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The think-aloud approach to classroom writing assessment is designed to expand teachers’ perspectives on adolescent students as writers and help them integrate instruction and assessment in a timely way. Emphasizing learning over evaluation, it is especially well-suited to revealing students’ strengths and helping them overcome common challenges to writing such as writer’s block or misunderstanding of the writing task. Through classroom examples, Sarah Beck describes how to implement the think-aloud method and shows how this method is flexible and adaptable to any writing assignment and classroom context. The book also discusses the significance of the method in relation to best practices in formative assessment, including how to plan think-aloud sessions with students to gain the most useful information. Teachers required to use rubrics or other standardized assessment tools can incorporate the more individualized think-aloud approach into their practice without sacrificing the rigor and consistency more regulated approaches require.

“Details how both students and teachers can benefit from engaging in this practice, and does so in ways that allow readers to adapt it to their own situations.”
—Peter Smagorinsky, University of Georgia

“This is the first truly new way of thinking about assessing writing that I have encountered in a long time.”
—Heidi L. Andrade, University at Albany–SUNY

“An invaluable guide for using think-aloud formative assessments to gain insight into student writing development. Every high school and college writing instructor should read it!”
—Amanda J. Godley, University of Pittsburgh