Coaching Call: How to make grading student writing less stressful

A Few Business Items Before Our Coaching Call

In March and April, I’m sharing all of my content in the hopes that you will want to join our community full time beginning in May. While we normally take the summer off here, we won’t this year! This summer, we will be:

• trying out a new member platform (we all know how unwieldy Substack can be).

• engaging in weekly PD together focused on planning for the new school year and my new book, Mini Moves for Every Writer — some asynchronous, some live, some pre-recorded — but ALL for free for member.

We’d love for you to join us by becoming a paid member of our community! Paid members get:

• One complete monthly unit plan for a secondary reading or writing unit

• One monthly Q&A post with resources

• Two monthly instadigest posts that feature resources, images, and daily lesson plans from my classroom

• One free Moving Writers professional development session per year.

ALSO:

InstaDigest Feedback

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who completed the InstaDigest survey last week! It is incredibly helpful feedback for me! I’d still love to hear your feedback on the format and usefulness of the InstaDigest. You can fill out my super-fast survey here.

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It turns out I had a Coaching Call — and a particularly delightful one — in the can and waiting from the winter. I’m so excited to share it with you today because Kenzie’s question is one that plagues every single one of us.

Here was Kenzie’s question:

Here’s our conversation:

Here are a few resources to help you on your own grading journey:

Read this article about the Single Point Rubric. Then, check out an example from my class. (Note: the qualities named on the rubric are the mini-lessons I taught in this unit!)

Here’s an example of a student self-assessment in my class:

Check out Matt Johnson’s fantastic Flash Feedback for a more in-depth journey through writing assessment!

Let’s continue this conversation! Share your thoughts and questions and grading hacks in the comments!