Great Things to Come

I had planned to talk about assessment this week, however, there are some exciting things coming up at school so I will have to put the assessment piece on hold for now.  We have some incredible opportunities for kids this week and the best part is, they are linked thematically and strengthen the work we are doing on assessment (so I guess this does tie in to my assessment theme).

Julie Lawson, a local Victoria author, has written a picture book called "The Dragon's Pearl".  We are fortunate this week to have Julie visit our school on Monday to talk with classes about the book and the writing process.  We will then have the return of the performing group Sun Ergos on Wednesday.  They will be doing a performance of the same Julie Lawson book.  This is a wonderful opportunity to link the book, the author, and a live theatrical production.  Pretty cool for our kids to see these connections.  It doesn't stop there though, as we will be using these two visits as the focus for our School-Wide Write.

Each year, we ask students to provide a writing sample at the beginning of the year and then again in the Spring.  We use a common theme that allows us to see where students are in their writing ability at the start of the year.  Through this assessment we can structure our instruction appropriately for the year and then see how much students have improved by the spring.  This year, we will ask students to provide a persuasive writing sample about what they have experienced this week, specifically, students will be asked to write about whether they preferred the book or the play of the "The Dragon's Tale".  They will choose one side or the other and then provide rationale for their choice.  Teachers will then spend time working together to mark the students work in relation to the British Columbia Performance Standards for Writing.

What an incredible opportunity for linking our learning and showing students the relevance of different forms of writing.  We at David Cameron are fortunate to have such a thoughtful and forward thinking group of educators to provide such seamless learning for our students.