It feels like like it's been a while since I posted anything on The Reading Corner. And in looking at the date of my last post, it has been a few months. That doesn't mean, however, that work has not been happening in the area of Literacy here at NEA; much work has been done as of late in the alignment of assessment practices as assessment is beginning to drive instructional practice in our district. As such, I wanted to release to everyone interested the new/essential documents related to this year's administration of the DWA.
The General Information Bulletin
As seen in the image above, the GIB for this year's DWA is up on the website. Just go to the link for the DWA on the The Literacy Hub's home page. I sent this out to all staff last week, but it is always good to have it public so you can quickly access it as needed. The intent of publishing the GIB is so that principals, teachers, students, parents, and anyone else interested in the assessment can read and understand the rules, procedures, and protocols for it.
Exemplars from the 2013-2014 Administration of the DWA
If you keep scrolling down from the GIB information on the DWA page, you will find the released exemplars from the 2013-2014 administration of the DWA. These become essential documents when it comes to visualizing the writing standards that have been set in our district (as they relate to the standards inherently built into the Alberta English Language Arts Programs of Study). These exemplars will become the training documents that I will use to help all our ELA teachers hone into and internalize the standard prior to assessing student samples at our central marking PD session at the end of May. By so doing, it creates reliability, validity, and legitimacy for our district level assessment.
Image for the 2014-2015 DWA
So... even though it's not there yet, this will be the place to go to see the image that was chosen for this year's DWA. With it will be an explanation of the process for picking this year's image, and the rationale that was used for choosing it. Once this information is available, it will be very telling when it comes to the legitimacy of the process that is used at the district level in laying the foundation for our assessment.
Needless to say, this is an exciting time for Literacy at NEA. Teachers are already benefitting from the alignment of assessment practices in the way that they are considering their programming, as well as how and what they teach. I've also seen the impact this is having on student learning and performance. Because writing provides clear evidence of student learning and performance in language arts, I have been able to see clear and distinct improvements in how our students are doing in this area of their development. Huge strides and improvements have been made at our schools, as evidenced by student work in the classrooms and on the walls, and I'm excited for how this assessment will continue to shape and develop successful practice here at NEA.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions about the DWA or anything that I posted here about it. You can reach me through the contact page on this website or at [email protected].
Cheers,
Ryan Anderson
Instructional Services/Literacy Coach
Nipisihkopahk Education Authority
Needless to say, this is an exciting time for Literacy at NEA. Teachers are already benefitting from the alignment of assessment practices in the way that they are considering their programming, as well as how and what they teach. I've also seen the impact this is having on student learning and performance. Because writing provides clear evidence of student learning and performance in language arts, I have been able to see clear and distinct improvements in how our students are doing in this area of their development. Huge strides and improvements have been made at our schools, as evidenced by student work in the classrooms and on the walls, and I'm excited for how this assessment will continue to shape and develop successful practice here at NEA.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions about the DWA or anything that I posted here about it. You can reach me through the contact page on this website or at [email protected].
Cheers,
Ryan Anderson
Instructional Services/Literacy Coach
Nipisihkopahk Education Authority