Writing Diagnostic Activity

Want to get a feel for where your students are at the beginning of the year but want to avoid the traditional stresses of standardized test situations? This writing diagnostic activity offers high school students 3 different options for a writing task. Guidelines outlined for the writing task will have students focus on argument writing on a topic they feel most passionate about with an emphasis on author's voice, word choice, and tone. In addition to the formal writing task, students are then asked to write to their teacher to address the following:

• reason for choosing the selected prompt
• message conveyed in their essay
• personal feelings about the quality of the essay
• writing challenges they experience

Includes a rubric to guide students in assessing their work as well as provides teachers with grading tool in addition to space for teacher comments for student feedback.