Humane Assessment: Practices in the Making
By: Kelly Bratt
I recently heard a new term in my Greater Madison Writing Project (GMWP) class over the summer: humane assessment. After spending all of last year, working on building my students’ abilities to set goals and assess their own writing, I knew this term spoke to me. As a GMWP class, we came up with several terms and components that we felt would fall under the umbrella of humane assessment — self-assessment, autonomy, safety, meaningful, depth, growth, authenticity, and sustainability. This was exciting for me. Last year, I felt I struggled for a word to sum up my area of inquiry and focus, but I don’t feel that way anymore. And by looking at these components more deeply, it has helped give my work for this year more direction. I plan to investigate and implement growth, depth, and sustainability in my assessment practices this year.
Depth
As a looping teacher, this year, I find myself back with bright, curious, and delightful 5th graders. Because of this, I will have to start anew in the areas that my former classes had made such great progress. Therefore, at first, genuine goal setting and reflection will be a top priority: getting my students to see their own strengths and areas to grow rather than the teacher directing those insights.
But, what I noticed last year was that my less skilled writers consistently picked “safe and easy” choices for their goals. Goals such as: “better spelling” or “writing more” were very common for these writers. How can I get them to dig deeper into themselves as writers? Maybe they picked these skills because they don’t know what other goals might be attainable for them? Maybe they have been taught to believe spelling and length are the most important factors? This year I would like to better support these writers to help broaden their understanding of writing. They may first need to spend some time thinking about what they value in writing before they can make goals beyond spelling or length. I’d love for them to notice techniques writers use and which ones they enjoy. My hope is that these types of activities will help my students develop a deeper understanding of writing and aim for richer writing goals.
Growth
Once that is strong, how do I help my students see and measure their own growth as writers? Relying on a rubric and checking off boxes did not seem to help my former students, so I want to spend my time in this area to help my students recognize their own growth. Maybe I need to put more value on the writing process and the steps they are choosing as writers to build their skills or refine their writing? How will I do that? How can I help them see their revisions and determine, for themselves, if they “improved” their writing? I feel that they need to spend more time examining writing in general to develop opinions on writing and see certain skills in writing. Are there other ways to help build this up throughout the years?
Sustainability
This word makes my stomach knot up a bit. I know I can get very ambitious and plan to do ALL THE THINGS, but the “reality” part of my brain tells me to start small and build from there. So, what do I know I can do? I can continue to conference with my writers. This is one of the most meaningful and helpful practices that I have incorporated into my classroom and I can continue to do this. I can continue to teach goal setting and keep these goals at the forefront of our work. I can deviate from the “prescribed” lessons and incorporate more time with mentor texts. But, I need to be more thoughtful of the mentor texts that I use. I would love to try using mentor texts that are closer to their actual writing level so that the next steps/skills seem attainable to them.
Grading writing is quite the conundrum for most writing teachers, I would guess, and I am no different. Since I have to grade, I have to make the grading process work for me and my students. I want my grading to reflect what I value and what I’m teaching the students that I value. I want to honor their own growth and not just what is on the rubric. I have to grade their writing skills, as it is required by my school, but do I need to grade every single skill on each paper? How can I be more efficient in my grading of the skills and put more energy into the goals my students have chosen and their process of reaching that goal?
The Year Ahead
This year brings with it new hopes, new plans, and a more purposeful path. I hope that my students experience writing in new ways this year, and I hope that my moves and choices in assessment help my students grow in ways they find exciting and meaningful. Cheers to a new year!
