An archived stack of papers: 'assessment'
Positive Feedback Only
In a stack of papers called Writing.
- Apr
- 30
- 2013
What if you only gave students positive feedback on their writing? Could you leave a comment that begins with “I like” on every student’s paper? How would that change the way you evaluate writing? Would that impact scores or instruction? Might that make you dread evaluating writing just a leeeeeeeeettle bit less?
Think about how far negative/constructive comments have gotten... read more
Deflating The Grade
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Jan
- 06
- 2011
The semester is over for us and I’m thinking about last semester, strangely simultaneously too much and not enough. The thing that got me thinking was the general decline in the number of Fs earned this semester. I’m usually right around a twnety-five percent F rate and this year it’s at about fifteen percent. When I looked at what I did differently to try and account for that change,... read more
New Test Items
In a stack of papers called Testing.
- Oct
- 10
- 2009
Every time you create a new test item, a new way to assess knowledge, what do you do? How do you step kids into that new item type, one they may not have seen before, in order to make sure you’re assessing exactly what you want to assess (content-area skill) and not something accidental (test-taking prowess)? I spent about two hours on Wednesday figuring out how to handle this situation. What... read more
What I Won’t Do This Year
In a stack of papers called Reform.
- Aug
- 15
- 2009
Collect writing and then ignore it for a month. Expect study questions answered every night. Give daily reading check quizzes worth tons of points. Skip grading blogs on a Saturday morning. Wait until April to institute a classroom after-school writing lab. Circle every single grammatical error on a given page. Assign just one piece of writing that involves student conferencing and that happens to be... read more
Is It Time Yet?
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Aug
- 04
- 2008
I hesitated to flip the calendar last Friday. Four days in, now there’s no denying it: August arrived early. I swear I was cheated out of a few weeks last month.
What have you started planning? Any ideas for the first week? How about for the first day? Decided on any new policies (homework, late work, attendance, behavior, etc.)? I’ve written about it already, but the ideas that have... read more
Formulas FTW
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Jun
- 27
- 2008
I’ll expand on these thoughts later, but I want to help this conversation about English assessment grow as much as I can. Eric Hoefler brings up some interesting thoughts, admittedly from a distance that might skew his interpretations. His theorizing feels spot on at first read and that’s a good... read more