in his creative writing unit mr hembree

Quiz 15: Classroom Assessment, Grading, and Standardized Testing

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Ms.Casella has scheduled three days for students' persuasive speeches in her high school class.Which of the following practices is most likely to improve reliability in evaluating her students' oral presentations?

Ms.Carpenter created a test to measure students' skill in identifying subjects and verbs in sentences.All test items directly related to unit objectives - identification of subjects and verbs in simple and compound sentences.Based on this information,Ms.Carpenter's test may be said to have

You and the other fifth grade teachers at your school are preparing your students for state standardized tests.What advice should you and your colleagues follow?

Mr.Maxwell prepared two unit tests in algebra.Valinda's group averaged 95% on test A and 96 on test B.What does this confirm about the tests?

Which of the following is most likely to be identified as an authentic assessment?

Identify the question that contains assessment bias.

Traditional testing can be used effectively and efficiently to assess which of the following?

Which of the following teachers uses norm-referenced grading?

Which of the following statements illustrates measurement (as defined in assessment terminology) ?

Mrs.Ramirez is giving a test to identify the top students in her physics class.The top three or four students will be invited to participate in an event related to their unit of study at a local university.What type of grading should she use to meet this goal?

In her seventh grade pre-algebra class,Ms.Cornelius gave a standardized exam prepared by the district math department.Students' scores on the exam were as follows: 100,98,98,96,96,96,94,92,88,82. What is the mean score?

Mr.O'Dell wants to assess mastery of knowledge after teaching several lessons on the skeletal system.What assessment method aligns best with his goal?

Ms.Fonteneau is concerned about her French students' motivation to learn.She creates authentic activities such as assigning tasks related to travel in French-speaking countries.She wants every student to succeed and achieve high grades.Which of the following is the most appropriate action for her to take to meet her goal?

The following teachers are using various types of assessments.Which one is most likely used for formative purposes?

What is a common criticism of traditional testing?

In his creative writing unit,Mr.Hembre wants to use portfolios to collect student writings.Which of the following steps should he include in the process of creating these portfolios?

Mrs.Carmike gives students three options for their projects at the end of a geography unit.These projects will assess students' knowledge and skills on the basis of the objectives she presented at the beginning of each lesson in the unit.Which of the following is Mrs.Carmike most likely to do in developing a rubric for grading the projects?

Which one of the following examples illustrates appropriate use of high-stakes testing?

Mr.Tolosa uses a variety of types of assessments in his fifth grade class.As a teaching goal,he wants assessments to support

Which of the following assessments is most likely to be viewed as an objective test of students' skills and knowledge?

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Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Expert Guide

Looking for creative writing lesson plans? I am developing creative writing lesson ideas! 

I’ve written and revamped my creative writing lesson plans and learned that the first week is vital in establishing a community of writers, in outlining expectations, and in working with a new class.

What are some good creative writing exercises?

Some good creative writing exercises include writing prompts, free writing, character development exercises, and fun writing games.

The first week, though, we establish trust—and then we begin powerful creative writing exercises to engage young writers and our community.

How can add encouragement in creative writing lesson plans?

I’ve found students are shy about writing creatively, about sharing pieces of themselves. A large part of the first week of class is setting the atmosphere, of showing everyone they are free to create. And! These concepts will apply to most writing lesson plans for secondary students.

Feel free to give me feedback and borrow all that you need! Below, find my detailed my day-by-day progression for creative writing lesson plans  for week one.

Creative Writing Lesson Day One: Sharing my vision

Comfort matters for young writers. I’m not a huge “ice breaker” type of teacher—I build relationships slowly. Still, to get student writing, we must establish that everyone is safe to explore, to write, to error.

Here are some ideas.

Tone and attitude

For day one with any lesson plan for creative writing, I think it is important to set the tone, to immediately establish what I want from my creative writing students. And that is…

them not to write for me, but for them. I don’t want them writing what they think I want them to write.

Does that make sense? Limitations hurt young writers. My overall tone and attitude toward young writers is that we will work together, create and write together, provide feedback, and invest in ourselves. Older kiddos think that they must provide teachers with the “correct” writing. In such a course, restrictions and boundaries largely go out the window.

Plus, I specifically outline what I believe they can produce in a presentation to set people at ease.

The presentation covers expectations for the class. As the teacher, I am a sort of writing coach with ideas that will not work for everyone. Writers should explore different methods and realize what works for them. First, not everyone will appreciate every type of writing—which is fine. But as a writing community, we must accept that we may not be the target audience for every piece of work.

Therefore, respect is a large component of the class. Be sure to outline what interactions you find acceptable within your classroom community.

Next, as their writing coach, I plan to provide ideas and tools for use. Their job is to decide what tools work for their creative endeavors. My overall message is uplifting and encouraging.

Finally, when we finish, I share the presentation with students so they can consult it throughout the semester. The presentation works nicely for meet-the-teacher night, too!

After covering classroom procedures and rules, I show students a TED Talk. We watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie. My goal is to show students that I don’t have a predetermined idea concerning what they should write. This discussion takes the rest of the class period.

Establishing comfort and excitement precedents my other creative writing activities. Personalize your “vision” activities for your lessons in creative writing. Honestly, doing this pre-work builds relationships with students and creates a positive classroom atmosphere.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Two: Activating prior knowledge

Students possess prior knowledge concerning creative writing, but they might not consider that. Students should realize that they know what constitutes a great story. They might not realize that yet. An easy lesson plan for creative writing that will pay off later is to activate prior knowledge. Brainstorm creative, memorable, unforgettable stories with students. Share your thoughts too! You will start to build relationships with students who share the same tastes as you (and those that are completely different!).

Activation activity

During this activity, I want to see how students work together, and I want to build a rapport with students. Additionally, activating prior knowledge provides a smooth transition into other creative writing activities.

This creative writing activity is simple:

I ask students to tell me memorable stories—books, play, tv shows, movies—and I write them on the board. I add and veto as appropriate. Normally doing these classroom discussions, we dive deeper into comedies and creative nonfiction. Sometimes as we work, I ask students to research certain stories and definitions. I normally take a picture of our work so that I can build creative writing lessons from students’ interests.

This takes longer than you might think, but I like that aspect. This information can help me shape my future lessons.

With about twenty minutes left in class, I ask students to form small groups. I want them to derive what makes these stories memorable. Since students complete group and partner activities in this class, I also watch and see how they interact.

Students often draw conclusions about what makes a story memorable:

• Realistic or true-to-life characters.
• Meaningful themes.
• Funny or sad events.

All of this information will be used later as students work on their own writing. Many times, my creative writing lessons overlap, especially concerning the feedback from young writers.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Three: Brainstorming and a graphic organizer

From building creative writing activities and implementing them, I now realize that students think they will sit and write. Ta-da!  After all, this isn’t academic writing. Coaching creative writing students is part of the process.

Young writers must accept that a first draft is simply that, a first draft. Building a project requires thought and mistakes. (Any writing endeavor does, really.) Students hear ‘creative writing’ and they think… easy. Therefore, a first week lesson plan for creative writing should touch on what creativity is.

Really, creativity is everywhere. We complete a graphic organizer titled, “Where is Creativity?” Students brainstorm familiar areas that they may not realize have such pieces.

The ideas they compile stir all sorts of conversations:

• Restaurants
• Movie theaters
• Amusement parks

By completing this graphic organizer, we discuss how creativity surrounds us, how we can incorporate different pieces in our writing, and how different areas influence our processes.

Creative Writing Lesson, Days Four and Five: Creative Nonfiction

Students need practice writing, and they need to understand that they will not use every word they write. Cutting out lines is painful for them! Often, a lesson plan for creative writing involves providing time for meaningful writing.

For two days, we study and discuss creative nonfiction. Students start by reading an overview of creative nonfiction . (If you need mentor texts, that website has some as well.) When I have books available, I show the class examples of creative nonfiction.

We then continue through elements of a narrative . Classes are sometimes surprised that a narrative can be nonfiction.

The narrative writing is our first large project. As we continue, students are responsible for smaller projects as well. This keeps them writing most days.

Overall, my students and I work together during the first week of any creative writing class. I encourage them to write, and I cheer on their progress. My message to classes is that their writing has value, and an audience exists for their creations.

And that is my week one! The quick recap:

Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Monday: Rules, procedures, TED Talk, discussion.

Tuesday: Prior knowledge—brainstorm the modeling of memorable stories. Draw conclusions about storytelling with anchor charts. Build community through common knowledge.

Wednesday: Graphic organizer.

Thursday and Friday: Creative nonfiction. Start narrative writing.

Students do well with this small assignment for the second week, and then we move to longer creative writing assignments . When classesexperience success with their first assignment, you can start constructive editing and revising with them as the class continues.

These creative writing activities should be easy implement and personalize for your students.

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5 Creative Writing Unit Ideas

• August 29, 2017

I’ve been hearing from a lot of teachers lately about getting thrown into teaching creative writing electives they weren’t expecting. Been there. I was excited if a bit overwhelmed the year I took over my friend’s “Creative Literature” course after she took a job in Northern California.

A creative writing course seems to flow out before you to the infinite horizon, am I right? There are so many different things you could do, and it’s not easy to figure out a logical flow and pin down the  assignments.

That’s why in this post I’m pulling together a list of some of the best creative writing units I’ve done, dreamed of, or participated in as a student. If I was writing a brand new course right now, I would use every one of these units.

The Multigenre Autobiography (for the beginning of the year)

I once assigned my American literature juniors an identity project. After reading a variety of pieces by American authors about their lives and experiences, my students produced a portfolio of works in different genres that shed light on their own identity. The results amazed me.

If I was crafting this same project for a creative writing course, I would ask students to create a narrative of their lives using three or four genres linked together. Perhaps they would begin with memoir about their early childhood, move into a video of their own performance poetry about early childhood, transition into a travel piece representative of their teenage years and finish with a fictional story about their future. I would detail a big list of options for the different genres, examine a range of autobiographical pieces that reflected at least some of those genres, and hit the ground running.

Enter a Contest  (for the early fall)

Writing contests are everywhere. I recently rounded up dozens for a post over at We Are Teachers . Choose one you think your students will enjoy, whether it’s the 10 Minute Play Contest, Engineer Girl, The Ocean Awareness Contest, The Bennington Young Writer’s Awards or one of the other wonderful options.

Better yet, share the whole list with your class and let everyone choose the contest they feel more drawn towards. By introducing the project and completing the work early in the year, you give them more options because the deadlines won’t yet have passed.

One Act Play Festival (for the early spring)

As the weather begins to warm, get students going on writing one act plays in groups. If you want to pair the project with a mentor text, choose a play to read first and then have students brainstorm a list of themes from that play that they can incorporate into their own.

Give them time to write and rehearse together (head outside if you can!). Then decide as a class when and where to hold your own one act play festival and invite guests. Consider letting students vote for several award-winning plays and hold your own awards ceremony when the performances conclude.

As the year comes to a close, keep students’ attention by inviting them to experiment with the genre of creative nonfiction through blogging. Give them a chance to choose a topic they’re truly interested in and begin experimenting with how to write for a real audience. You can assign profile posts, list posts, multimedia posts, opinion posts, top 10s, and more to guide them in writing the kinds of creative nonfiction they see constantly online. Read all about how to get going and discover the best free blogging platforms in this post, A Beginner’s Guide to Student Blogging.      Of course there are dozens more wonderful possibilities for creative writing units. You could write screenplays, memoirs, graphic novels, children’s books, nursery rhymes, fairy tales. You could explore writing scifi, fantasy, mystery, YA, and more. You could dive into poetry with spoken word, slam , and blackout poetry . The world is your oyster when it comes to a creative writing course, but these are just five fun possibilities to get you started.

Do you find your inspiration in VISUALS? I love ‘em too. Let’s hang out on Instagram! Click here to get a steady stream of colorful ideas all week long.

I’ll help you find the creative ELA strategies that will light up your classroom. Get ready for joyful teaching!

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Paper 1 Question 5: Creative Writing Model Answer ( AQA GCSE English Language )

Revision note.

Paper 1 Question 5: Creative Writing Model Answer

In Paper 1 Question 5 you will be presented with a choice of two writing tasks and a stimulus image. One task will ask you to write descriptively, most likely based on the image, and the other question will ask you to write a story, based on a statement or title. 

The task requires you to write for a specific purpose and in a specific form. It is important you write in the correct format and use the conventions of this form, as the mark scheme mentions adapting your tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences. 

This means: 

• The tone (sound of the narrator’s ‘voice’) is appropriate and convincing 
• The register (vocabulary and phrasing) is suitable for the purpose
• The style of the writing (sentence structure and overall structure) is dynamic and engaging

Below you will find a detailed creative writing model in response to an example of Paper 1 Question 5, under the following sub-headings (click to go straight to that sub-heading):

Writing a GCSE English Language story

Structuring your story, ao5: content and organisation, ao6: technical accuracy, question 5 level 4 model story, why would this story achieve top marks.

Remember, Paper 1 Question 5 is worth 40 marks, broken down into two Assessment Objectives:

When planning your response, it is a good idea to keep the tone, style and register in mind, as well as the conventions of the form. Here, we will consider how you can produce an effective story with these devices in mind:

Story writing should develop a sense of character as well as mood. This means you should consider how your narrator or characters would behave and sound.  

In order to craft a tone which builds characterisation and mood, consider: 

• The perspective from which your story will be told: 
• First-person characterisation can include monologues which express the narrator’s thoughts and feelings 
• Third-person characterisation will generally include a description of the character’s appearance and movements
• Choose verbs and adverbs carefully to ‘show’ the character’s reactions
• If you use a third-person omniscient narrator , you can advise the reader of the character’s thoughts and feelings
• Consider how you can use sentence lengths and types in monologue and dialogue, as well as description of setting:
• Short sentences reflect tension and unease, e.g. ‘No sound could be heard’
• Longer sentences and listing can create a sense of being overwhelmed, or of abundance, e.g. ‘The table was laden with apples, grapes, oranges, loaves of bread, chunks of cheese and an array of colourful vegetables’
• Rhetorical questions can suggest confusion, e.g. ‘Would I ever get it right?’

Style and register

The style of your story writing is closely related to the language you use. For example, in a creative writing response, the best answers show evidence of careful word choice and linguistic techniques.

Creative writing helps the reader to visualise the person, place, or situation being described with word choice and linguistic techniques, as well as being taken on a journey.

The best way to do this is to: 

• Use vocabulary which is useful to the reader:
• For example, describing something as ‘great’ or ‘amazing’ is telling rather than showing 
• Use sensory language to bring the scene to life:
• For example, a deserted park at night requires a completely different description from a busy park during the daytime
• Emphasise key ideas or impressions using language techniques and imagery:
• For example, you could use a simile to create associations about size or colour
• Personification is a useful technique when describing weather or objects 
• Ensure you describe the important details:
• For example, you do not need to describe every inch of a person or scene bit by bit, but instead focus on key, interesting features that develops the story or the sense of character

Creative story writing develops an idea to a conclusion. This means your story should have cohesion by planning an ending with a resolution (you should plan whether your story will end happily or not). In the exam, it is best not to plan a complex story which takes place over a long period of time, employs multiple characters and has more than one setting or plot twist.  

In order to adhere to the conventions of story writing, it is best to: 

• Plan your writing in an order which takes your character (and reader) on a clear journey:
• The best way to do this is to plan one main event
• Consider employing structural techniques such as a flashback:
• This can give background information to the reader and provide context
• Ensure you use past-tense verbs for this
• Develop your characters:
• Consider essential narrative characterisations, such as villain, victim, hero etc.
• Decide on how your characters fit this description 
• When describing people, focus on relevant details only:
• You could focus on their body language or movements
• If using dialogue, how your characters speak can reveal more about them than what they say, e.g. “shrieked”, “mumbled”, “whispered”
• It is effective to repeat ideas related to colour
• You can repeat ideas for emphasis, for example, black and grey or green and blue

Below is an example of the type of creative writing you may be asked to write in Question 5. This is taken from Language Paper 1 June 2019:

This task asks you to write a story with the title ‘Abandoned’. This means you are required to construct a story based around this idea. The mark scheme rewards original ideas, but the most successful answers are those which develop an idea effectively and engage the reader in a compelling story. 

Crafting a story plot which conveys a complex and original idea does not need to include multiple characters or take place over a long period of time. Consider the short story as a ‘scene’ in a film. It is not necessary to know everything about your characters, but better to immerse the reader with vivid ‘showing’ techniques, such as sensory imagery, movements and dialogue.

As this is a longer writing question, you can spend about 5 minutes planning your answer. 

Once you are sure of the form you will write in and you have considered how best to convey the mood and character development to your reader, you can begin to think about how you will order your ideas. 

Creative writing responses should be structured in five or six paragraphs. We have suggested basing your narrative structure on Freytag’s Pyramid:

Remember, each paragraph does not have to be the same length. In fact, better answers vary the lengths of their paragraphs for effect. What is important is to develop separate ideas or points in each paragraph, and avoid repeating the same descriptions throughout your response.

Keep using sensory language throughout, but adjust the focus and perspective as your paragraphs develop. Make sure you include description of movement and description of sound to effectively craft a mood.

Below is an example of a full-mark Level 4 model story:

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Author: Sam Evans

Sam is a graduate in English Language and Literature, specialising in journalism and the history and varieties of English. Before teaching, Sam had a career in tourism in South Africa and Europe. After training to become a teacher, Sam taught English Language and Literature and Communication and Culture in three outstanding secondary schools across England. Her teaching experience began in nursery schools, where she achieved a qualification in Early Years Foundation education. Sam went on to train in the SEN department of a secondary school, working closely with visually impaired students. From there, she went on to manage KS3 and GCSE English language and literature, as well as leading the Sixth Form curriculum. During this time, Sam trained as an examiner in AQA and iGCSE and has marked GCSE English examinations across a range of specifications. She went on to tutor Business English, English as a Second Language and international GCSE English to students around the world, as well as tutoring A level, GCSE and KS3 students for educational provisions in England. Sam freelances as a ghostwriter on novels, business articles and reports, academic resources and non-fiction books.

Lesson Planning

• Resource: Article

by Andrew Pudewa

The goal of Excellence in Writing is to make writing part of what your students are learning, not a course unto itself. With nine structural units, you can easily plan your year of writing using sources from your history, science and literature.

Our teacher’s course, Teaching Writing: Structure and Style ®, incrementally trains teachers and parents to mentor their children in writing. Instead of providing multiple writing prompts, our program details nine structural units that students can use to write reports and stories related to what they are studying. With these powerful tools, students are empowered to manage any writing prompt and will no longer complain, “I don’t know what to write!”

Fortunately, teachers do not need to watch the entire course to get started. All you need to do is watch the first teacher’s disc and practice it with your student. There is even a Student Workshop that introduces Units 1 and 2 along with a few dress-ups so you can get started right away. To make lesson planning even easier, Structure and Style for Students includes ready-made lessons with all of the student instruction presented on video.. If you would like to do the teaching yourself with sources related to what you are studying, check out our Theme-Based Writing Lessons. With either of these, the lesson planning is all done. You will spend about an hour once a week teaching the lesson, and then students will need thirty minutes a day during the remainder of the week to complete the writing assignment.

What might a year of writing look like? Generally, you will spend 1–2 months per structural unit. Elementary students will spend more of their time in the early units while more mature students will spend more time in the upper units. All students begin with Unit 1 and progress incrementally through them all. By alternating between fiction and non-fiction, students have the opportunity to practice a variety of skills. Teachers can cycle through the units every year, helping their students deepen their writing. It's so effective! It works so, so well. I can't imagine that people would want to teach writing any other way.

September/October Units 1 and 2: Key Word Outlines and Writing from Notes Using paragraphs from your history, science, and literature books, your student will learn to create an outline and use that outline to write paragraphs. This is a good unit to introduce some of the easy “dress-ups” such as the who/which clause and the “-ly” adverb. These are presented one at a time and practiced until they are mastered.

October/November Unit 3: Story Sequence Your student will learn to organize a story in its three sequential parts. Aesop's fables, fairy tales, and historical stories make great sources for this unit. If students have mastered the dress-ups so far, then more can be introduced such as quality adjectives and strong verbs.

November/December Unit 4: Summarizing a Single Reference Now it is time to pull out the encyclopedia and learn how to write reports from a single reference. The importance of having a topic sentence at the beginning and a clincher sentence at the end of the paragraph is taught. Students can report on animals, states, famous people, places, or events they are studying in their other subjects. The adverb clause and because clause could be presented if students are ready for them.

January/February Unit 5: Writing from Pictures Students enjoy this creative writing unit, where they learn to take three sequential pictures and write a three-paragraph report on them. Some students might like to draw their own pictures for writing. Sentence patterns to increase sentence complexity can now be introduced if students have mastered the dress-ups. Start with the #1 subject and #2 prepositional openers.

February/March Unit 6: Summarizing Multiple References Young students may choose a few elementary books on animals while older students begin library research on subjects such as famous people and events. Instead of wrestling with note cards, students are taught how to organize their work using the outline technique that has been taught all along. For style, the #3 “-ly” adverb and #5 adverbial clause sentence openers can be introduced.

March/April Unit 7: Creative Writing Learning to create an outline from the information in their brain, students discover how to write on a variety of topics related to things they already know. Mature students will learn the Basic Essay model. The tricky #4 “-ing” opener can be introduced along with its grammar rules. The #6 Very Short Sentence pattern is also taught, completing the sentence openers.

April/May Unit 8: Essay Middle and high school students will learn how to write research essays (term papers) using this unit. After all the preparation of Units 1–7, students usually find this manageable. If they have mastered all their dress-ups and sentence openers, decorations are added.

May/June Unit 9: Critique Instead of writing painful book reports, students will discover how to critique a story. If students are ready, some of the advanced style techniques of triples and teeter-totters can be presented and practiced.

Next Year Move through the nine units again using different source materials connected with content areas (history, science, etc.).

This article first appeared in the 2010 Arts of Language Magalog for Families & Groups. © 2010, Institute for Excellence in Writing, L.L.C. The above article is available for your personal use or for distribution. Permission given to duplicate complete and unaltered.

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