In grades K-5 in my district, we do a BOY, MOY, and EOY writing prompt. The prompt is modeled after the writing assessment students take in our state- the STAAR. Teachers meet in writing PLCs to talk about what they notice as a whole with student writing and what they might praise, teach and reinforce as a result.
These samples BOY, MOY, and EOY writing samples are part of a student's writing portfolio. Now, what about the reflection piece? Oh yes.
Students in 2nd-5th grade should be expected to complete a reflection on their MOY writing piece after looking at their BOY sample. Right?
I've uploaded a sample reflection sheet (which may look very much like the one from Beth Newingham, but her link will not download from her blog- so I made it myself). The reflection may not be very deep for our young writers, and can certainly be more complex for our older writers, but the idea is students, in their writing portfolio, start to recognize growth! I've uploaded it to my TPT store. It's FREE. And it's a WORD doc so you can certainly make changes to the questions so it will work best for your students.
And what do we know as teachers? How will students improve their writing? By writing MORE!
I like to do writing reflections after we finish a writing genre too. You know, when the writing folders are just overflowing with drafts. You can read more about that here. Keeping in mind, a writing portfolio is not just a collection of pieces that were published during the year. Students can choose pieces for their Writing Portfolio for a variety of reasons, and some of them will be drafts still.
