Keywords
student writing, standards based grading, English teachers, formative assessments, student knowledge
Submission Type
Research
Preview
Each year, like many language arts teachers across the state of Utah, we set out to effectively teach our students how to be good writers. Each time we discover exciting and engaging ways to teach writing in our classrooms. However, we have also found that even the best writing practices fall short in the absence of effective writing assessment. Standards-based grading has been, for us, the most successful tool for such assessments.
Standards-based grading is when a teacher creates specific and measurable learning goals to guide the curriculum, conducts frequent formative assessments of the students’ proficiency on these goals, and then provides students with skill-based feedback so that they can achieve mastery of their learning goals. When we began using standards-based grading to assess student writing, it surprised us by making a huge difference. Based on research and classroom experience, it’s clear that standards-based grading empowers teachers by allowing them to identify how students will demonstrate mastery, facilitate powerful learning and provide meaningful feedback, and assign grades that accurately reflect student knowledge.
Recommended Citation
Weaver, Whitney and Hartley, Angela
(2013)
"The Power of Using Standards-Based Grading to Assess Student Writing,"
The Utah English Journal: Vol. 41, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/uej/vol41/iss1/7