Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning

As someone who grew up in the education system of the nineties, I'm glad to see teachers shifting away from the standardized grading that had become the norm in the no child left behind era. In content areas such as mathematics where two plus two equals four, or in science where the chemical formula for glucose is always going to be C6H12O6 idea of using standardized test works remarkably well because there are different ways to get the correct answer, but there is only one right answer. For subjects that require critical thinking and understanding like English does, this approach doesn't work because there is never truly only one correct answer when thinking and analyzing literature. As the text states " 'correct answer' quizzes, tests, or worksheets provide little or no opportunity for the expression of individual open-ended responses" (225), if students are solely focused on the correctness of their answers rather than how the text makes them feel they look at their unique response to the passage which they are reading as irrelevant.

Now that my rant about how dumb no child left behind was is over I'm going to talk about this chapter. The chapter has far too many good ideas to write about them all in a short amount of time, so I'm going to talk about my two favorite concepts. The first one is the idea of using a template writing assignment. I love the way that the template states what is expected of the student when it comes to their paper. I also appreciate the fact that these templates allow students to focus on the content of their writing rather than the form. I would use these models whenever I am introducing students to different styles of papers, i.e., argumentative, persuasive, etc., and as students became more comfortable with expressing their ideas, I would phase the templates out to have them focus on their form while incorporating their ideas.

The second assessment tool that I want to touch on is using student portfolios as a way to evaluate progress. The portfolio method is one that I have used as a student here at Eastern, and it was a tremendous help in not only tracking my development as a writer, but it also helped boost my confidence as a writer. The addition of a rubric to the evaluation process for portfolios is a great way to show students how and where they have improved or need to continue to improve. I feel that providing students with an electronic or physical copy of their progression is a great way to help them grow as a writer.