Self-Assessment Strategies in Writing

This literature review examined various writing strategies to be used in the classroom to build students' meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic awareness through self-assessment. Writing is an increasing concern in today’s classrooms as the academic rigor increases, therefore more must be done to help student writers reach their fullest potential. Self-assessment, is one’s ability to monitor and reflect while completing or looking back on a task. Introductory research was completed to investigate three self-assessment strategies, goal-setting, conferencing, and rubrics. Goal setting was found to help students focus their attention during writing tasks and was found most effective when paired with feedback as is done during conferencing. When students are given choice within their goal, it also increased students’ engagement and dedication to the goal. Conferencing provides an opportunity for students to discuss and revise goals. With the support from a teacher during conferencing, students are able to work at a higher level with feedback that leads to changes in writing behavior. Rubrics, which can also be used as checklists in younger grades, can provide a place for writers to identify good writing and be held accountable for certain writing expectations. When students know the expectations, they feel less uncertain and can build their confidence as writers. Utilizing self-assessment strategies such as goal setting, conferencing, and rubrics in the classroom, students begin to advance the necessary meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic awareness needed to achieve well in writing throughout their years.