There are many assessment tools for middle school writing, including oral reading, journals, literacy logs, conferences, end-of-year tests and benchmark assessments. The type of assessment used in the classroom depends on the school district as well as the teacher's preference. Some assessment tools allow the student to interact with the assessment with teacher guidance while others depend fully on the teacher alone.
When middle school students are learning parts of novels, such as setting, characters and plot, use a literary elements chart to test knowledge prior to and subsequent to reading the novel. This chart, when completed for every novel read, will help assess the student's understanding of literary concepts as well as help the teacher understand where the student is having problems. Using the chart, while time-consuming, is simple when the student understands the concept definitions. If the student does not know the concepts, the teacher will know immediately through these forms and will be able to catch issues early.
The National Staff Development Council supports this type of assessment which has been nationally tested with positive success rates. The students help the teachers evaluate writing, which gives students a chance to recognize mistakes on their own. Through mistake recognition, students learn faster how to correctly write composition. This method trumps the old, "It's wrong because I say so" mentality, where the teacher simply tells the student they are incorrect and expects the student to fix it on their own.
The paragraph-a-week assessment is a year-long assessment. Students write one paragraph every week on any given topic. The paragraphs will either stand alone or string together to make a story depending on teacher preference. Every week, the paragraph is handed in to the teacher, who compares the paragraphs against each other to find any possible writing issues. The teacher has an opportunity to address issues before they become bigger writing problems.