Students, therefore, know exactly what to do in order to write well. Students and teachers work together to design coaching rubrics for specific written assignments found in the first four units of Literacy Place . After the coaching rubrics are developed, the students apply them to their own written work in order to revise and edit. When they are satisfied that they have written their best, each student works with the teacher to continue the process until he or she has achieved high quality written work when compared to the rubric. They use the scientific method to explain their work in lab reports which are used school-wide.
Younger children explain their reports orally or make a group report with the help of their teacher.
The older children write their own lab reports and are evaluated with a ten point scoring rubric. The children participated in a pre-implementation assessment in October of 1999. They performed an experiment and were asked by interviewers to make a lab report. As expected, most of the children did not mention the key elements of the scientific method. After doing lab reports on a regular basis, it is expected that the children will be far more knowledgeable when they do the post assessment in May of 2000.