by Claudia Loewenstein

Recently, I found myself emptying out the team chocolate jar after I had snapped at a student during third period, glared at my department chair in the afternoon for calling a meeting, and landed in the doghouse for barking at my significant other. Looking down at a fistful of chocolate, I realized, “Hey, I’m stressed.” It was comment writing time; need a private school teacher say more?
We’ve all sat at the computer as the clock ticked away, another thirty-seven reports still to write, stuck on a student without any good idea of what to say. I believe every teacher would agree: writing a first-rate report is an arduous task that leaves most of us tired and cranky.

As a diligent teacher, I know I should come up with something original for each student, but how can I accomplish this task without being overwhelmed? How can I create a comment that is more than just data-reporting and produce it at a faster speed?   This article lays out some of the crucial elements I have found helpful in streamlining the report writing process.

Comment writing is one key element that sets us apart from public schools. Families expect individualized reporting on their children, and every time we sit down to write a comment, we are crafting a health report and prognosis on their child.  Is he/she going to make it? Is my child intelligent enough? We expect our doctors to diagnose us carefully, and families and parents expect the same professional treatment from their children’s educators. Comments are the primary liaison between the school and families, and the expectation is that we take the responsibility of conveying our expertise seriously.

At the Greenhill School we essentially have two different kind of reports: the academic comment that details the academic standing of a child (reports on every student in our subject); and an “advisory report” (teachers are assigned an average of 15 advisees each) that paints a comprehensive picture of a student’s participation in the school community, acknowledges achievements, and outlines the student’s academic and social trends. 

For the academic comment I use two key resources:  a set of Greenhill School exemplars and a student goal-setting form that I developed for my courses (Spanish and French) which can be adapted for use in all subjects. Using the combination of exemplar and goal-setting self-assessment sheet allows me to sit down in front of the computer with a template and produce the writing effortlessly. The objective is to create an exceptionally personalized report on every student in a reasonably short time.

Tool # 1. The Greenhill School Middle School Exemplars:
The exemplars are a set of rubrics developed to arm teachers with a language and a structure to help guide them in writing the progress of a student; an attempt to codify the expectations of our students in ideal terms. The question kept in mind while crafting the criteria was to define excellence in four categories:

• Content and Skills
• Critical Thinking
• Study Skills and Work Ethic
• Engagement and Comportment

Within this framework of skills and values, there are lists of phrases for each category that teachers can adapt for their comments. To achieve this representative list of standards, the process required that all teachers within each department come together and define and break down the standards of excellence. Afterwards, each department coordinator and select administrators, along with the head of academic curriculum compiled the elements and created a generic rubric that would cut across the entire academic curriculum. The following is the result of the Middle School’s work- the exemplar content took about a year for our school to develop.

Greenhill School MS Exemplars

1. Content and Skills
• Understands topics and processes thoroughly and complexly
• Integrates and applies skills
• Performs processes without significant error
• Provides correct and relevant evidence/supportive materials
• Speaks, writes, and presents clearly, precisely, and directly with an appropriate sense of audience
  
  
2. Critical Thinking
• Evaluates, interprets, organizes, analyzes, and synthesizes material in appropriately meaningful ways
• Articulates an emerging understanding of abstract concepts
• Considers different perspectives
• Extends existing understandings and applies themto new situations
• Formulates strategies appropriate to challenges
• Pays attention to details
  
  
3. Study Skills and Work Ethic
• Works independently
• Prepares consistently, engages in routine review, follows directions, and manages time wisely
• Demonstrates active listening, reading, and note-taking skills
• Takes initiative by consulting notes, text, or teacher
• Attempts higher level skills on own volition
• Utilizes reference materials to research, find, understand, organize, and present
• Strives for accuracy and precision
• Uses systematic processes to develop and refine work
• Harnesses technology tools effectively and appropriately
  
  
4. Engagement and Comportment
• Values process as well as product
• Responds with wonder and awe
• Enjoys challenge and takes risks
• Reacts resolutely to setbacks
• Reflects, creates, imagines, and innovates
• Learns interdependently  and helps others do so as well
• Treats others with respect, understanding, and empathy
• Manages impulsivity

Using the four exemplar categories listed above as a checklist conveniently organizes my report to address the skills and standards that our school has identified as important. I pull phrases directly from the exemplars to give me a lexicon for expressing these values. Below are three excerpts from Samantha’s French language comment showing how I might use the exemplar. The portions in italics are the phrases from the exemplar list that I’ve incorporated and adapted into the comment. They are drawn from all four exemplar categories.

• Study Skills and Work Ethic: Samantha continues to demonstrate a strong work ethic and is increasingly proving to be an independent worker. She takes initiative by consulting me in study halls and uses the independent study hall time to her benefit.
  
  
• Critical Thinking/ Content and Skills:  I know that the translation work has not come easily, and at times synthesizing all the elements (pronouns, verb tenses and idioms etc.) at once has been challenging. Her improved score on her latest assessment proves she is resolute in her response to setbacks and keeps working to formulate strategies that will help her retain and extend her understanding of the grammar.

I also link these exemplar phrases to my second resource tool - the goal setting student self-assessment questionnaire that I developed to help me individualize the reports. The excerpt below combines the student’s input on the goal-setting with the exemplar elements.

• Engagement and Comportment: Samantha is proving to be a student who truly loves the study of languages with an exceptional depth. On her self-assessment she writes about being drawn to the French language, even at a young age, and loves the way it sounds. She consistently demonstrates this excitement and intrigue with the cultural and linguist aspects of the course.

Tool #2. How to use the Goal Setting Student Self-Assessment
The progress report, after all, tells the story of our students and what could be more personal and more powerful than using the student’s own words to narrate his or her own growth? 
The goal-setting questionnaire provides me with information from students giving me insights into their previous experiences with the subject. They write about their study habits, which informs me a lot about their work ethic. Students identify their perceived strengths and areas of challenge. Finally, the goal-setting form requests that students identify two academic goals with a proposed study strategy they will follow to achieve these goals.

Responding to the questions on the questionnaire requires that the students analyze themselves. I use the responses for quotes on my students’ struggles, triumphs, study habits and engagement; incorporating their words immediately transforms the common progress report into an irrefutable story. Conveying personal details found on their response sheets will show the families exactly what they seek; clear proof that as their child’s teacher, I really know their child. Moreover, doing the work on the front end with the self-assessment forms (I’ll detail this process,) these anecdotes are collected, packaged, and ready-to-write when I face crunch time and exhaustion, allowing me to create quality reports without spending an unreasonable amount of time on them.
Here is an example from my 8th grade Spanish class of how the process might work- my goal-setting questionnaire can be modified to use in any subject:

“Robert” had started out with an “A” first term, demonstrated a good ear for the language, and was very capable. His score had dropped from “A” range to “B” by mid-year and his parents (highly involved) were upset with him and -more to the point- upset with me! They came in to see me after I had sent home the progress report. When they came in to speak with me, I pulled out Robert’s self-assessment form and pointed to the responses he’d written:

Work preparation:  Describe your work ethic from last year. How much did you study/what strategies did you use? DESCRIBE in DETAIL:

• I did study a little but not much, I used flash cards rarely, but more just glancing through the book. I still received “A” all year.

I was able to explain on his comment that last year’s study technique -“glancing through the text” - was not sufficient now that the work had become more challenging. When the parents read Robert’s self-assessment, they understood why his scores dropped. This is where both teacher and school benefit from this approach to comment writing; parents may disagree with our opinions, but won’t argue with their child’s self-assessment.

As anybody who works with thirteen and fourteen year olds can tell you, they deliver amazingly frank answers and are strikingly candid about their shortcomings.  When we use these self-revelations in our comments, we demonstrate as teachers that we understand their child’s uniqueness. I cull some of my richest details from their responses to the following open-ended question: What would you like me to know about you?

Some sample student comments:

1. “I day dream a lot”
2. “I’m not good at Spanish and I don’t like being put on the spot”
3. “I love dogs”
4. “I am dyslexic and it (Spanish) is my hardest subject”
5. “I often live at my potential in the first trimester but have a crash landing in the second”

Robert’s responses to this question were succinct:

1. “I am easily distracted”
2. “I procrastinate”

With this divulging of information, I proposed Robert move his seat, use the planner etc.  The point is students are good at identifying issues and it wasn’t too hard to make my case to his parents. What’s more, Robert’s owning-up to his shortcomings helped me individualize the remedial action.

For goals and formulating study strategies, Robert wrote:

Goals: Name two specific things you hope to achieve this term?

• Goal 1: “Get an A+ in the class”
  
  
• Goal 2: “Don’t forget to study or do homework”

How do you hope to achieve your two goals? Go step by step and explain what you plan to do:

• Goal1: “Study a bit each night to remember what you learned that day and have it stick with you. Before quizzes and tests, practice over and over until the answers are instinct.”
  
  
• Goal 2 : "Write in my planner every class"

From the mouths of babes; I couldn’t have said it better!  If the study plans and improvements come from their own words, rather than mine, it’s very powerful. When I wrote his report I was able to say that Robert should follow his own excellent advice and he would surely see the results that he wanted. The fact is, in the majority of cases, the students can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and propose great solutions for themselves. My job is to remind them to execute what they already know.

Timing this self-assessment exercise is important. I have students fill out the goal setting sheet shortly before I begin the report writing but I allow enough time to read through them so if any issues arise, or their answers don’t provide me with enough details (this is inevitable with some students) I discover this before I am home staring at the computer screen. Insufficient student information can lead to that dreaded time-wasting or, worse, writer’s block.

While the answers are helpful to the teacher, responding to the form also serves as a useful exercise for the student as well, in that it:

• Devotes class time for a student to stop and reflect on how they are approaching their studies.
• Pin-points specific areas of challenge/difficulty/strength
• Details a student’s study habits
• Encourages students to sharepersonal frustrations
• Reveals personal interests
• Establishes personal goals
• Requires students to formulate study strategies to meet their goals and forces them to take ownership of why they may be falling short of these goals.

When I first started the technique, I handed out the forms to be filled out at home. But when I got them back, there were far too many deficient responses of “Yup! Nope!” So initially, the goal-setting sheet did not alleviate the difficulty of comment writing. However, I found that allotting a full class where students fill out the form during the class period as they would any important in-class assignment or assessment helps students take the goal-setting seriously. I can get the student to dig deep by teaching them how to answer the questions. Being specific and providing concrete examples on how to set goals will result in the kind of answers that have more meat. I ask them point blank if they were writing a report about themselves, what would they like their parents and families to know? I collect all their responses and put them in a binder (alphabetized) and have had many occasions to use these in addition to comment writing. The questionnaires have served as a useful resource during parent conferences and also in learning assistance meetings.

I presented the technique to our faculty in an informal seminar and a fair number opted to try out the goal-setting sheet along with the exemplars. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. One faculty member remarked that she had “such rich content to draw from” as she read over the self-assessments and virtually all remarked how much easier it was to write the report.

Now that I’ve streamlined the comment writing process with the exemplars to help structure expectations and tweaked the goal-setting sheets to create personal stories, I am considering some additional improvements for next year.

Time-saver: I plan on having students respond to the questionnaire on-line and save their responses on a common drive. When I am ready to write out the reports I will be able to pull up the individual documents and cut and paste their quotes directly, a step that will hopefully cut time even more.

Self-Advocacy Tool: Students fill out the goal-setting forms once a term, but I never tried having an official check-point, where midway, the student sits in class and rereads his plans. I am hoping by this additional interval, a student will be reminded of his goals and redirect himself if necessary, or have occasion to feel great if they are on-point.

Framing Thought: I am also considering creating a list of exemplars for students that will give them a language with which to express themselves and help shape their thinking, in the same way we did for teachers. Laying out a structure and providing words to help them identify their growth will yield an in-depth self reflection that makes their self-assessments a truly powerful tool for teachers, students, and for their families.
In this article I have reviewed how the exemplars and goal-setting self-assessment forms increase the quality of the comments and decrease time spent on writing. These techniques offer us additional benefits including greater insight into our students’ perspective and a reduction in teacher stress. The goal-setting exercise closes the circle of parent/teacher/student communication, as evidenced with Robert’s parents. They questioned my report until they read their child’s own words on the self-assessment and we all came away from the meeting with a satisfying sense of full communication and understanding. As teachers, it is important to know that we are all (students, parents, and teachers) on the same page, which is why comments were developed in the first place. The exemplars and goal-setting sheets allow comments to fulfill that potential.

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