Assessing Writing Through a Generous Lens

I don’t know about you, but nothing gives me more anxiety as a teacher than a huge pile of papers waiting to be graded.

Well, that and field trips, but I digress.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to assign writing pieces to my 5th graders: short poems, long narratives, quick summaries, or detailed research reports. I love them all.

But I absolutely, positively HATE grading papers, so in this post, I’m going to explain how assessing writing through a generous lens will make your life so, so much easier.

Now, I may or may not be guilty of occasionally letting a pile of essays languish on the corner of my desk, untouched for days (more likely weeks) on end while I do anything and everything except grade those dang papers.

And eventually, those papers may find their way into student portfolios. Hey, it’s entirely possible. Just not probable.

But if I’m being 100% honest here, more often than not — after being shuffled around from place to place and pile to pile — at the end of a long day those papers often wind up being chucked into the circular file I keep under my tutoring table. In other words, those papers get trashed.

So why do I keep assigning work that I have to grade?

Because I know practice is important.

So why don’t I like grading papers?

Because I know I probably won’t like what I see.

Let’s face it. It’s easy to identify the top students from the struggling students. One glance is all it takes. But those writing samples that are somewhere in the middle? Those are the ones that take the most time to grade and make you want to pull your hair out.

Which is where assessing through a generous lens comes in.

The concept actually comes from an article written by Lucy K. Spence and published in the Reading Teacher journal in 2011. In the article, Lucy proposes using a generous reading stance rather than the more common critical approach when assessing ELL writing samples.

Why Assessing Writing Through A Generous Lens Is Better

Most teachers, when looking at writing samples, immediately notice everything the student did wrong. The student didn’t indent, the handwriting is messy, multiple words are misspelled. You get the point.

What if we flipped that script? Instead of only seeing what’s wrong, what if we looked at everything the student got right?

Sam might have forgotten to add a strong hook or introduction but his entire paper was on topic and had a clear focus. Way to go, Sam! And maybe Amya’s spelling wasn’t perfect, but she spelled words phonetically. That should be celebrated too!

In my classroom we call that a “GLOW”.

By starting off a student writing conference or debrief by pointing out and celebrating everything the kids did right, our students might not dread the next writing assignment we give them. Why? Because we gave them credit for the good that they did. That in turn builds up confidence and a willingness to try something new. The kids begin to glow.

And, in all honesty, I’m much happier when I stop to notice growth and improvement instead of constantly dwelling on what feels like insurmountable problems without clear solutions.

Now, maybe that’s all I do for the first few weeks of school. I work on building up their writing stamina and confidence. And when I think they’re ready for more, I give each student one goal to work on . . . a “GROW”.

Notice that I said ONE goal. Anything more than 3 things to work on and you’ll have kids in tears. Trust me on this one. I made my own daughter cry during Writing Club when she was in 3rd grade because I told her she couldn’t start with “once upon a time” unless it was a fairy tale. She’s now 16 and still won’t share any of her writing with me.

Therefore . . . my rule is 1 Glow, 1 Grow and I’m sticking to it.

Planning Next Steps

As I glance through student writing pieces, on separate piece of paper, I jot down common problems I see and use that data to drive my instruction.

I always want to focus on big picture problems like the content of the writing rather than obsessing over small details like spelling and messy handwriting. Focus on WHAT they said versus HOW they said it.

Remember, we revise before we edit.

From there, I begin to plan mini-lessons. Maybe my students need a quick reminder of how to add sensory details to a narrative story. Or how to group information into paragraphs and when to move to the next paragraph. Most likely, they need help with how to lengthen their writing with strong details and facts, and a lot more practice with when to use a comma.

No matter what the skill is, I want to make our writing time together fun and enjoyable. I look for ways to bring in and analyze mentor texts. Grammar practice can be gamified and turned into a collaborative group competition.

Descriptive Rubrics

I want to leave you with one final nifty idea I picked up a couple years ago at the virtual CTA Good Teaching Conference. It’s called a descriptive rubric and I think it fits well within this topic of generous lens assessment.

Here’s what it looks like.

I really like the idea that I can break an assignment down into the different goals or objectives on the left hand side and quickly mark GOT IT, or NOT YET as a fast assessment. On the right side, I can provide all students with different ways to improve their work.

And it is so quick and easy to fill out! Especially if I stay focused on only 2-3 goals or objectives. It’s the perfect way to provide students and their parents with valuable feedback and support for improvement. And as an added bonus, it fits well with Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I’m planning to do a whole blog post on UDL very soon.

If you like this idea too, click on the image above to make your very own copy of this document. Feel free to use this descriptive rubric design in your own classroom.

I’d love to hear how you might use a generous lens to assess student writing and make your life easier. Drop your feedback and questions in the comments below and I’ll see you next time when we chat about using mentor texts to improve student writing!