If your students are feverishly writing novels as fast their little fingers can fly across the keyboards, anxious to meet their
NaNoWriMo word goals by the end of November, you may be wondering how best to assess their work during this glorious month of
literary abandon. Since it may be unrealistic for you to read the complete texts of their novels (I have 98 students writing an average of 15,000 words each, so I don’t plan to read them all cover to cover), I offer you these more realistic assessments:
- have them choose one beautiful line from their writing to be shared publicly (on a blog, on a bulletin board, etc.). If you’d like to make it a more specific assessment, direct them to choose a line with a particularly effective metaphor or powerful imagery.
- give them a grade for making it to their individual goals by November 30. If they don’t make it, give them the percentage that they do achieve. Consider rewarding students who choose but don’t quite make it to an unusually high goal.
- once November is over, have students pull one-two page excerpts that demonstrate certain aspects of narrative writing: dialogue, character development, setting description, conflict, etc., and give them directions for revising those excerpts. Imagine the joy of grading just those short pieces that they have had time to fully polish, rather than tackling pages and pages that they won’t have time to revise.
- assign literary analysis of their own writing. My students have done some work analyzing why
If your students are feverishly writing novels as fast their little fingers can fly across the keyboards, anxious to meet theirNaNoWriMo word goals by the end of November, you may be wondering how best to assess their work during this glorious month of literary abandon. Since it may be unrealistic for you to read the complete texts of their novels (I have 98 students writing an average of 15,000 words each, so I don’t plan to read them all cover to cover), I offer you these more realistic assessments:
