So the universal theme for this week’s readings is assessment – always a tricky subject for me. Perhaps it was growing up in a testing culture and then teaching in a testing culture that makes me apprehensive about any kind of assessment that isn’t black and white. What an awful thing to say – but with defensive parents, I am always nervous to do anything that isn’t black and white.
Anyway – although the writing test is over for us (yay!), this chapter made me think about all the ways I can incorporate writing for the rest of the year on my current students/guinea pigs. Much of what the chapter said is so true – writing with an authentic task with a clear purpose to a definite audience. I love the idea of incorporating writing into daily tasks – I feel like that should be one of my major goals for next year – to find more ways to incorporate meaningful writing into curriculum. There are a couple of important things I plan to keep in mind…
1. the difference between assess and evaulate
2. the JOY of collaboration in writing
3. using rubrics that gauge student growth instead of pure acheivement
In Writing Without Boundaries, again the idea of flexible assessment came up. Both of these texts really force me to think about how I assess and evaluate my students’ work. Again, the idea of flexibility and even collaboration within assessment are key – new things I hadn’t thought about before.
