Ceci - I work in Florida and we dual score papers several times a year. The papers we score are written from a prompt. Students don't have to write on the topic of the promt. Often we videotape reading Recovery kids but classroom applications are still in the works over in this neck of the woods. Florida Writes needs practicing for.
Journals go home.
I used to tape record children reading aloud over time to document reading phrasing and fluency. I find I'm getting MUCH better results using the 4 blocks method of modeling on the overhead everyday. My kids used to groan when they had to write. Tx - It seems that writing has become a structured activity in many states. Sometimes I feel a creative writer like Mark Twain would have been downgraded for not following the structred prompt.