Enhancing Students' Understanding and Revision of Narrative Writing through Self-Assessment and Dialogue: A Qualitative Multi-Case Study

A goal of one particular teacher has been to provide more feedback to her students about their reading and writing. Throughout the first months of the school year, she has worked hard to meet with each student for one-on-one reading and writing conferences. During the third month of school, at a parent-teacher conference, she and the parents of one of her students listen as the student, Noah, reads his personal narrative. Then the teacher shows the student and parents the rubric she used to score Noah's narrative. Noah leans forward to hear what his teacher has to say about his writing. The teacher realizes that, although she has given Noah feedback, it has not been enough. This is the first time Noah has seen and heard a thorough, specific description of how his writing shows the traits of quality narrative writing. This is the first time he has heard a thorough description of the strengths of his writing and of the areas he needs to improve. And now the narrative writing unit is done. The teacher thinks how powerful it would have been for Noah to hear this specific, descriptive feedback while he was working on the narrative draft. What if the teacher had provided the students with the rubric before they wrote their narratives? What if she had involved the students in creating the rubric? What if she had invited students to use the rubric to assess their drafts of writing and to set goals for improving their drafts?Students need to feel ownership of learning goals (Hattie, 2009), and, according to the theory of constructivism, they must take an active role in the learning process (Tracey & Morrow, 2006, p. 47). The teacher/researcher in the present study wondered how much more her students could learn about writing and wondered how much her students' writing might improve if she were to involve students in assessment and in provision of feedback throughout the learning process.Too often, students do not receive enough feedback throughout the learning process. Teachers are setting goals for students and are failing to communicate clearly to students about these goals. They ask students to write stories, and the students do not know what constitutes a quality narrative. Furthermore, teachers ask students to revise their stories, and students simply copy their first drafts and call them final drafts, making few or no improvements.The purpose of the present study was to explore whether the instructional practice of rubric-referenced self-assessment and dialogue with the teacher throughout the writing process enhanced feedback and promoted the ability of fifth grade students to explain the learning targets for writing, set goals, and revise their writing. The study examined the following questions: How will the instructional practice under investigation enhance fifth grade students' understanding of the learning targets for writing and the strengths and weaknesses of their writing in relation to the learning targets? How will the instructional practice under investigation enhance fifth grade students' ability to generate feedback with the teacher and set goals for improvement of their writing? How will the instructional practice under investigation promote fifth grade students' ability to revise and improve their writing? How will the researcher's perception of the instructional practice under investigation change? Prior to the study, the teacher/researcher believed rubric-referenced self-assessment and dialogue with the teacher would enhance the feedback process and promote fifth grade students' ability to explain learning targets, identify the strengths and weaknesses of their writing, set goals, and revise their writing.While this study focused on the use of self-assessment with fifth-grade students, it may be of interest to teachers at all levels as self-assessment with a rubric may be used in elementary school, middle school, high school, undergraduate school, and graduate school. Students at all levels participate in the writing process, and teachers at all levels look for ways they can provide feedback and use formative assessment effectively. …