Exemplars: Developing Writers Series, K-4

Exemplars Developing Writers series helps children become effective writers. It is used for assessment, instruction and professional development.

Developing Writers, K-4 gives teachers and administrators - and students - a way of assessing students' writing and communication skills. It can stand alone or be integrated into your existing curriculum to facilitate both assessment and instruction. Scaffolded instruction (leading to the assessment) is a central element.

Our Developing Writers, K-4 series includes Bookmarks: Responding to Text, and Bookmarks: Narratives as well as the introductory guide Writing is Elementary: Teaching Young Children to Write.

Material includes:

Classroom-tested performance tasks
Scaffolding of instruction: whole-class modeling, guided practice and independent writing
Rubrics
Annotated student benchmark papers
Alignments to state and provincial standards

The rubrics and benchmark papers provide teachers with a way to assess student performance and for students to self-assess their own work.