Co-presenter: Dr. Thomas Philion, Chair of Chicago Area Writing Project Advisory Board; Chair, Department of Teacher Preparation, Roosevelt University, Chicago

Before one plans local assessments, it is important to examine profile data to identify student performance areas revealed as most wanting. After examining our student performance data, we decided to focus our school improvement efforts on: 1) vocabulary for reading and 2) organization and support/elaboration for writing. These areas became our student performance goals. We developed schoolwide interventions to help us improve performance in these areas and assessments to gauge student progress.

We involved all curricular areas in our efforts, since reinforcement in these areas would enhance student performance on the assessments. We developed binders for every teacher with applicable handouts, lessons, and strategies to reinforce our reading and writing student performance goals. We asked teachers in all content areas to periodically submit examples of student-generated work related to our goals' strategies.

Our reading goal chair, along with teachers in each curricular area, generated lists of content area vocabulary words/terms for student learning and assessment.

For writing, we developed a writing sample assessment that focused on "organization" and "support/elaboration." We originally tried assessments from prompts developed in each content area but found that this was not manageable. We now give these writing prompts through our English classes. Each year, the district has paid English teachers to evaluate our writing assessments. We use a rubric patterned on our state writing rubric, but focusing on "organization" and "support/elaboration." Before evaluation takes place, there is a training session for writing sample evaluators and a system in place to maximize inter-rater reliability.

To help our teachers understand the interconnectedness between reading and writing, we invited Dr. Philion, Chair of the Chicago Area Writing Project Advisory Board, to provide an in-service for our teachers. In addition, the district instituted a cadre of reading specialists whose sole job was to work with individual departments on content area reading. This has been replaced by a focus on CRISS training ("Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies"). We now have a district-wide, certified CRISS trainer who provides training sessions for teachers. This is an excellent program.

Now in the last year of our school improvement cycle, I realize the wisdom of what I once found somewhat cliché: what one learns throughout this continuous school improvement cycle is as valuable as the results. Much of what my team and I learned, along with Dr. Philion's expertise on the reading/writing connection, will be shared during our presentation at the NCA CASI Annual Meeting on Monday, March 29, 2004, at 1:30 p.m.

e-NEWS: December 2003 Issue