Professional Learning Communities to Improve Middle School Writing
Learning Module
- Creator(s):
This learning module is designed to be used with middle school teachers. It is designed for instructional coaches and/or administrators or teacher leaders who facilitate the work of professional learning teams. Middle school teachers often work in two PLC teams: interdisciplinary PLCs and subject-area PLCs. This module will focus on working in subject-area PLCs focused on writing assessment.
The learning module is intended to build capacity and create sustainability within schools through collaborative work done in professional learning communities. Using predictable structures and protocols can make the work done in professional learning communities part of the operation of the school (Piper, L’Allier, Manderino, Domenico page 17, 2016).
Educators: improve student writing through the work of subject-area professional learning communities (PLCs): establishing common learning expectations for the writing assessment, select/create common rubric for assessing student writing, establish inter-rater reliability, examine student writing, revise and reflect on unit standards, instruction, assessment.
Students: through writing, students will demonstrate essential learning and thinking of content, engage analysis of their writing and learning, and revise their writing.
Educators: Learning Forward Standards (https://learningforward.org/standards):
-Learning Communities: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment.
-Learning Designs: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students integrates theories, research, and models of human learning to achieve its intended outcomes.
-Implementation: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students applies research on change and sustains support for implementation of professional learning for long-term change.
Students:Common Core State Standards for Writing Grades 6-8 (http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/WHST/6-8/)
*Educators will select from the standards below based on appropriateness to writing assignement.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1
Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1.a
Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1.b
Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic or text, using credible sources.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1.c
Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1.d
Establish and maintain a formal style.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1.e
Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.a
Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories as appropriate to achieving purpose; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.b
Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.c
Use appropriate and varied transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.d
Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.e
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.f
Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
This module is designed to take place over 8-weeks (with flexibility, depending on timing of writing during unit), during the alloted, weekly subject-area PLC time for teachers. First, each teacher should create a profile in Scholar and join the classroom community. Each week, teachers will go through a different module and post a comment on the topic of the week and write their own update using the prompts at the bottom of each key topic.
“Comments” are meant to create a dialogue, while “updates” are meant for teachers to dig in to their own experiences and ideas. In order to foster collaboration and learning, teachers are asked to read and comment on each others' updates, about three comments per week. In “upadates” teachers should consider including graphs, pictures, and videos.
*Note: For each weekly PLC meeting, teachers should have a computer device in order to do this work online on Scholar.
The culminating activity will be ... to create a Work on scholar where the PLC uploads the revised version of the unit/writing assessment addressed in this module. PLCs will offer other PLCs feedback through Scholar (using the Achieve EQuIP rubric). Once PLCs receive feedback, they will work toghether to make final and then revisions to the unit plan/writing assessment. These revisions will address the essential learning and instruction of the unit plan, writing assignment, and rubric based on the work done in this learning module.
Individuals are asked to take a Knowledge Survey at the beginning of session 1, and at the end of session 2. This survey is intended to gain information about professional learning in our school.
This session is meant to build the rationale behind collaborative groups. Set the tone by recognizing and emphasizing that individuals come with different experiences, skills, ideas, etc., and that the power of the PLC is in the diversity of thinking to solve problems. Communicate to teachers that this first session is focused on PLCs to get us started, but the subsequent sessions will focus on using the PLC to improve writing instruction.
Collaboration happens over time. Give PLCs time to develop. It is important for the coach to be patient, listen, and follow through.
Additional Resources:
The video below is a humorous take on PLCs in education. Do not use if you feel it will set the wrong tone. It might be a good one to use with teams that have a history working together, probably not for newly formed teams.
Before beginning session 1 of this learning module, please take a few minutes to complete the knowledge survey.
Collaborative work happens in many different fields. In education, we often call them professional learning communities, or PLCs.
“It should be noted that professional learning communities may be called many different things from school to school or place to place, including professional learning groups, collaborative learning communities, critical friends groups, or communities of practice, to name just a few common terms… .” – edglossary.org
This type of learning takes place in many different fields of work from the medical field, to businesses, construction, education, etc. The video below describes this type of learning in the work place.
In education, the work of a PLC is student learning. Often times teachers naturally collaborate with each other. Because the work day of a teacher is so busy, structured PLC time can help to make the limited time together more productive and efficient. Each of us comes to a PLC with our own experiences, skills set, and ideas. The power of the PLC is in the diversity of thinking to solve problems.
Read this brief article on true PLCs:
Comment: How do community and culture shape learning?
https://cgscholar.com/community/community_profiles/community-40245/community_updates/50918
Update: Describe a moment of learning in a community of practice. What are the dynamics of learning in this example?
https://cgscholar.com/community/community_profiles/community-40245/community_updates/50918
Give the rationale for starting with a writing assignment. Writing is a powerful tool in student learning and in assessing student learning. Not only does it help students to process information, writing assignments/prompts also guides the type of thinking students do, and it is an indicator of student learning. The bulk of this work should be completed during the weekly subject-area PLC time, allow multiple sessions if needed.
The purpose of a common assessment is to develop a shared understanding of what students will be responsible for learning.
The bulk of this work should be completed during the weekly subject-area PLC time, multiple sessions will be added if needed.
For this session, your PLC team will begin thinking about a writing assignment to be used as a common assessment in an upcoming unit. The writing assignment should be a culminating activity that does the following:ties the big ideas and essential learnings,of an upcoming unit and reflects the type of thinking that you want students to engage in by the end of the unit (e.g. knowledge, synthesis, analysis, creative, etc.)
In following video, Rick DuFour talks about the importance of common assessments in the work of PLCs:
Review this chart on literacy across disciplines (from Collaborative Coaching for Disciplinary Literacy):
Comment: Why are common assessments essential in the work of PLCs?
Update: Analyze a current writing assessment for the following: standards, essential learning outcomes, big ideas, and types of thinking important to your subject-area/discipline.
The purpose of this session is create or select a rubric based on the standards and essential learning of the writing assessment/task. The bulk of this work should be completed during the weekly subject-area PLC time, allow multiple sessions if needed.
The purpose of this session is to select or create rubrics to be used to assess students' written work. The standards and essential learnings of the writing assessment should be reflected in the rubric that is selected or created by the PLC. The bulk of this work should be completed during the weekly subject-area PLC time, multiple sessions will be added if needed.
The following information is from CEC (Consortium for Educational Change) work on assessments:
Sound written response exercises do three things: (1.) set a clear and specific context; (2.) specify the kind of reasoning to be brought to bear; (3.) point the way to an appropriate response without giving away the answer. Poorly framed written response exercises can be a nightmare for students to answer and for teahcers to score. (CEC Guidelines for Assessment Writing page 10).
Rubrics are scoring guides with features identified that will be used to evaluate student work. Rubrics include descriptions of different leveles of performance for each of the defined features. Rubrics provide information on student progress toward achieving standards.
A quality rubric should:
Focus instruction – intentionally
Guide feedback – descriptively
Characterize desired results
Operationalize performance standards – purposefully
Develop self-assessment competence – constantly
Empower students to evaluate their own work – critically
Involve students – thoughtfully
Yield consistent results even when administered by different scorers - reliablyCritical components of a rubric:
Features – the major attributes or categories of learning which will be evaluated. The features must be based on the standards, skills, and concepts for mastery.
Scale – the possible points to be assigned.
Descriptors – statements that describe the various levels of performance.
Mid-point – the middle point on the rubric which separtes student work that is “still developing” from work that is considered “developed.”(CEC Guidelines for Assessment Writing page 23)
Before selecting or creating a rubric, watch this video titled, "The power of yet." While you watch, think about how this connects to a good rubric.
Illinois State Board of Education (isbe.net) rubrics: http://www.illinoisliteracyinaction.org/6-8-wri-rubrics.html
PARCC rubric: https://prc.parcconline.org/system/files/Grade6-11-ELA-LiteracyScoringRubric-July2015_0.pdf
*Be sure to share the rubric with students before they begin writing. This will help them to better understand how they are being assessed.
Comment: Educators create and use rubrics all the time. What qualities and/or components of a quality rubric get overlooked the most?
Update: After deciding on a rubric with your PLC, write an update on how rubrics can foster learning and how the specific rubric you chose will help guide students.
This session is intended to take place before teachers assess student writing. It will focus on creating inter-rater reliability by discussing the writing prompt and response expectations. Hopefully the PLC team is always organized in a manner that promotes small-group instruction when they meet, if not, make sure to organize the group.
Prepare by having copies of the selected rubric and 2-3 student samples that represent a range of responses (ask teachers before hand for samples). You will most likely need two sessions to get through all three. Hopefully you will have a range of scores that teachers can then use as explars for each of the ratings given. You will not have samples for each rating and feature of the rubric, but this should get teachers started.
Set a date to follow up and tell teachers to set aside samples that they had difficulty with. These can be brought back to the PLC for further discussion.
Protocol for establishing interrater reliability:
1. Before reading student responses, discuss the prompt and the type of response that would be necessary for a complete, clear, and accurate answer. This discussion will minimize errors based on the interactions between raters and the task.
2. After this discussion, the first response is selected and one rater reads the prompt aloud. The response should be read blind, so no one knows the identity of the writer. This will minimize errors based on the interactions between students and raters. Note: The writing is read aloud in order to minimize the impact of spelling, grammar, and handwriting on the score assigned although this will come into play when examining language conventions.
3. After listening to the response, each rater records brief comments indicating their impression of the content, using the prompt rubric.
4. After marking comments, individual raters may ask for the writing sample to be read again or they may ask to see the piece of writing. After each individual rater has recorded their mark, the marks are revealed.
5. If there is consensus on the marks, then the raters read the paper to score the language conventions. Scores for language conventions are then revealed. If there is a difference in the scores assigned, a discussion begins. In this case raters describe their rationales for the marks they have given and a consensus is reached. Once a consensus is reached, that paper becomes the anchor paper, or the exemplar, for that scoring category.
6. Teachers can then use those exemplars as they assess all remaining student papers. This helps everyone to get on the same page.
Comment: Give your reaction to the protocol
Update: After assessing your students' writing, reflect on how the process went - what did you take note of? What are some next steps you are considering?
This session is a follow-up session to the "Inter-rater Reliability" session. Before the session check in with teachers to see if they have any student work that they would like to analyze further. If there is more than one, decide which one to focus on or have teachers discuss and decide. Before the session, make copies for each member.
Guide teachers through the protocol.
Alternative Protocol #1- if every teacher has a student sample to share, consider using this protocol:
Examining Patterns in Student Work
1.Everyone brings a sample of student work.
2.Work is passed around the circle from person to person - looks for patterns, contradictions, or themes.
3.Discuss patterns contradictions, and themes.
4.Share questions raised.
5.Discuss implications for practice
6.Establish next steps.
(PROTOCOL CATALOG DUPAGE ROE SLT II – 2009 – 2010)
Alternative Protocol #2 - if the school is involved in school-wide alignment and/or alignment to the CCSS, consider using the Achieve EQuIP Student Work Protocol (https://www.achieve.org/our-initiatives/equip/student-work-protocol.) This will take more time than a PLC weekly meeting, and may be more appropriate to use with the whole staff during a day of professional development (as part of the whole)
Protocol for Examining Student Work:
1. The presenter (teacher sharing student work) gives a quick overview of the student's work. He/she describes the major issues or concerns, and frames a quiestion for the group to consider. An example question might be, "How well does this work represent mastery of claim and evidence?" (10-15 minutes)
2. Group members individually examine student work with the question in mind. (5 minutes)
3. The group asks clarifying questions of the presenter. (5 minutes)
4. The group asks probing questions of the presenter. These questions should be worded so that they help the presenter clarify and expand his or her thinking about the issue or question raisedd about the student work. (10 minutes)
5. The group member discuss the student work and related issues. Starting with "warm" feedback: "What are the strengths of this student's work?" or "What's the good news?" Then they move on to the "cooler" feedback: "Where are the gaps?" "What do areas for further improvement or investigation seem to be?" During this time the presenter is not allowed to speak, instead she/he listens and takes notes. (15 minutes)
6. The presenter then respond to what she/he heard. (5-10 minutes)
(Piper, L'Allier, Manderino, Domenico page 119)
Comment: What did you think about the protocol
Update: Share how this session impacted your thinking about your students and their writing.
The purpose of this session is to analyze assessment results. Prior to this PLC meeting, collect assessment data from teachers or from the school's data assessment management system. Decide on how the data will be shared: total score, the scores for each cell of the rubric, scores broken down by demographics, scores as a whole grade level or by teacher.
For this session you will facilitate the PLC discussion using the questions below, and recording responses. (Piper, L'Allier, Manderino, Domenico, pages 110-111)
1. Share the overall data with teachers and ask them to draw some general conclusions as to whether or not students, on the whole, met the targeted instruction.
2. Share the data broken down by rubric cell or group. Ask the teachers to note areas of strength and areas that seemed difficult for students.
3. Ask teachers to brainstorm factors that could have contributed to students' strengths and difficulties.
Determine apporiate next steps: begin discussing evisions to the common writing assessment.
The purpose of this session is to analyze assessment results. Prior to this PLC meeting, teachers should record results and/orinput data as decided by PLC team. This discussion will be facilitated by the instructional coach/teacher leader/ administrator
Guiding Questions:
1. Overall data - draw some general conclusions as to whether or not students, on the whole, met the targeted instruction.
2. Data broken down by rubric cell or group. Note areas of strength and areas that seemed difficult for students.
3. Brainstorm factors that could have contributed to students' strengths and difficulties.
Record discussion.
Comment: How did this session help to analyze the writing assessment?
Update: What did you identify as strengths and weaknesses of your class's writing? Discuss one or two ideas you have to move forward with writing instruction.
This session is designed for the PLC to discuss, select /create a process for students to analyze and reflect on their writing.
Guide teachers through developing a process for students to analyze their writing. The bulk of the work should be completed during the weekly PLC time, allow multiple sessions if needed.
The purpose of this session is to discuss and select/create a process for students to analyze and reflect on their writing. The update at the end of the session is designed for teachers to complete after having students go through the process of analyzing and reflecting on their work.
Process (adapated from Los Angeles Unified District, Educational Service Center – East)
Day 1: Task Engagement- Students will revisit the rubric and the criteria for the writing assignment.
-In order to activate students’ prior knowledge, we are asking them to Quick Write: How do you know an essay is well written? What qualities or items need to be in your writing? (i.e.: transition words, concluding statements, etc.…)
-Teacher presents a student writing exemplar (do not use exemplars from previous inter-rater reliability activity; use writing from a different writing or samples from CCSS Appendix C) to students to evaluate and compare the qualities of good writing. Record as a class, have students take notes.
-Now that students have an understanding of the criteria for their writing, students re-read their essay. They assess their own work using the criteria chart.
Day 2: Task Analysis- Students will participate in a readers’/ writers’ workshop to generate ideas and feedback to improve their writing.
Teacher establishes/reviews norms for analyzing peer writing.
Teacher distributes and reviews/models the peer-conference form.
Students pair up for peer conferencing. Teacher circulates, answers questions, and addresses misconceptions.
After completing peer conference forms, student pairs will share feedback with one another.
Day 3: Students will revise their writing based on the feedback and criteria chart.
Day 4: Students annotate their revised work using peer conference form themselves (without a partner.)
Comment: What are your thoughts and ideas regarding engaging students in evaluating their learning?
Update: (to be completed after instruction with students) Share 2-3 examples of this process from your classroom. What do these examples demonstrate.
This session is intended to provide the PLC with time to revise essential learnings and outcomes of the unit as is impacted by this learning module focused on writing assessment. Teachers adjust and revise existing unit plans, instruction and interim writing projects, the writing assessment/assignment, rubrics, etc.
This purpose of this final session is to essential learnings and outcomes of the unit as is impacted by this learning module focused on writing assessment. Adjust and revise existing unit plans, instruction and interim writing projects, the writing assessment/assignment, rubrics, etc.
As a PLC team, create a new Work on Scholar - upload your revisions to your unit. If unit plans do not currently exist, revise the writing assessment that the PLC addressed through this module.
Please provide constructive feedback to at least 3 other PLC teams.
We will use Achieve's EQuiP rubric to evaluate our work. We will focus on three sections of the rubric: I. Alignment to the Depth of the CCSS, II. Key Shifts in the CCSS, and IV. Assessment. For the purposes of this learning module, we will not address III. Instructional Supports. This area, instructional supports, will be assumed to take place as needed in day to day planning based on formative assessment.
