ABSTRACT
Before you begin to apply the formative assessment process to your students’ writing, it is helpful to think through some prerequisites. First, you might want to understand what the writing standards are; most state standards refer to writing very generally, such as “writing for information and personal expression.” Without a specific understanding of the final writing learning goals you expect of your students, you cannot consistently be measuring them against this end. Also, you can determine how you will assess these writing standards so that you can focus your instruction and feedback on helping students to be successful on this particular manner of demonstrating the standards. As you constantly assess your students, you can make sure that not only are they learning the writing standards, but that they are learning these standards with a high degree of skill. To meet the last prerequisite, you can gather exemplary material that represents these standards and your high expectations for the standards and share these exemplars with your students.
