discussions so that children begin to be increasingly explicit about what works – when choosing words, crafting sentences and paragraphs – and finally, bear in mind this tweet I received from Jo Pearce:

In writing workshops, success is often obvious; silent ‘gasps’, goosebumps and shivers when sharing aloud. Then ask ‘why’ and ‘how’?