Portfolios/Writing FoldersTwo attempts at trying something new

What makes good great?

Practice. In The Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell tells readers about the 10,0000 Hour Rule- that is, the key to success in any field is an investment in time and hard work-about 10,000 hours of practice. He reminds us that ‘experts are made, not born.’ This practice must be deliberate and include areas in which we are not already comfortable.

How do kids become great writers? By practicing… a lot.

-Kelley Gallagher

Students should be writing four times more than we can grade. If we can grade everything kids are writing, they aren’t writing enough.

Not even close.

Kids have to create lots of bad writing before good writing emerges.

-Kelly Gallagher

My problems:

• Students weren’t writing enough

• Students weren’t revising

• Students weren’t reflecting on their writing

What I tried

• My students would start and maintain portfolios

• They would contribute at least one full-length, quality draft per week

• ¾ of the work would be genre-based and ¼ would be reader response, community-building, or other

• I would read, but not grade all of their writing

• I would confer with students about their writing, as they practiced

• Once students had practice with the genre, and took a draft through multiple revisions, I would formally evaluate