Carl Anderson

When it comes to writing assessment, there's no better judge of what your students know and are able to do than you. And when it comes to advice on best practices for assessment, there's no better source than Carl Anderson's Assessing Writers. As he did in the popular and highly acclaimed How's It Going?, Anderson offers smart, ready-to-use ideas for assessment. Assessing Writers offers practical methods for gathering information about every writer in your classroom and shows you how to create writing lessons that address the needs of individual students as well as those of the whole class.

Anderson's straightforward aproach helps you imagine an ongoing assessment program that takes you from meeting new students to designing curriculum. In Assessing Writers you'll find out:

* what you need to know about students to assess them as writers
* how to uncover and make sense of this information
* how to make an individualized plan for each student
* how to use these plans when you confer
* how to structure units of study to meet classroom-wide needs.

Let Carl Anderson be your guide as you place assessment at the center of writing instruction. With a wealth of smart suggestions, useful charts, reproducible assessment checklists, and activities for professional reflection, Assessing Writers gives you powerful tools that make assessment simple and effective.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One: Why Assess?

Chapter Two: Getting Started: Developing an Assessment Lens

Chapter Three: Assessing Students as Initiators of Writing

Chapter Four: Assessing How Well Students Write

Chapter Five: Assessing Students' Writing Processes

Chapter Six: Linking Assessment and Instruction: Designing Individual Learning Plans for Students

Chapter Seven: Linking Assessment and Instruction: Conferring

Chapter Eight: Linking Assessment and Instruction: Designing Units of Study

Afterword

Appendixes