Writing Assessment

     It is hard for me to reflect upon the writing assessment because I am not using my students writing but another class' writing samples.  The writing samples that I will be evaluating are sixth graders writing a persuasive essay.  This persuasive essay assignment was given to every sixth grader in the class.  The students started off with a worksheet to help gather their thoughts of what they wanted to write their persuasive essays about and how they would begin to construct their essay.  The worksheet included questions such as space to brainstorm ideas for your persuasive essay, who are you writing to, how will you begin your letter, how will you end your letter, what persuasive language will you use in your letter, and three reasons with explanations and/or facts to persuade the reader to want what the writer wants.  After the students completed the worksheet the began to write their persuasive essays.
     Some things that I thought went well for the students and what helped them most was the worksheet.  The worksheet was a great way to start with this assignment.  With young writers, inexperienced writers, or writers that have a challenging time with writing this worksheet helps those students get their thoughts organized.  It gives these students time to think and plan how they would like to go about writing their persuasive essay.  The worksheet not only helped the students figure out what they wanted to say but how to construct their essays.  When they should add things in to make their argument well written and what things may not be necessary at this time to add.
     From reading the students worksheets and the persuasive essays I can tell that the students have quite the personalities and an amazing sense of humor.  I can also tell that the students are passionate in their writing and what they are writing about and to me that is the most important thing you need when writing a persuasive essay.  If the students did not get to pick their topic to write about I wonder what their essays would have been like?  I wonder what kind of tone would have been?  Would I really find out anything about the individuals that were writing the essays.  Choice in an assignment such as this is also crucial.  I want to know what the students think, I want to know what the students know about their topic and I want to see persuasive language.  These students did an amazing job with this assignment and I can't wait to finish my official write-up.