I was at the computer this morning when my students created a pretty basic rubric for their final unit of study's essays. The following is what they created. They'll use it to self-assess their essays and I'll use it to give them their final grade of the school year.
Author: Stacey Shubitz
End of Year Letters BACK TO My Students
My Hope and Dream Letter Originally uploaded by teachergal I can hardly believe there's only five school days left even though I've been going through my students' end of the year reflection letters, and responding to each of them in writing, this past week. It takes awhile to do it well. Therefore, this is the… Continue reading End of Year Letters BACK TO My Students
Submission
After three - four weeks of crafting, drafting, revising, and editing my "This I Believe" Essay, I finally submitted it for publication tonight! 🙂 It felt great to finally submit the essay, which is something I hope my students will do once they publish theirs in Writing Workshop next week.
Timelining Helps Kids Write Factual and Moving Concluding Paragraphs
I attended Beth Moore's Session on Social Studies in the Writing Classroom at the March 2009 Saturday Reunion. It was an exceedingly useful session with tips I've been using in the past month ever since my class began writing their research-based essays. I realized, even though my kids could mathematically figure out how long ago… Continue reading Timelining Helps Kids Write Factual and Moving Concluding Paragraphs
SOLSC
Sorry this post is up late! We're still hosting the Slice of Life Story Challenge today (and every Tuesday). Share a slice of your day with us by leaving a comment with a link to your post.
Special Moments
Link your memory-related post to this one by leaving a comment on this post. Please share your memories with us today.
Feedback
My students and I agreed to a form that I would use to provide them with feedback on the drafts of their research-based essays. We decided that it was a comprehensive way for me to quickly inform them whether their writing was clear and factual on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis (They're only turning in the three… Continue reading Feedback
Slicin’ Away
It's time for the Slice of Life Story Challenge. Share a slice of your day with us by leaving a comment with a link to your post.
565 Miles Apart.
On Friday afternoon, I read my students Peter H. Reynolds' book The North Star, which is about a boy who sets out on a journey. We started the year with Ish, so I thought it would be appropriate to share some news with them using the always soothing words that Reynolds' books contain. We talked… Continue reading 565 Miles Apart.
Mentoring: Peace, Locomotion
My colleague and next-door-classroom-neighbor Leanna and I were eating and grading writer's notebooks together at lunchtime today. I got to the second notebook in my stack and said, "She's gotta be kidding me!" "What?" Leana asked. "She wrote me," I stopped feeling something between annoyance and anger, "letters." I have this thing about writer's notebooks… Continue reading Mentoring: Peace, Locomotion
M-E-M-O-I-R M-O-N-D-A-Y
Link your memory-related post to this one by leaving a comment on this post. Please share your memories with us today.
Communicating Online with Families
I received an e-mail earlier this week asking: Can you steer me in the right direction for starting a blog for my students and parents? Where do I start? Hence, I decided to answer this person's question for all to see. Here goes! I've used a variety of medium for communicating online with my studetns… Continue reading Communicating Online with Families

