While teaching language arts, my MT gave me the responsibility to teach and assist with newspaper writing. I assigned, I think 3 or 4 different ones and marked them individually, giving each student a score and constructive criticism for their future writing!
I'm such an elementary teacher, I gave stickers (of either stars or happy faces) with their comments. A happy face described something I liked and a star is an area I suggested they could improve upon. At grade 6, they still love receiving stickers. I swear I'm going to be using them everywhere and still be finding an excuse to use them in whatever. I think it's because they're cheap, I can get a lot for so little money, and anyone under age 12 will do anything for one. Win-win-win. Ha.
I didn't just give out the assignments and let them write their article. Instead, after each one I read them all over that evening and decided, where as a class we can spend the next lesson on. I remember doing a lesson about closing paragraphs, as most were just not finishing their article as strong as they could be! I also pulled out student examples of strong paragraphs, and discovered that students got that "aha!" moment from realizing what their peers have written!
Click here to find PAT examples under the Alberta curriculum. I used these examples during my instruction too!
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