Writing is a basic tool for learning and communicating with others.  It has many facets and develops our critical and creative thinking as well as our communication and collaboration skills.  We all will need to express our ideas and opinions in different forms and genres for different audiences and purposes.  Students need to develop a foundation of the writing process and hone their skills as they explore different types of writing.   The Whole Class Write is a formative assessment designed to gather information about our students' writing skills, establish a starting point for what they can work on next and to help us with individualizing our instruction.  This formative assessment and the tools we created can be used at any time, multiple times, with any topic and the focus for this process is on growth and progress as our learners become stronger writers.​
The topics are generated as such that your students are able to reflect on one or more of the core competencies.  As you determine how you would like to approach the exercise, please remember that gathering information, making connections, collaboratively exchanging ideas are of equal value to the meaning, language features and conventions.   To offer voice and choice, perhaps introduce two or three topic options and/or offer an open-ended topic of interest. 
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The whole class write can follow the stages from our Responsive Literacy Framework (modelled, shared, guided and independent) and we created an example of an interactive delivery option for each of the different phases of writing development. 

Modelled
Modelled writing is where the teacher demonstrates the process thinking aloud as they reveal key decisions as they generate ideas and develop those ideas in written form.  The modelling provides a clear responsive model for students to learn from, replicate and adapt.  The thinking is to be transparent and as the steps of the writing process are explicitly demonstrated, the product can be used as a reference tool (or model text) for students ​
Shared or Interactive
Shared or Interactive Writing is where the teacher and students work together to compose text.  The teacher is the scribe for the process and talks about their own experiences.  As students help compose and later reread the writing, they internalize conventions, patterns, vocabulary and specific genre features.  As student and teacher share the writing process, students will be able to borrow ideas from the share writing piece or use it as a mentor text to enrich and expand their writing.  ​
Guided
Guided writing is a needs-based group and by observing and conferring teachers can determine who will benefit from the small group guided writing.  Once in the small groups, the teachers can observe closely and offer specific personalized feedback and provide explicit teaching tailored to the needs of the writers.  Some focuses for guided writing can be generating, developing  the idea, sentence structure and/or paragraphing or conventions.  
Independent and Conferring
Independent writing is structured time that provides students with ongoing opportunities to develop their writing skills.  Students engage in all aspects of the process from drafting to refining to editing to publication as they select their own topics, genre; develop vocabulary and structures; and play with audience and voice.   Conferring with students as they write individualizes the process and feedback as students demonstrate growth over time.  ​

​**Thank you to Francie Cutler and Ellen Thomas for their ​time and efforts in the collaboration to update the Whole Class Writing Assessment.  If you have feedback, please send it to sbelshaw@sd22.bc.ca
  The WCWA repository has delivery options, topics and assessment tools for each grade level for our middle years. 
Here you will find SD22's Responsive Literacy Framework with links and videos to and about the various stages of the framework.

***Draft
We collated a series of subject area proficiency teacher and self assessment tools for you to use and adapt.
We have put together a page about the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment kit.  You will find introductory videos, a how to kit and links to various pertinent web pages.
We have gathered a series of templates and learning experiences for a number of the comprehension and writing strategies to use with the Whole Class Write or to further develop each student's individual writing processes.
This page will have Information for PM Benchmarks and other applicable resources.​