Description of Assessments

      The 6 + 1 Writing Trait rubric (1999, revised, Appendix A) is a research-based

assessment that was developed by “teachers in Oregon and Montana, based on work by

Deidrich (1974), who identified five characteristics of writing during his examination of

detailed reviews of student writing” (Coe, Hanita, & Smiley, 2011, p. 4).  The rubric

eventually became 6 + 1 traits because “presentation” was added in 1999. The six core

traits on the rubric are: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and

conventions.

     Students initially used Todd Sundeen’s graphic organizer (2007, Appendix C) to format 

and organize their ideas. However, they could add more supporting paragraphs than his

template provides.  I collected the graphic organizers from students in order to respond to

the content and organization of their ideas. I designed a rubric to assess students’ ideas

and organization in their graphic organizers.

     The Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw & Dennison, 1994, Appendix E) is a 52

item inventory that assesses three types of cognitive knowledge (declarative, procedural,

and conditional) as well as regulation of cognition through use of planning, information

management, comprehension monitoring, debugging, and evaluation strategies. This

inventory is designed for older learners. Students answer “true” or “false” to listed

statements. They can score themselves and gain insight into their own strengths and

weaknesses.

     All students in the class received the treatment, though only six students representative

of the class were studied and their data analyzed.