I must begin by stating what I say to my students on the topic of grading: “Grades are earned, not given.” Of course, as we all know and as is indicated in the text from Nitko and Brookhart, grading is subjective to a degree yet, as long as one’s assessments are well planned and appropriate measures have been taken to ensure their reliability, that degree is minimal and acceptable based on the “consistency and fairness in [his/her] professional judgment” (43). However, especially because English is seen as a more subjective discipline than math, for example, students are popularly of the opinion that their grades in English are determined largely by their teachers’ personal—rather than professional—opinions. This misunderstanding undermines the importance of building and improving upon their literacy skill-sets, trivializes the knowledge to be gained through the study of literature, and diminishes students’ sense of agency. So, it is against this presumption that I so adamantly insist that “grades are earned, not given.”
That said, the grades I “give” are numeric, 0-100, with anything below a 65 indicating course failure or “F.” A “D,” then, is any grade between 65-69. Students whose grades are in the 70’s have earned “C’s.” Grades in the 80’s are “B’s.” A 90 or above is an “A.” Because our system at Brockport High School is numeric, there is little distinction made between pluses and minuses but I personally apply the sensibility that from 0-2 at any level, e.g. 80-82, is a minus while 7-9, e.g. 87-89, is a plus. Notably, we do offer many Advanced Placement courses to our students and participate in a 3-1-3 program with SUNY Brockport, which is designed to give students a head start on their post-secondary education though three years of high school and a year of combined high school and college work, making a four-year degree achievable in only three years thereafter. Because classes for these programs are considered to be at the college level, the correspondence of letter and number grades shifts somewhat. Our high school multiplies students’ grades in these courses by 1.05 for the purposes of class rank. Meanwhile, when teachers report letter grades to the college for 3-1-3 students, SUNY Brockport provides a different conversion chart. Until I begin teaching AP Language and Composition in the fall of our next school year, however, I can comment more meaningfully on the previously described grade ranges.
In my Regents level English courses, I generally consider it to be as difficult to fail as it is to get an “A” based on a reasonable amount of effort and participation. That is, students whose attendance falls within the acceptable range determined by our school board (which includes being present in class at least 85% of the time) and who regularly complete class and homework assignments can expect to pass but should not necessarily consider themselves to be successful in the class until other habits, knowledge, and skills have been demonstrated as well. Indeed, a “D” grade is an indication that the student is performing in the borderline range and has likely earned credit based primarily on effort while struggling to achieve many (but not all) of the other standards. To earn a “C” or grade in the 70’s, however, a student’s performance must observably, measurably indicate evident ability in each of the four standard areas defined by the state. Since I teach upperclassmen, students cannot earn a “C” or higher if this is not done at the intermediate level. Once I have obtained evidence of students’ development or mastery at the commencement level, their grades obviously improve to the extent that developing students earn a “B” while those demonstrating mastery will get an “A.” The difference between these levels of performance is included in a thorough description of all the state standards on the New York State Education Department website at http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/ela/pub/elalearn.pdf.
Using the suggested evidence of listening and speaking for standard two, literary response and expression, I cite the following example to demonstrate and clarify how students’ grades relate to what they can and cannot do. In an analytical response to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, a failing student may or may not participate in the assessment. He or she may confuse or lack details that convey any knowledge of the text. A “D” student may correctly identify the use of foreshadowing in the text but fail to anchor his/her interpretation to its use, whereas a “C” student would make the connection. Because students at the commencement level are expected to not only consider genre and literary elements but also context and milieu in their analyses, a “B” student might acknowledge a greater number of elements in his/her interpretation and situate the novella in the Great Depression. An “A” student would effectively anchor his/her interpretation using a variety of literary elements and distinguish the text, identifying it as an example of Depression-era literature, from a piece of literature written in another period or tradition. Differences in grades might also be considered in terms of the taxonomies we have discussed in class. Just as the dimensions of cognition increase in difficulty from knowledge to evaluation according to Bloom, students’ grades improve based on their demonstrated ability to do more complex thinking. By this notion, students who struggle with synthesis or evaluation should not expect an above average grade of “B” or “A.”
Referring to Figure 15.3 on page 339 of the text, I disagree with Nitko and Brookhart regarding some of the uses of grades attributed to different stakeholders, especially since there is no distinction made between what is and is not appropriate. For example, I hardly think it is a semantic argument to say that administrators may consider a teacher’s assessment practices in judging his/her competence or fairness but should never use one’s students’ grades for such purposes—unless, perhaps, the administrators hope to invite unwarranted inflation of those grades! On the other hand, parents largely lack the education, experience and knowledge of the profession to judge a teacher’s competence or fairness in any way, let alone based on something like grades, which is the reason for the extensive certification requirements of teachers and for the democratic election of school board officials to oversee/approve the hiring and firing of educational professionals. Another problem I have with Figure 15.3 is the limited scope of students’ usage for grades, which does not include much of the reflective use that should be of primary importance to them. However, I do not disagree with any of the uses that are included as being of likely use to the them and I believe that my grading does especially encourage reaffirmation of what is already known about classroom achievement as well as documenting one’s progress. This is true because I provide timely and extensive qualitative feedback on students’ strengths and weaknesses. This is communicated via written comments and one-on-one conferencing in conjunction with numeric grades that make charting one’s progress relatively easy to accomplish for the student as well as for parents and school administrators.
In terms of how well my grading system fulfills the needs of parents, I have difficulty reconciling my ideal of how parents should use grades with the reality. I agree with the text that some parents put too much emphasis on grades, harmfully exerting pressure on and diminishing the agency of their children but disagree that the concern is more or less warranted based on the frequency of its occurrence (341). Again, because I teach upperclassmen, I hope to encourage a more reflective consideration of grading by the students themselves. While I understand and, to a reasonable degree, support parents’ assignment of extrinsic punishment and reward based on their children’s academic performance, I do not think that my grades are outwardly meaningful enough to be used in that purpose. If a parent is in contact with me regarding his/her child’s behavior in my class, apparent effort toward or prioritization of learning the skills and content being taught, and/or specific strengths and weaknesses, I fully support them in deciding positive or negative consequences accordingly. However, judging by the number itself without a thorough understanding of what was being assessed is inappropriate. I do not believe my grades are any more or less effective in fulfilling that need than any other teacher’s may be. On the other hand, because my grades jive with the expectations of my district and state, I have less difficulty supporting the use of my grades by counselors or administrators to determine eligibility for extra-curricular participation or to make decisions regarding course placement and fulfillment of graduation requirements.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
I Personally Believe...
I personally believe that conversations about education have become too narrow. In search of the often promised but ever-elusive panacea, educational reformers like pharmaceutical companies do not seem to recognize the irony in their campaigns for new approaches, which seem at best to replace one set of symptoms with another. It is sometimes difficult for educators, those new to the profession especially, to cut through the jargon and define what it is they do and, more importantly, why. Assessment is one area in which teachers may find themselves struggling to make meaning under the constant barrage of new terminology. I personally believe that until each has determined how assessment fits into his/her greater philosophy, it is impossible to explain how it is used responsibly and ethically in the classroom. I hope that I have succeeded in doing this for myself. While I am well aware of the state standards for secondary English Language Arts and the specific grade-level goals set by members of our district faculty and staff for the classes I currently teach, I cannot say that these are the anchors of my instruction. I teach not standards but students and the majority of my planning time is spent on reflection about the aspects of environment and experience that I can create for them or control to some extent. I do assess my students regularly and I recognize the importance of using responsibly the information thereby collected but I do not consider myself worthy, willing or even able to measure the immense potential of each student nor the ultimate value of the skills and content that I have to share with them.
That said, I do not disagree with Nitko and Brookhart’s definition of the six categories of responsibility for teachers with regard to assessment. However, admittedly, I take the most pleasure in the first half of the listed assessment-related activities: crafting, choosing and administering assessment procedures. The latter activities dealing with the results are no less important but, I think, tainted too often by those salespeo—reformers aforementioned. Because I teach primarily high school juniors and it has become customary for students to take the Comprehensive Regents Examination in English at the conclusion of that school year, it has been suggested to me from the start of my career that I borrow significant procedural influence from the exam. Indeed, every single exam administered since the redesign of the test in the late 1990’s is readily available online for the taking. My students would certainly gain considerable access to novel, developmentally-appropriate literature from various authors in multiple genres through my choice of such assessment procedures. Also, they would have ample opportunity to write for the variety of purposes outlined in the state standards if they were frequently administered versions of this exam. Included along with the test materials are the instructions for exam proctors and the anchor papers, sample responses and scoring rubrics that correspond to each essay question. It could all be so easy. However, so much of what I love, which is very much—however immeasurably—a factor in the quality and relevance of instruction that my students receive is lost by relying so entirely on an exam that focuses only on standards and not on environment and experience, only on literacy and not on literature itself, the medium through which the human experience is shared. So, I have limited the influence of the Regents on my teaching. I address it, because I would be remiss in my duties if I did not acknowledge it, and I have crafted parallel tasks that resemble but require more than Regents essays and I focus a great deal of my energy on giving students sufficient information to know the difference between what we have done in class over the course of the year and what will need to be done on the test over the course of two days in June.
Indeed, of all the specific responsibilities that Nitko and Brookhart enumerate, I think that the most important and the area in which I most excel is in approaching assessments as “opportunities for students to demonstrate their maximum performance” and in communicating that philosophy and the “basic information about the assessment” to my students (80). I highly agree with the authors about what constitutes the basics, with some reservations about how much to share regarding the content to be assessed and what will be emphasized. I find that one major factor affecting student performance in school, not only on assessments but in a more generalized attitudinal approach to school, is the expectation that all learning activities are used by teachers to catch them doing something wrong, not reading a book, etc. It is important that we combat their anxieties with affirmation that we are looking forward to a demonstration of their strengths—an important distinction made in the text between maximum and typical performance (312). One of the most effective ways to do this, I have found, is to share with students the grading checklists and/or rubrics associated with the assessment beforehand. Once students begin to trust that my goal is not to trick them, it is safer to invest in being successful, which results in more accurate demonstrations of their knowledge and skills to be used in making decisions with students’ grades.
Still, I have come to detest grading and I do not think I am alone, although relatively few teachers may openly admit it since it is so popularly misattributed to laziness. Truly, this aversion stems mainly from the abuses of assessment results by others. While I enjoy seeing what my students do with the materials and instruction I offer in my classroom and I do believe that I responsibly assess their performance using effective tools and methods, absent from the discussions I have with my students about their assessments and how they are graded, others are not always equipped to interpret student grades meaningfully. Nitko and Brookhart assert that it is the teacher’s responsibility to communicate proper interpretations of assessment results with parents and school authorities, and to do so frequently (92). It is with this part of the job description that I greatly disagree. The text acknowledges that these parameters may be set by school policy but the only example of inappropriate frequency is daily reports for students beyond preschool. In the meantime, school policies regarding appropriate communication with parents have been influenced by advancing technologies to the extent that daily reports are being expected even for high school students through gradebook programs with parent portals. While administrators popularly support these programs because it makes home/school communication easier, it is also undoes much of the work that many of us are doing as educators to provide qualitative information regarding student performance. While I have had very few issues with students not understanding their grades, I get several e-mails per month from parents who have checked their children’s grades online and, without having spoken with their high schooler about the grade, are confused or upset about the numbers they have seen. I do not have enough information to know whether Nitko and Brookhart advocate gradebook technologies that enable counselors, administrators and parents to obtain students’ grades without consulting the teacher. However, I do fault their emphasis on frequency of communication, which is echoed nearly everywhere. I am still searching for an example to which the old adage regarding quality over quantity does not apply. Until then, educators (and those who write texts for educators) should recognize the importance of meaningful communication between home and school over its convenience and frequency.
Responsible and ethical assessment of students is, of course, among the primary responsibilities of educators. Nitko and Brookhart are correct in this assertion and in their description of the various duties that comprise responsible assessment. I especially agree that it is important to help students understand that assessments are opportunities to perform to their greatest ability and to share with those students what will be expected in advance of those assessment dates. However, while I agree with Nitko and Brookhart in so many ways, I maintain that we must be careful that assessment does not become so paramount in our conversations about education that we forget about the value of the immeasurables. To the greatest extent possible, we must be sure that student grades are meaningful, anchored to standards, and arrived at methodically. We also must be sure that we never communicate to students, school authorities, or parents that those grades are all that matter or that they are a measure of any student’s intelligence, potential or worth. As assessment receives an ever-increasing amount of public attention in this era of student, teacher and school accountability, we must all do our best to recognize its role in our instruction and its tremendous capacity to benefit our students’ self-knowledge, but remember that we are not graders but educators and we cannot allow the value of education to be reduced in the public consciousness to some number under—but, let’s hope, close to—100.
That said, I do not disagree with Nitko and Brookhart’s definition of the six categories of responsibility for teachers with regard to assessment. However, admittedly, I take the most pleasure in the first half of the listed assessment-related activities: crafting, choosing and administering assessment procedures. The latter activities dealing with the results are no less important but, I think, tainted too often by those salespeo—reformers aforementioned. Because I teach primarily high school juniors and it has become customary for students to take the Comprehensive Regents Examination in English at the conclusion of that school year, it has been suggested to me from the start of my career that I borrow significant procedural influence from the exam. Indeed, every single exam administered since the redesign of the test in the late 1990’s is readily available online for the taking. My students would certainly gain considerable access to novel, developmentally-appropriate literature from various authors in multiple genres through my choice of such assessment procedures. Also, they would have ample opportunity to write for the variety of purposes outlined in the state standards if they were frequently administered versions of this exam. Included along with the test materials are the instructions for exam proctors and the anchor papers, sample responses and scoring rubrics that correspond to each essay question. It could all be so easy. However, so much of what I love, which is very much—however immeasurably—a factor in the quality and relevance of instruction that my students receive is lost by relying so entirely on an exam that focuses only on standards and not on environment and experience, only on literacy and not on literature itself, the medium through which the human experience is shared. So, I have limited the influence of the Regents on my teaching. I address it, because I would be remiss in my duties if I did not acknowledge it, and I have crafted parallel tasks that resemble but require more than Regents essays and I focus a great deal of my energy on giving students sufficient information to know the difference between what we have done in class over the course of the year and what will need to be done on the test over the course of two days in June.
Indeed, of all the specific responsibilities that Nitko and Brookhart enumerate, I think that the most important and the area in which I most excel is in approaching assessments as “opportunities for students to demonstrate their maximum performance” and in communicating that philosophy and the “basic information about the assessment” to my students (80). I highly agree with the authors about what constitutes the basics, with some reservations about how much to share regarding the content to be assessed and what will be emphasized. I find that one major factor affecting student performance in school, not only on assessments but in a more generalized attitudinal approach to school, is the expectation that all learning activities are used by teachers to catch them doing something wrong, not reading a book, etc. It is important that we combat their anxieties with affirmation that we are looking forward to a demonstration of their strengths—an important distinction made in the text between maximum and typical performance (312). One of the most effective ways to do this, I have found, is to share with students the grading checklists and/or rubrics associated with the assessment beforehand. Once students begin to trust that my goal is not to trick them, it is safer to invest in being successful, which results in more accurate demonstrations of their knowledge and skills to be used in making decisions with students’ grades.
Still, I have come to detest grading and I do not think I am alone, although relatively few teachers may openly admit it since it is so popularly misattributed to laziness. Truly, this aversion stems mainly from the abuses of assessment results by others. While I enjoy seeing what my students do with the materials and instruction I offer in my classroom and I do believe that I responsibly assess their performance using effective tools and methods, absent from the discussions I have with my students about their assessments and how they are graded, others are not always equipped to interpret student grades meaningfully. Nitko and Brookhart assert that it is the teacher’s responsibility to communicate proper interpretations of assessment results with parents and school authorities, and to do so frequently (92). It is with this part of the job description that I greatly disagree. The text acknowledges that these parameters may be set by school policy but the only example of inappropriate frequency is daily reports for students beyond preschool. In the meantime, school policies regarding appropriate communication with parents have been influenced by advancing technologies to the extent that daily reports are being expected even for high school students through gradebook programs with parent portals. While administrators popularly support these programs because it makes home/school communication easier, it is also undoes much of the work that many of us are doing as educators to provide qualitative information regarding student performance. While I have had very few issues with students not understanding their grades, I get several e-mails per month from parents who have checked their children’s grades online and, without having spoken with their high schooler about the grade, are confused or upset about the numbers they have seen. I do not have enough information to know whether Nitko and Brookhart advocate gradebook technologies that enable counselors, administrators and parents to obtain students’ grades without consulting the teacher. However, I do fault their emphasis on frequency of communication, which is echoed nearly everywhere. I am still searching for an example to which the old adage regarding quality over quantity does not apply. Until then, educators (and those who write texts for educators) should recognize the importance of meaningful communication between home and school over its convenience and frequency.
Responsible and ethical assessment of students is, of course, among the primary responsibilities of educators. Nitko and Brookhart are correct in this assertion and in their description of the various duties that comprise responsible assessment. I especially agree that it is important to help students understand that assessments are opportunities to perform to their greatest ability and to share with those students what will be expected in advance of those assessment dates. However, while I agree with Nitko and Brookhart in so many ways, I maintain that we must be careful that assessment does not become so paramount in our conversations about education that we forget about the value of the immeasurables. To the greatest extent possible, we must be sure that student grades are meaningful, anchored to standards, and arrived at methodically. We also must be sure that we never communicate to students, school authorities, or parents that those grades are all that matter or that they are a measure of any student’s intelligence, potential or worth. As assessment receives an ever-increasing amount of public attention in this era of student, teacher and school accountability, we must all do our best to recognize its role in our instruction and its tremendous capacity to benefit our students’ self-knowledge, but remember that we are not graders but educators and we cannot allow the value of education to be reduced in the public consciousness to some number under—but, let’s hope, close to—100.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
My Pre-Test Rocks!
In order for students to meet with success on the following learning target, pre-requisite knowledge of some basic literary devices must be determined: Students evaluate the author’s use of specific literary devices to convey the theme of the work.
Accordingly, this pretest consists of 15 short answer items—between 12 and 25 were recommended in the text—that requires such knowledge of literary terms, including allusion, characterization, figurative language, foreshadowing, irony, setting, symbolism, and theme, that students can readily define them or identify examples in a section of text.
Questions 1-8 require you to fill in the blank with the literary term being described or defined.
1. Because each of these employs language where the intended meaning differs from the literal meaning of the words themselves, metaphor, simile and hyperbole are all examples of _____________________.
2. _____________________ employs language where the intended meaning differs so entirely from the literal meaning that is somehow absurd or mocking in its opposition.
3. Hints regarding future events in the story, called _____________________, should be suggested subtly by the author.
4. When concrete objects are used to embody or convey abstract ideas, the author is employing _____________________.
5. The _____________________ of a literary work or other piece of art should not be stated in a single word or phrase but meaningfully in a full sentence or more that conveys the author’s main ideas on a topic or concept of fundamental importance.
6. It is important to recognize that time as well as place must be accounted for when describing the _____________________ of a book.
7. Authors use _____________________ when they make reference to or otherwise represent another work of art or familiar person, event or place.
8. _____________________ is the process by which authors inform their readers of the personality, life history, values, physical attributes, choices and behaviors of each person in the text.
Questions 9-15 require you to identify the literary term being employed in each numbered sentence.
9. Jimmy was a typical adolescent, torn between the realms of childhood and adulthood.
_____________________
10. I remember that summer we spent in Alabama distinctly because not a day went by that you couldn’t fry an egg on the pavement.
_____________________
11. It was a classic tale of Cain and Able.
_____________________
12. “Me and Jenny was like peas and carrots again.”
_____________________
13. When we broke up, I smashed that locket he gave me into about a million pieces.
_____________________
14. My friend has very liberal political views and she said that George W. Bush is a really “bright” guy.
_____________________
15. I knew as soon as lightning struck the tree we planted that nothing again would ever be the same.
_____________________
Accordingly, this pretest consists of 15 short answer items—between 12 and 25 were recommended in the text—that requires such knowledge of literary terms, including allusion, characterization, figurative language, foreshadowing, irony, setting, symbolism, and theme, that students can readily define them or identify examples in a section of text.
Questions 1-8 require you to fill in the blank with the literary term being described or defined.
1. Because each of these employs language where the intended meaning differs from the literal meaning of the words themselves, metaphor, simile and hyperbole are all examples of _____________________.
2. _____________________ employs language where the intended meaning differs so entirely from the literal meaning that is somehow absurd or mocking in its opposition.
3. Hints regarding future events in the story, called _____________________, should be suggested subtly by the author.
4. When concrete objects are used to embody or convey abstract ideas, the author is employing _____________________.
5. The _____________________ of a literary work or other piece of art should not be stated in a single word or phrase but meaningfully in a full sentence or more that conveys the author’s main ideas on a topic or concept of fundamental importance.
6. It is important to recognize that time as well as place must be accounted for when describing the _____________________ of a book.
7. Authors use _____________________ when they make reference to or otherwise represent another work of art or familiar person, event or place.
8. _____________________ is the process by which authors inform their readers of the personality, life history, values, physical attributes, choices and behaviors of each person in the text.
Questions 9-15 require you to identify the literary term being employed in each numbered sentence.
9. Jimmy was a typical adolescent, torn between the realms of childhood and adulthood.
_____________________
10. I remember that summer we spent in Alabama distinctly because not a day went by that you couldn’t fry an egg on the pavement.
_____________________
11. It was a classic tale of Cain and Able.
_____________________
12. “Me and Jenny was like peas and carrots again.”
_____________________
13. When we broke up, I smashed that locket he gave me into about a million pieces.
_____________________
14. My friend has very liberal political views and she said that George W. Bush is a really “bright” guy.
_____________________
15. I knew as soon as lightning struck the tree we planted that nothing again would ever be the same.
_____________________
If This Is It, Please Let Me Know...
I *THINK* I have finally set my focus for my final assessment...Here goes:
Description
After having discussed it with Jeremy and determined that the scope of my proposed assessment was too large to provide me with a meaningful focus for my final project, I have decided to look more closely at a single component of my literature circles unit. The reader’s journal is the most important assessment tool included in my previous proposal because it is something I use consistently throughout the year in guiding and measuring students’ accomplishments with the process of annotation. Having recently researched and written about this reading strategy, I have far too much to say about its benefits to be contained here. I have not abandoned the other learning targets that I had defined for my literature circles unit; they will just be met through other assignments and activities. As I made the shift in focus to the reader’s journal, I planned to use only those items from my original list of learning targets that the reader’s journal addresses. However, there is so much more to it than what was left behind, I’ve added a few more targets to my final list and blueprint.
Basically, the reader’s journal is a record of the annotations that students would make directly in their primary texts if possible but cannot because those books are not their own. The active reading process instead consists of two steps, which I call “tabs & notes” informally. The first step is to mark the text as near to the specific word or passage requiring annotation. This is accomplished through the use of adhesive notes or page flags. The second and most important step is to then record notes in the journal that correspond with the line of text being examined, whether it is a vocabulary word, question, or something upon which to comment comprehensively, critically, personally, heuristically, etc. In the second edition of the Handbook of College Reading and Study Strategy Research, the benefits of annotation are explicitly recognized by contributing authors Jodi Patrick Holschuh and Lori Price Aultman who summarize research findings that annotation requires students to read actively by monitoring their own understanding, constructing ideas and making connections to prior knowledge, allowing the flexibility to facilitate deeper processing, motivating students to approach text with purpose, and organizing information to more easily identify the links between main points and supporting details (134). For these reasons, I make frequent checks of students’ progress toward the completion of their journals, conference with them during the reading process, encourage the use of recorded annotations in class discussions of literature, and collect the finished products for a major grade of 75 points at the conclusion of each literature unit.
The reader’s journal is an example of a performance assessment that is continuous in nature and both formative and summative aspects. It is used at the conclusion of each major unit, including the literature circles unit upon which I had previously planned to focus, to gather information about student’s success with the stated learning targets. However, since there are frequent checks, conferences and class discussions of students annotations, it is used daily in a formative manner and over the course of the year it provides a basis for my feedback to students on their progress from a starting point, nearness to achieving the standards, and in relation to classmates.
Targets
1. Students annotate literature books to aid comprehension and analysis of a primary text.
~Developmental learning target
~Criticize, define, identify, infer, predict (Bloom)
~Defend, discuss, respond, question (Krathwohl)
2. Students use context clues, morphemic analysis, and/or a dictionary to define unknown vocabulary words found in the text.
~Mastery learning target
~Break down, compile, define, discover, identify, predict (Bloom)
3. Students summarize the main events, ideas and themes of a primary text.
~Mastery learning target
~Compile, describe, explain, give examples, paraphrase, recall, summarize (Bloom)
4. Students use textual information to support analysis of major characters.
~Mastery learning target
~Describe, discriminate, categorize, compare/contrast, criticize, identify, infer, justify, relate, select, support (Bloom)
5. Students evaluate the author’s use of specific literary devices to convey the theme of the work.
~Developmental learning target
~Define, give examples, identify, predict (Bloom)
~Defend, discuss, question (Krathwohl)
6. Students legibly organize a personalized study tool that effectively indexes the text.
~Developmental learning target
~Answer, ask, assist, complete, comply, discuss, invite, prepare, present, respect, share (Krathwohl)
7. Student responses to literature include questions that require textual investigation to answer.
~Developmental learning target
~Criticize, describe, explain, give examples, influence, justify, prepare, select (Bloom)
~Ask, select, answer, discuss, give, help, present, recognize, relate, share (Krathwohl)
8. Student responses to literature evidently relate elements of the text to prior knowledge and personal experience.
~Developmental learning target
~Criticize, describe, explain, give examples, influence, justify, prepare, select (Bloom)
~Ask, select, answer, discuss, give, help, present, recognize, relate, share (Krathwohl)
Blueprint
Click Here
Description
After having discussed it with Jeremy and determined that the scope of my proposed assessment was too large to provide me with a meaningful focus for my final project, I have decided to look more closely at a single component of my literature circles unit. The reader’s journal is the most important assessment tool included in my previous proposal because it is something I use consistently throughout the year in guiding and measuring students’ accomplishments with the process of annotation. Having recently researched and written about this reading strategy, I have far too much to say about its benefits to be contained here. I have not abandoned the other learning targets that I had defined for my literature circles unit; they will just be met through other assignments and activities. As I made the shift in focus to the reader’s journal, I planned to use only those items from my original list of learning targets that the reader’s journal addresses. However, there is so much more to it than what was left behind, I’ve added a few more targets to my final list and blueprint.
Basically, the reader’s journal is a record of the annotations that students would make directly in their primary texts if possible but cannot because those books are not their own. The active reading process instead consists of two steps, which I call “tabs & notes” informally. The first step is to mark the text as near to the specific word or passage requiring annotation. This is accomplished through the use of adhesive notes or page flags. The second and most important step is to then record notes in the journal that correspond with the line of text being examined, whether it is a vocabulary word, question, or something upon which to comment comprehensively, critically, personally, heuristically, etc. In the second edition of the Handbook of College Reading and Study Strategy Research, the benefits of annotation are explicitly recognized by contributing authors Jodi Patrick Holschuh and Lori Price Aultman who summarize research findings that annotation requires students to read actively by monitoring their own understanding, constructing ideas and making connections to prior knowledge, allowing the flexibility to facilitate deeper processing, motivating students to approach text with purpose, and organizing information to more easily identify the links between main points and supporting details (134). For these reasons, I make frequent checks of students’ progress toward the completion of their journals, conference with them during the reading process, encourage the use of recorded annotations in class discussions of literature, and collect the finished products for a major grade of 75 points at the conclusion of each literature unit.
The reader’s journal is an example of a performance assessment that is continuous in nature and both formative and summative aspects. It is used at the conclusion of each major unit, including the literature circles unit upon which I had previously planned to focus, to gather information about student’s success with the stated learning targets. However, since there are frequent checks, conferences and class discussions of students annotations, it is used daily in a formative manner and over the course of the year it provides a basis for my feedback to students on their progress from a starting point, nearness to achieving the standards, and in relation to classmates.
Targets
1. Students annotate literature books to aid comprehension and analysis of a primary text.
~Developmental learning target
~Criticize, define, identify, infer, predict (Bloom)
~Defend, discuss, respond, question (Krathwohl)
2. Students use context clues, morphemic analysis, and/or a dictionary to define unknown vocabulary words found in the text.
~Mastery learning target
~Break down, compile, define, discover, identify, predict (Bloom)
3. Students summarize the main events, ideas and themes of a primary text.
~Mastery learning target
~Compile, describe, explain, give examples, paraphrase, recall, summarize (Bloom)
4. Students use textual information to support analysis of major characters.
~Mastery learning target
~Describe, discriminate, categorize, compare/contrast, criticize, identify, infer, justify, relate, select, support (Bloom)
5. Students evaluate the author’s use of specific literary devices to convey the theme of the work.
~Developmental learning target
~Define, give examples, identify, predict (Bloom)
~Defend, discuss, question (Krathwohl)
6. Students legibly organize a personalized study tool that effectively indexes the text.
~Developmental learning target
~Answer, ask, assist, complete, comply, discuss, invite, prepare, present, respect, share (Krathwohl)
7. Student responses to literature include questions that require textual investigation to answer.
~Developmental learning target
~Criticize, describe, explain, give examples, influence, justify, prepare, select (Bloom)
~Ask, select, answer, discuss, give, help, present, recognize, relate, share (Krathwohl)
8. Student responses to literature evidently relate elements of the text to prior knowledge and personal experience.
~Developmental learning target
~Criticize, describe, explain, give examples, influence, justify, prepare, select (Bloom)
~Ask, select, answer, discuss, give, help, present, recognize, relate, share (Krathwohl)
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