Gina I am going to respond to your email in parts because you have given me much to think about and react to...
Gina writes: <<Jennifer I love that you keep holding this up in different light. I have had a difficult time getting people to engage in this grading discussion, I think because it is so thorny as to be disturbing, and aren't our jobs tough enough already? But I believe that ease of assessing and confidence in a report card have a direct correlation with what we're willing to do in our teaching. Over and over I see teachers falling back on poor methods of teaching BECAUSE they offer easy methods of grading, and in today's world I find myself continuously faced with parents who expect me to explain my grading. (as they should) I am simply not sure any longer what my explanation is. >> I so agree with you about people falling back on poor methods of teaching because they offer easy methods of grading... but I also think that very few of us have ever had training on effective ways to evaluate or grade! Most of us only really know how WE have been graded. Many of us have been questioned by parents so often that we seek the comfort of a numerical score on a test because they are easily understood by a parent and therefore gets them off our back. We don't REALLY know how to grade and I am willing to be there are very few schools where all teachers are in agreement about what a grade really means. That is one thing I like about Rick Wormeli's book...(Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in a Differentiated Classroom) He attempts to define a grade as a representation of mastery of standards...therefore things like effort and practice muddle the picture and don't really show mastery. For example, if a child really knows how to visualize and has mastery of that, but failed to turn in a homework assignment and receives a zero for it, his grade will be less than an A, but that A tells more about his workhabits than his understanding of curricular content. Therefore, we don't give zeros for assignments that are not turned in. He also talks about the importance of teachers doing just what we are doing now...discussing grading and evaluation and coming to some sort of consensus within a building or district of what the grades actually mean. In the end, I guess, it comes down to student achievement...does our current method of grading motivate kids to achieve? Does it give them feedback so they know how they are doing? Definitely questions worth thinking about. Gina wrote: << I don't think a lot of us do grade according to our reading philosophies. I think we grade according to the constraints of time and the reporting system itself, i.e. ONE number....a percent to represent a process of thinking???!!! I think I am fairly intelligent, but this one has me over a barrel. And as passionate as I am about teaching "reading is thinking", you should see the things I will do to get a number on that report card. Am I alone?>> No, you are definitely not alone...me too. I am forced to have grades in my gradebook that are numerical and so rubric scores get converted...and other horrible travesties that I do because I don't know what else to do... We, at least, are struggling with this issue as 'thinking teachers.' I still believe, however, that the reason we are forced into this is because administrators and community members have a definition of reading and reading instruction that is far different from ours...that good readers are the ones that can read hard words and if they can read hard words, comprehension will automatically follow. It is this philosophy of testing and teaching what is measureable rather than what is important that puts us in a bind. Gina writes: <<I am not sure if I think scoring a process or the application is best. Deciding if a child is proficient at visualizing, or connecting is a slippery slope. But asking a child to understand a theme, or the importance of rising action by substantiating thoughts with strategies seems closer to our purpose.>> Gina, I am thinking that maybe this all comes down to Ellin's post again about providing challenging text. I think there is an important role for application...can students use strategies to understand text...yet I worry that if they already understand a text...the theme etc, without application of strategies then maybe they haven't learned anything at all. SO...if we are sure to provide rich, complex text then maybe assessing both the process of understanding (the strategy usage) and the application of strategies to find the theme, etc would give us the best of both worlds. <<For me it is simply thinking of those activities that demand the right things from the readers. I would love to hear just a list of the kinds of application work some of you score to use as a grade. Is it process work scored with a rubric, or some finally analysis of comprehension?>> I have really been using the rubrics and the MPIR on the tools page to help me evaluate my students. I find them very helpful. Jennifer Maryland _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
