Development and Initial Validation of the Early Elementary Writing Rubric to Inform Instruction for Kindergarten and First-Grade Students

This article describes the development of the Early Elementary Writing Rubric ( EEWR), an analytic assessment designed to measure kindergarten and first-grade writing and inform educators’ instruction. Crocker and Algina’s (1986) approach to instrument development and validation was used as a guide to create and refine the writing measure. Study 1 describes the development of the 10-item measure (response scale ranges from 0 = Beginning of Kindergarten to 5 = End of First Grade). Educators participated in focus groups, expert panel review, cognitive interviews, and pretesting as part of the instrument development process. Study 2 evaluates measurement quality in terms of score reliability and validity. Data from writing samples produced by 634 students in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms were collected during pilot testing. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the EEWR. A one-factor model fit the data for all writing genres and all scoring elements were retained with loadings ranging from 0.49 to 0.92. Internal consistency reliability was high and ranged from .89 to .91. Interrater reliability between the researcher and participants varied from poor to good and means ranged from 52% to 72%. First-grade students received higher scores than kindergartners on all 10 scoring elements. The EEWR holds promise as an acceptable, useful, and psychometrically sound measure of early writing. Further iterative development is needed to fully investigate its ability to accurately identify the present level of student performance and to determine sensitivity to developmental and instruction gains.

Inventing expert in English language arts: A case study of critical literacies in a third grade classroom

Drawing from data generated during the 2016-2017 academic year, this study centred on U.S. children’s design of two critical literacies compositions—a letter to Congress and a persuasive multimodal text. Situated within an integrated unit focused on (im)migrants, children asked legislators to act on the GOP Administration’s proposed border wall and the #MuslimBan. Simultaneously, their teacher took steps to engage students in critical literacies conversations about access in/to the United States. Using a case study design, I investigated the following: How might traditional perceptions of ‘expert’ shift as children engage in critical literacies using varied materials and technologies? Specifically, I highlight how, by engaging an expansive skill set of communicative practices, children designed texts and enacted identities related to civic agency. Through multimodal composing, one nine-year-old white boy exemplified how children highlight knowledge beyond what is captured in a written text. His multimodal response illuminated his deep understanding of the obstacles faced by (im)migrants as they traverse boundaries. To alleviate such challenges, he “invented” both a transportable water filter cup and a fishing tool and engaged in critical making. When provided with opportunities to compose multimodally, the child—a white boy marked as “behind” in literacy—demonstrated rich content knowledge not readily visible in his written responses. His compositions disrupted understandings of expert with regard to elementary writing and critical literacies.

Positioning Teacher Candidates as Self-Regulated, Critically Thinking Learners and Teachers in an Elementary Writing Course With a Tutoring Component

Few interventions attempt to foster teacher candidates' self-regulated learning and teaching roles concurrently. This chapter explores 12 education majors' development of self-regulated, critical thinking skills related to learning and teaching as they participated in an elementary writing methods course with a tutoring component. The instructor of the course devised and offered a four-step model of intervention to stimulate the teacher candidates' self-regulatory dispositions. The teacher candidates perceived their responses to context-specific questions created by the instructor as most beneficial to their development of self-regulated attributes.

Translating processes and elementary writing in German as a foreign language

The article presents the first results of a qualitative research study on writing in a foreign language with the help of Google Translator. It examines the processes of the construction of verbal and discursive forms during group discussion on the translation of a tourist website structures ensuing from a tourist website const. This study took place in the 2013/2014 academic year, and it was based on a video recording of about 12 hours of group work by 16 students while planning and producing a draft of the German translation of the homepage of an Italian tourist site. This study highlights both the advantages and disadvantages of the use of an online translation resource by students with basic knowledge of a foreign language.