It is top notch. I think it mostly applies to 2nd and above. It is a great
book. I have gotten so much out of it and the authors are leaders in the
field. It focuses testing as a genre. Hope you read it.
JG
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] "Put Thinking to the Test" book review
Gina,
Would you recommend this book for teachers K-8???
Leslie
In a message dated 10/24/2008 2:05:13 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
This is the first post from the Mosaic Professional Book Review Team on
thebook "Put Thinking to the Test" by Lori L. Conrad, Missy Matthews,
CherylZimmerman, Patrick A. Allen. Foreword by Ellin Oliver Keene. The
book ispublished
by Stenhouse: http://www.stenhouse.com/0731.asp. Since the day high
stakes
testing darkened the door of my classroom Iconsidered totally ignoring the
test, and simply clinging to the notion that goodteaching would prove
itself on
test day. In moments of panic and doubt I also thought about creating
anentire unit around the test genre. In the end neither approach seemed
satisfying
orfair to my students. I feel like I discovered a gold mine when I was
reading "Put Thinking to theTest." I realize the focus is on bridging the
disconnect between classroomstrategic reading and showing proficiency on
reading test
passages, but there were so many originaland new ways to teach
metacognition
that it became a tool kit for reading comprehension any day of the week.
Powerful StrategiesI loved the continual focus on students noticing and
thinking...the way the authors led kids totheir own analysis and
ownership of
thinking about whatever genre was infront of them. There is a consistent
theme
about monitoring the kids and then allowing them tocreate the teaching
points.
(P.16,26) Wow.exploring poetry through tests! The Venn diagram comparing
the
two was"deep" as it led the kids to notice their thinking about poetry
will
need tochange on the test (page 33) On page 102 there is a model of a
great
visual, a time line, for teacher andstudents to track their thinking
through a
piece. The idea of making connections can be a bit sticky when students
bring nobackground knowledge to the material. Problems also arise when
theirbackground knowledge would mislead them rather than enlighten, and
we knowthis
happens on test passages. The lessons about teaching students to
decidewhen to
ignore their own schema were the first of that kind that I have everseen.
(P.
118-119) I think what most impressed me was the intelligent use of
testing
passageswhich honored sophisticated thinking, rather than distilling it
to
somesurface level list of tips on how to outsmart the test maker. I
think it is
rare to find a book that illuminates my perspective on acontroversial
subject
and becomes one of those activity books that I milk allyear long. Gina
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