Analytical Writing for NBPTS Portfolio Success

In this post I will be discussing the second and most important writing style necessary for producing a portfolio that shows convincing evidence toward meeting the rubric bullets. 

In Component 1 analytical writing is used in the PPG to “dissect the scene” for each PGE.   In addition, you will use analytical writing to demonstrate, with evidence, that your learning experiences (and goals) are appropriate in both Component 2 and 3. Your analytical writing will showcase what your students’ performance suggests about your teaching. Through your analysis, you will clarify why you made the decisions you made and why you interpret student growth or lack of growth (with the support of evidence) relative to your choices in the lesson. This analytical writing is extremely important for the assessor to understand the why, in what ways, and how questions related to each PGE. You are using the evidence of learner work to explain and illustrate your practice while also using your practice to explain and provide a context for the learner work.

Important things to remember about analytical writing in the National Board Renewal Process:

1. Use analysis to explain to the assessor what you know about your students before the learning begins, during and after. What did you learn about the students from the instruction highlighted?
2. Analysis will always lead to you adjusting your teaching based on the information you learn from analyzing your teaching and their learning.
3. Your analysis should reflect an ongoing assessment of your teaching and learning goals/objectives in a formative manner (beginning, middle, and end of instruction sequence)
4. Phrases that may be used...

• When my student _____ I ____ to ______
• This evidence informs me that…
• Based on my observation...
• The connection between ____ and ____ is...

5. You MUST analyze your work for the assessors. They cannot judge your work alone to meet the full renewal rubric.  You must provide the interpretation because they aren’t allowed to infer on their own.  Assessors are trained to look for evidence and measure the clear, concise, and convincing nature of that evidence through your analysis of the teaching and learning.  Make sure you provide it!

Join the MOC #GetItDone Bootcamp for a complete walk through of the different writing styles for NBPTS and a copy of your very own analytical and reflective stems.

Here is the beginning of example 2 of analytical writing (underlined text) given in the NBPTS general portfolio instructions.