BUMP UP YOUR WORK

We have been working on writing descriptive paragraphs for a while now. The students are becoming very familiar with the format of a paragraph. The expectations for grade 2 is to write 1-2 paragraphs while the expectation for grade 3 is to write 2-3 paragraphs. They are really bumping up their work through self-assessment. 

How do you bump up your work?

As a class we discuss what the learning goal is for each writing focus. For descriptive writing the learning goal we came up with is: We will write descriptive paragraphs that have many strong grade 2/3 adjectives. Then we create the success criteria that will help us achieve the learning goal.

Once the students have written a piece of descriptive writing they get the success criteria sheet. They colour in pink or green for each of the success criteria. The pink stands for "tickled pink" and green is "green to grow". Once they have determined which areas are 'green to grow' they need to explain how they will bump up their work. Then they start typing their paragraph(s) on the netbooks. As a final step in the process they assess their work again to ensure they have indeed bumped up their work.

They have been working hard to understand the process of bumping up their work. This is a big step in independence and responsibility as the students are in control of their learning and the process gives concrete meaning to the learning process.