Using Sources Tool (UST)

The National Writing Project’s (NWP) College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) offers teachers a model for analyzing student work with the purpose of guiding instruction to better meet the needs of the students. The Using Sources Tool (UST) is a formative assessment tool that teachers use as part of a cycle of instruction to provide a focused look at the quality of students’ claims and how they select and use evidence from sources. The tool combines a series of scaled questions related to use of source material and a short narrative question to name next instructional steps. The UST is digital tool that can provide whole-class or whole-school data in accessible charts and graphs. The UST is not intended to be used to evaluate individual teachers or to score student writing.The Using Sources Tool is meant to be used collaboratively as part of C3WP Professional Development. Resources for Introducing the UST in professional development can be found here. A team of C3WP teacher-leaders have recently developed an instructional guide and Student Version of the UST to be used in conjunction with the Teacher Using Sources Tool.

The Using Sources Tool (UST) focuses on the quality of students’ claims and how they select and use evidence from sources to support their claims. Using this tool has resulted in lively and productive conversations among teachers, supporting them in identifying next teaching steps for their students. The UST has gone through iterative cycles of use and revision, including use in the i3 CRWP professional development and research study.

Teacher Using Sources Tool: For Use in Professional Development

Student Using Sources Tool: For Use in the Classroom

Student Work

Student work that is annotated and scored with the Using Sources Tool can be found on the pages for Writing into the Day, Connecting Evidence to Claims, Ranking Evidence, and Coming to Terms with Opposing Viewpoints.