DWA

All of the 6th, 8th, and 11th graders in the Boise District take a Direct Writing Assessment.  One Monday and Tuesday this week, I joined with 15 other teachers to score the sixth graders' writing.  They had 90 minutes to write an essay on a place in or near Boise that they like to visit.  We read a lot of papers on the mall, Whahooz, Roaring Springs, and Bogus Basin.  You could tell the socioeconomic conditions of the school by the topics.  Some were writing about McCall, Tamarak, and rafting the Payette, while others talked about a hole in the dirt out by the parking lot where they played with little cars and army men.  I was struck by the fact that 95% (or more) of the papers mentioned food.  I guess all 12 year olds are hungry.  I loved the ones that wrote about riding bikes along the greenbelt (and stopping at the Ram for lunch), floating the Boise River (and taking a picnic), and playing in trees, ponds, and ditches of their neighborhood parks (and taking snacks).  The highest scoring paper in my class was written about Blue Cow, a frozen yogurt place.  Some of the other interesting papers were about Mountain Home (?), Chuck-a-Rama, and Vista Pawn.  It was great peeking inside their minds for two days.