Assessing Writers

by Carl Anderson

When it comes to writing assessment, there's no better judge of what your students know and are able to do than you. And when it comes to advice on best practices for assessment, there's no better source than Carl Anderson's "Assessing Writers." Like he did in the popular and highly acclaimed "How's It Going?," Anderson offers smart, ready-to-use ideas for assessment. "Assessing Writers" offers practical methods for gathering information about every writer in your classroom and shows you how to create writing lessons that address the needs of individual students as well as the whole class.

Anderson's straightforward approach helps you imagine an ongoing assessment program that takes you from meeting new students to designing curriculum. In "Assessing Writers" you'll find out: what you need to know about students to assess them as writers how to uncover and make sense of this information how to make an individualized plan for each student how to use these plans when you confer how to structure units of study to meet classroom-wide needs. Let Carl Anderson be your guide as you place assessment at the center of writing instruction. With a wealth of smart suggestions, useful charts, reproducible rubrics, and activities for professional reflection, Assessing Writers gives you powerful tools that make assessment simple and effective.

Genres: Teaching, Writing, Education

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 2005

Reviews

[Meaghan Odell]

I saw Carl Anderson at a workshop here in Seoul a little over a year ago. Best PD I have ever been to. His book is informative, approachable, and useful. He delves deeply into HOW and WHAT to focus on when teaching writing and conferring with our students. It's revolutionized how I approach the teaching of writing.

[Diane]

Carl Anderson has a panache for writing that brings his ideas to his audiences in ways just about anyone can understand. In this text, he focuses on the formative assessment style of developing writers in the form of students. Namely, students who are participating in a writing workshop classroom.

What I truly enjoyed about this book was that new and beginning teachers as well as established teachers could find something of worth within its pages. He also doesn't gatekeep his ideas. There are permission-granted pages of planners and charts that Carl uses and is happy to share with his readers. He also helps to answer some pretty tough questions and spans the grade levels with the exception of high school. He mentions them, but is focus is more on middle and elementary grades.

Relying on a great deal of research and his own experiences, Carl brings a decent text to the teaching world that will often make you smile with its personalization and accessibility.

[Mark]

Abandoned. Read 75% - will finish later.

[Gillian]

While a lot of what I read in this book wasn't new, it was certainly a very worthwhile opportunity for me to be reminded of things I've encountered in the past. The book is full of practical resources and ideas which can be implemented immediately with learners of all ages. I love the simplicity yet power of the assessment forms and ideas, all ensuring we view assessment through the lens of developing writers, not writing.

[Ken Brock]

After spending several years helping teachers break writing into measurable categories they can use for analytic assessment, I find Mr. Anderson's take on this method to be familiar. What I appreciated most about this book were the tips about how to facilitate effective writing conferences.

[Amy C Zanders]

While the book does discuss formative assessment through writing conferences, most of the book focuses on facilitating conferences. I did enjoy it and it did answer some questions I had, but I don't think it was the assessment resource I was looking for.

[Christy]

Excellent resource for Writers' Workshop, especially writing conferences with students.

[Callie]

This author was recommended to me.

[Alexis]

Anderson is, once again, rocking my writer's workshop world and I am so happy!

[Julia]

I've recently ordered it from Amazon as well but left it in the states...can't wait until December to pick it up and read it! Yea that it is so highly recommended already!

[Emily Piutau]

There were some good ideas in here but it probably could have been covered in one chapter. Redundancy makes me cranky.

[Jen Munnerlyn]

We are currently using excerpts from this book in the g.3-5 writer's workshop team meetings.

[Chris Young]

Great book for ELA teachers looking to manage paper-flow and time in a workshop environment.

[Gresham]

Incredible - one of the best professional books I've read.

[Nadiene]

A great guide to assessing young writers. The graphs are especially useful at breaking down steps for teachers.

[Nikki]

Insightful