“Students learn most effectively when they understand what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how they will be able to use their new learning”
Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 34
Sometimes teachers will be explicit about content-based learning intentions and success criteria - but not about literacy-based learning intentions and success criteria.
Three important ways to make sure learning is clear and purposeful for students are through using:
Literacy learning intentions describe the knowledge or strategies students need to develop an aspect of their literacy. Learning intentions should be expressed in language that students understand and should support them in understanding what they are supposed to be doing and why. Ideally students can put learning intentions into their own words.
Literacy success criteria describe how students will go about achieving a learning intention or how they will know when they have learnt it. If students have been involved in the creation of success criteria they are more likely to take more ownership of their learning, be self-evaluative as they are working, and question the assessed work as it evolves.
Literacy exemplars are samples of authentic student work which can be annotated to illustrate levels of achievement. These could be examples of writing tasks, answers to reading tasks, examples of student note-taking or recordings of students explaining reading strategies.
Published on: 08 Jan 2018
