Resources:
Pink and green pens or highlighters
What to do:
- Pupils write on only one side of their exercise books. See Post here…
- Marking is to the planned outcome of the lesson rather than focusing on presentational or secretarial skills, unless these form part of a child’s next steps.
Marking is done by highlighting words, phrases, sentences, punctuation etc in either “green for great” or “pink for think”.
The teacher then writes a green and pink comment on the left hand page, relating to the highlights.
This saves so much time. For example, instead of the teacher writing, “Well done for using powerful adjectives” they can just highlight some examples in green and write “Powerful adjectives” on the left hand page. Similarly, teachers can highlight a section to be re-written, or missing punctuation, etc. in pink and then write a short comment on the left hand page in pink.
The effectiveness lies in creating time for the pupils to respond to the marking, either by themselves or with a peer. This time is not to teach a new concept, but allows children to edit and improve their work according to one small, tight focus. It also allows them to quickly see where they have been successful, and why.
“Green for great” and “Pink for think” might sound faddish, but combining it with time and physical space (children respond on the left hand side so a marking dialogue is created and is consistent across school) is having a real impact on writing in school.
Guest Post by www.twitter.com/rpd1972
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