Recently I had a look at Scott Benedict’s successful-quickwrites-handout-1.

I thought it was brilliant, but a bit too advanced for my Year 3 students. So I tweaked it a bit, and with Scott’s blessing, would like to attach here a writing proforma and assessment rubric for you to use/tweak as you see fit. Please credit Scott as the original creator.

I made one page for writing, and explained to my students why it makes counting words so much easier to write on every little line, then simplified the rubric and photocopied the pages back to back so students can see where they are headed.

For my Indonesian students, I used four levels, Tidak ada (Not There Yet – if they wrote nothing), Berjalan (Walking – for those just beginning), Lari (Running – where most kids probably are) and Lari Cepat (Running Fast – for advanced students).

I think students can understand these levels easily. After writing, I had them assess themselves using the rubric on the reverse side of the sheet, and reflect on how they could improve.

I also spoke to Ibu Sharon from the SA TCI hub and expressed my concerns about students struggling with writing. She gave me a great suggestion, to let these students copy from the original story (best to give them a photocopy at their desk). I had not been doing this, but can see how it would give them more confidence. I will also permit them to use words they know before encouraging sentences. Maybe my expectations were too high. Thanks Sharon for your advice. Happy writing everyone! Hope these documents are useful to you. Let me know!

Quick Write Proforma

Quick Write Rubric writing rubric version 2

Still my favourite student story (see below)! chiom = cium