First of all, everything I've read in this book affirms my belief about
teaching and test preparation. I do not feel that preparing for tests means
getting out sample released items and answering them. That is just busy
work. Besides, what good does that do for students? How is that teaching
them anything? This book however demonstrates how to incorporate test
preparation in an authentic way by encouraging students to use thinking
strategies and by pointing out (both explicitly and implicitly) how test
formats may vary from other genres.
I too liked how the authors connected to various content areas. I love the
example on pg. 75 of how "Mathematicians... Create Sensory Images."
Extending students thinking in their work as test takers can be an easy
transition if students are already familiar with making inferences as
scientists, mathematicians, readers, historians, etc.
The "Stories From the Classroom" were a great way to see how it can be put
into practice in the classroom. I enjoyed reading about what the authors
have done with real students.
If this book interests you, I may also recommend, Test Talk by Greene &
Melton.
Katie Stover
----- Original Message -----
From: "gina nunley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 2:00 PM
Subject: [MOSAIC] "Put Thinking to the Test" book review
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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