Testing the Tests

It is funny how time and perspective can change one’s reality. When I was a student I would have sworn on all that was holy that teacher’s loved giving tests! I could have bet money that they enjoyed making us sweat. Fast forward to a number of decades later and now the student (that was me) is now the teacher (that is me) and I can swear on all that is holy that I hate giving tests, formally known as assessments...well kind of.

At a primary level I do not believe that much time at all should be formally assessing students with any kind of standardized tests mainly because I can’t handle the tears. In Kindergarten there is no Science or Social Studies series or any mandated assessment although we do give students grades for Science and Social Studies.

At a secondary level, students are better equipped, hopefully, to participate in standardized testing, like PARCC. I do believe that regardless of grade level instruction that is led with constant discussion and activities that require constant response and thought from the students is more effective than filling out any bubble sheet. In their webinar series Leading A Balanced Literacy Assessment System: Conducting A Literacy Assessment Review, DPI Literacy Consultants Laura Adams and Barb Novak recommend that we look at our assessments to see if the assessments promote students to do “authentic tasks with real world purposes outside of school as much as possible  or are they (the assessments) school tasks that we just ask kids to do to show us what they know.”  When assessments are based on a “show us what they know” format like for example the Wilson’s assessment I give to my students, we are not really tapping into the student’s individual interest. Rather, the students that are motivated to perform are motivated by the situation or the task. It’s time to take a test and show how they can respond to a series of questions without any real production. As Reading Specialists we need to  implement assessments and instruction that peek individual students interest if we expect our students to walk away with any deep understanding of what is we are trying to teach them. Authors Tamara L. Jetton and Patricia A. Alexander (2001) offer research to show that students who are interested or vested in the learning process the information at a more meaningful level than students who feel disconnected from what is being taught, “His (Schiefele) studies showed that readers with high individual interest process the text at a much deeper level of comprehension than those readers with little interest.” (p. 308). Jetton and Alexander (2001) propose that there are various ways to tap into student interest including but not limited to the use of technology, peer-led discussions, narratives, and think-alouds. In the article  What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy (2007) the  National Institute of Literacy offers, “The use of student “think alouds” is one way that teachers can observe the reading strategies students use while reading.” The difficulty would arise perhaps in aligning what learning goes on in these settings with the assessments. Therefore, as a reading specialist or even a content area teacher we must gear the instruction so that students have multiple venues for learning while focusing on the task and/or skill set at hand.

In my district grades 1 thru 12 post the results of student assessments on RealTime,  a parent/student portal that lists grades and upcoming assignments. Students are tested regularly by their content area teachers and collectively take part in PARCC and SGO benchmark testing. There are graduation requirements that include passing the PARCC or reaching a certain score on the SATs or ACTs. SGOs do not reflect on student’s grades however, they are used in part to determine the effectiveness of teachers. In the middle school, students are required to do one project-based assessment that crosses content areas. The assessment is graded by multiple teachers. Although there a various assessments there is not a huge variety. There is no discussion or technology based standard or collective assessment, (taking a test on a laptop does not necessarily make it technology-based). Nor is there a writing course requirement (other than the 4 years of ELA) to graduate. 

*Side Note..(And in college all my Professors told me I need to learn how to write..but I had the 2nd highest SAT score in my class!!!) 

*BACK to BUSINESS..Students do write papers in the ELA courses and there are creative writing courses but there is no course or assessment specifically for writing. Most students in grades 3-12 participate in PARCC for about 3 weeks. Although the students are not taking the test for 3 weeks most supplemental, resource and ESL teachers are pulled to administer or proctor the exam, watch the hallways or administer tests to students with IEPs one and one. So although the whole school is not taking the assessment at the same time, many students go without the extra help they need while others are tested. Curriculum decisions are made by our department supervisors who in my experience have been open to teacher suggestions and input.

References

Connors, S. P, Sullivan, R. (2012). It's that easy: designing assignments that blend old and new literacies. The Cleaning House, 85, pp221-225.

Jetton, T. and Alexander, P. (2001). Interest assessment and the content area literacy environment: Challenges for research and practice. Educational Psychology Review, 13(3), pp.303-318.

What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy- National Institute of Literacy, 2007

The Pen and the Sword

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

We have all heard the saying the pen is mightier than sword and have read words that moved us to love, cry, think and reflect in ways that no external force could ever.  But how does the pen became mightier than the sword? One would never literally stare at a pen and expect for it on its own to write us a letter. That would be absurd! Then pen needs a hand to guide it. The hand needs to be connected to brain to form the words. It's a process not a phenomenon, we know that, of course we do! And yet, time and time again, student are told to write. Five paragraph essays! Don't forget the introduction! Check your spelling. And when we are not satisfied with what their pens have wrought we look at the papers and say

"They can't write!”

“ It's because they play video games.”

The fix to this dilemma? More essays. Afterall, practice make perfect.

BUT PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT WHEN PRACTICE IS FLAWED

The exceptions know how to write or read without every being taught. Most kids are not the exceptions and so they have to be taught. They need strategies, purposeful instruction, time to think, talk, collaborate and write. And then do it all again and again, producing, reflecting, producing, editing, producing, thinking.

In “A Range of Writing Across the Content Areas,” Fisher and Frey (2013) offer 3 strategies, Power Writing, Shared Writing and Writing from Sources,  that can be implemented across content areas to improve student writing.

According to Fisher and Frey (2013) Power Writing is a daily one to three minute written response to a content area word or phrase.  Fisher and Frey (2013) add that students keep a graph of how many words they write in each round to track their writing fluency and read their writing to check for errors.  Fisher and Frey (2013) add that errors students are not self-detecting can become insight for teachers to decipher student error patterns and further instruction.

Shared Writing, according to Fisher and Frey (2013) is a strategy teachers and students use to collaborate on a piece of writing, even  forming a question and explaining a possible solution.

Fisher and Frey (2013) state that students should annotate as they read texts to help facilitate their own writing in Writing from Sources to Inform and Explain. The annotations help to provide textual evidence and support for their claims and explanations.

In “Teaching Adolescent ELs to Write Academic-Style Persuasive Essays” Ramos (2014)  offers The Reading to Learn approach as a strategy to improve writing for ELLs as well as non- ELLS. “The Reading to Learn approach involves moving learners through five key stages designed to support them in reading texts in a particular genre and using what has been learned through reading to write similar texts. These stages are Building Field, Preparing to Read, Detailed Reasoning, Joint Construction, and Individual Construction." (Ramos, 2014, p.658)

According to Ramos (2014) the Building Field stage is a strategy to build background knowledge, the Preparing to Read stage focuses on the understanding the goal and structure of a persuasive essay, the Detailed Reading stage focuses on building an acute awareness of the academic language, organization of texts as well as the author’s view, the Joint Construction stage is a collaborative writing with the students and teacher and finally the Individual Construction Stage where students write independently.

The Situation

After reading several texts on they types of pesticides used on US agricultural and how the use of certain pesticides are lawful in the United States but banned in Europe, students are asked to write a persuasive essay to convince the USDA to continue to allow or make unlawful the use of 3 pesticides that are banned in Europe but not banned in the USA.

Many students feel that the pesticides should be banned but they can not support their opinions with facts or evidence. To help students produce solid sources of evidence the science teacher would supply each student with a copy of text related to the subject and model how as the text is read the reader can annotate the text to identify key words, phrases, important data and statistics.  When the students is ready to write their essay they can easily refer to their annotations for textual evidence.

References

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2013). A Range of Writing Across the Content Areas. Reading Teacher, 67(2), 96-101.

Ramos, K. (2014). Teaching Adolescent ELs to Write Academic-Style Persuasive Essays. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(8), 655-665.

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