Welcome Stephanie from Falling into First: Illustration Rubric!

Hey all!! This is Stephanie from Falling Into First and I'm super excited to be guest blogging today!!

I heart Lacey's blog and I know you all do too, so we all already have that in common :)

Today I want to share with you all something new I will be implementing in my classroom this year! It's the first of many self assessment writing rubrics I will be teaching my first graders how to use. I'm on the curriculum committee at my school and one of our big goals for next year is to improve writing at all grade levels K-8. As part of this process, something we would like to see happen is to have teachers post exemplar writing pieces in their classrooms to show students what our expectations are for great writing. We also want to promote the habit of self assessment.

The more we talked about it the more I thought wow, why haven't I thought of this before?! Hollar if you're a visual learner!! I know I am. I know most of my kids are too. So why not give them clear visuals that show them exactly what it is I'm asking them to do?!

As with anything, the concept of self assessment and rating their own work is going to have to be introduced slowly with lots of modeling on my end. So to start off the year I created this. Meet my Illustration Rubric.

Yep, I'm the budding artist of these three masterpieces :)

The first quarter of first grade is NOT the best time to try and teach my kiddos how to evaluate their own writing. We're too busy learning the basics: writing from left to right, using proper spacing, using nice hand writing, and learning the pieces of a complete sentence. But from day one regardless of if a student is willing to write one word or 40 words,  I have them add illustrations to their writing. They illustrate all year however, I still have kids trying to turn in pencil colored bare bone illustrations in May. {This. Drives. Me. Loco.} But hopefully, this year will be different!

Here are some close ups of each exemplar on my Illustration Rubric. 

           (1- Scribble city! Look familiar?)

(2- This one is on the right track...)

           (3- And this is what I'm looking for!!)

I also made this to help teach my kids HOW to draw people.

As the year goes on I will begin to introduce samples of 1, 2, 3, and 4 pieces of writing . By the time we get there I think my kids will have a firm grasp on how to use a rubric to check their work. I also think the Illustration Rubric will be a great way to begin conversations about adding details and defining what details are.

If you think you can use either of these tools in your classroom then you can download the templates for free HERE in my TPT shop. 

I would love to hear how you use self assessment strategies in your classroom or what your thoughts are on it!

Thanks to all of you for checking out my guest spot today!  I hope you will remember to come by and visit me sometime. And a big thank you again to Miss. Lacey for letting me fill in!!