Learning to Assess and Respond: Cross-Institutional Partnerships for Writing Teacher Education

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

We report on cross-institutional projects in which teacher candidates collaborated to read, assess, and respond to multiple drafts of 6th-9th graders’ writing. The three studies we present investigate how the teacher candidates developed repertoires for assessing and teaching writing. The design of the projects and of the research draws from a community of practice theoretical framework; we explore how teacher candidates’ learning was facilitated by mutual engagement in the joint enterprise of assessing and responding to writing. The studies examine how teacher candidates negotiated their understanding of student writing as they assessed, responded to, and conversed about that writing with classmates, with peers from other institutions, and with the 6th-9th grade writers and their classroom teachers.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Leah A. Zuidema, Dordt College

Papers

• Moving From Deficit to Potential in Responding to Student Writing: Preservice/Student Writing Partnerships - Anne Elrod Whitney, The Pennsylvania State University

• Negotiating Dilemmas: The Resources Preservice Teachers Use to Assess and Respond to Students’ Writing - James Fredricksen, Boise State University

• “I’m a Writer”: How Writing Experiences Matter When Teachers Assess Writing and Design Instruction - Leah A. Zuidema, Dordt College