Every year, at the beginning of the year, we ask our new students to write an essay. We give them texts, a planning sheet, and time. We do not provide any information so we can see where their writing skills lie.
The trouble with this is that students are performing at so many different levels. Some can write paragraphs, but others are still working on writing sentences. And some can already write beautiful multi-paragraph essays. You can imagine the frustration that abounded!
So then what? Well, in years gone by, we would try to provide models of "good writing". However, we found that without direct instruction, it just didn't do the trick. So I went to work to create a real solution.
I began by looking for worksheets that had what I wanted:
1. The skill that was needed
2. A mini-lesson on the worksheet itself
3. Practice items after the mini-lesson
At first, I was able to find some decent sentence writing worksheets, but then as I needed more complex skills, the search became harder and harder.
And then the grading was a nightmare! Plus I didn't really think students were very invested so there wasn't much improvement (if any) and it felt like all of this was for nothing.
So - I started to create my own worksheets with Google Form answer sheets. Students completed the lesson on paper first and then entered in their answers. The spreadsheets from those forms provided amazing data!
Then I leveled and individualized the lessons. This way each student could work on what they needed in the same room at the same time. It was differentiation magic!
Then for the best part - students who scored 80% or better on 3 lessons could move on to the next level. And I would provide encouragement for "leveling up". Soon students were invested and they began to ask to work on these worksheets.
That's how the Leveled Writing Lab was born!
What happened next was that students were actually learning the basic skills they were missing. Frustration levels were also going down because there were more tools in the proverbial toolbox to use!
Gradually, I added things to the system including a writing diagnostic, an enrichment level (for those who mastered the Lab), answer sheets, and progress trackers. We worked in the Lab at least once per week and not only did everyone get what they needed, it made our grade level standards much easier to achieve!
Want to see a FREE SAMPLE? Click here!
I know that the Lab works and with 63 individual lessons on 9 different levels all with Google Form answer sheets + an enrichment level, I also know that it is a HUGE timesaver as well as a differentiation boon.
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