That thread on when to write prompted Chris (Roberts/Ohio) to ask a few questions but the annoying security rule thing blocked my answers so I am posting my response to him here so just ignore it.
And Chris by the way I wanted to add that I do believe in writing in the first two years, but only as free writes and some dictation. Just to be clear on that and I would guess you do the same. No more than ten percent at the absolute maximum in my opinion should be devoted to any sort of writing in the first two years.
You asked:
Are they given some sort of prompt for the writing rubric?
And with the speaking rubric?
And what is a reasonable SGO for the speaking rubric in level 1?
Oh, and did this principal respond to you? I’m curious about where this is going.
On the speaking rubric when we first got together to create it about five years ago, we decided to weigh speaking and writing, as output skills, at a lot less than the listening and reading portions of the (DPS) pre and post tests.
I pushed for ten percent each for the output skills, because I knew nobody would go for any lower weights. We ended up, after discussions with each other and the bean counters in the data cubicles downtown, at thirty percent. I know that none of this answers your question but it is the background. Personally, I value early speaking output about as much as I would speaking in a one year old, which is to say not very much.
I am out for break and my computer doesn’t support the SGO application so I can’t quote my speaking SGO. And Diana hasn’t sent my the speaking rubric yet and I can’t find anything on the site but you may look there – I think it can be publicly accessed even if the exams can’t be. Bottom line is that teachers rarely properly assess using the speaking rubric anyway. We have found that the tendency to overate a kid’s speaking in order to get the SGO money is a problem.
And yes, both the writing and speaking are based on prompts. In level one, we give the kids just a static image and they are to create a story from there. In higher levels, they are given a series of four to six images and they must write their story. In speaking, we give them three panels with four images per panel. They come up to us, pick one, and start talking.
When Diana sends me the speaking rubric, now in it’s fourth or fifth year and looking pretty snappy if properly used, I will post it here.
Principal has not responded yet. I don’t really care if she buys into what I say on forced early writing output.