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