Assess Your Response

      Students in 4th grade are expected to draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support their analysis, reflection and research. This is where the Assess Your Response strategy comes in. This is a strategy I practice with students weekly.

The anchor chart to the left shows the three steps to this strategy. I call it the SSP strategy. Whenever students see a constructed response on their test or during a weekly assignment they are to put SSP in the margin of the response. The first step is to STEAL words from the question to restate and answer very simply. Students are not allowed to use "because" in the very first sentence. This comes later. Then a SENTENCE to explain the "Power Word". Last to PROVE their answer with evidence from the text. Once student write their response they Assess their response by using colored pencils to check for the three components of the response.

Red = STEAL
Blue= SENTENCE TO EXPLAIN
Orange= PROVE WITH EVIDENCE


Below you can see the daily Writing goal on the Smartboard and my modeled and guided response.

Here's a sample of students completing one in their notebook.