“Effective Writing Instruction for All Students” by Steve Graham.

Full Answer Section

• Definition:Feedback is information provided to students about their work that helps them improve.
• Effective Feedback in Writing:Good feedback is specific, actionable, and focuses on both strengths and areas for improvement. It should target writing skills being taught and offer suggestions for revision. Teachers can provide written feedback with comments, use exit tickets to identify common errors, or conduct writing conferences to give personalized feedback.

• Definition:Progress monitoring involves regularly assessing student performance to identify areas of strength and weakness and measure growth over time.
• Monitoring Writing Progress:Teachers can use writing samples, portfolios, checklists, or rubrics to track student progress. Observing students during writing workshops or analyzing common errors in classwork can also be helpful.

• Scaffolding and feedback bridge the gapbetween a student's current ability and their developing writing skills. These supports help students become more independent writers.
• They provide clear targets for improvement.Students receive specific information on what to work on, fostering self-awareness and metacognition (thinking about their thinking).
• They promote student motivation and engagement.Effective feedback and scaffolding acknowledge student effort and growth, encouraging them to persevere in the writing process.

• Professional Development:Engaging in workshops on effective writing instruction, scaffolding strategies, and providing quality feedback strengthens teacher practice.
• Collaboration:Teachers can collaborate and share best practices for scaffolding and feedback within their grade level or school.

Sample Answer

Scaffolding:

• Definition: Scaffolding refers to temporary supports provided by a teacher to help students complete a task they might not be able to do independently yet.
• Application in Writing: Scaffolding can involve providing graphic organizers, sentence starters, rubrics, or checklists to guide students through the writing process. Teachers can model different writing steps, think aloud during planning, or provide sentence frames for specific content.