Chapter 17--Assessment

This was a meaty chapter with much to say about the practice of assessment.  Many of the arguments I had heard, but there were a few worth pointing out as critical. 

The concept that different assessments have different audiences or clients is huge.  I fully agree with this line of thought.  I can use the MAP scores as a guide at the beginning of the year (once they come in) to who I need to look at more closely.  This is about all I can do with these numbers (other than to give myself a pat on the back or a chastising as I look at the scores of my previous students).  Once I have an SRI, Tungsten and Writing score on my students, I can then narrow my focus more and determine who needs to be in my Academic Excellence for further specialization.  From there though, I have to use more personal, more specific assessments and conversations to determine how my kids are progressing.  The rest of the scores---they end up more valuable to the building, district or state once I know my kids.  They have little to know impact in my instruction at that point.

I live the idea of the process papers.  What a great gauge of metacognition.  I have had the students help design a scoring guide by comparing two pieces of work.  This made a remarkable difference in the quality of work and the level of engagement and apparent understanding.  The assignments or assessments I have used this technique with end up becoming so much more meaningful to us all.

The final thing that I absolutely loved was the articulation of the four intertwining roles of a reader:

1. code breaker (cracking the code or cipher that maps spellings to sounds and vice versa)
2. meaning maker (focusing on the message of the text, including the knowledge required to understand it)
3. text user (focusing on the pragmatics of use-- what function does a text serve in a social context?)
4. text critic (A critical competence that entails unpacking the social, economic, and political assumptions behind and consequences of using a text)  (Underwood, Yoo, and Pearson, in press)

I fully agree that we do a relatively good job at teaching to the first two roles.  But as a community we do not get to the other two roles.  In college, I know that the other two roles have been left for me to consider--high school as well.  With the types of literacy the students find themselves using today, the second two are of critical importance.  I can almost see the four of these roles being the reading GLE's I need to focus on--strongest emphasis on the last two.