"Will This Be on the Test?!" Literacy and Assessment in High School English

by Colleen Ruggieri, Boardman High School, Boardman, Ohio

While we educators are in the driving seat when it comes to assigning grades to our students, we are often better teachers when we remember what it feels like to be on the other side of the desk. Think about a time in your life as a student in which you were preparing for a big exam. Perhaps it was way back in high school. Maybe it was during your undergraduate years. Or possibly it was while you were pursuing your master's degree. You took notes, read and reread the sections that would be covered on the test―and yet you still had anxiety about it. You might have been nervous because you weren't confident about your skill levels. It's highly likely that at least part of that anxiety stemmed from your lack of comprehension of the material. Most of us are not mind readers, and we spend a great deal of time wondering what will "be covered." In the end, this leads to that universal question that just about everyone has asked during his or her learning experiences: "Will this be on the test?"

As teachers, we cringe when we hear this question. We want our students to yearn to learn―to have undying enthusiasm for our subject matter. Furthermore, we feel as if we've had a successful day in the classroom when our students were "into it." In the end, though, we are one stop on the daily train for our students, and many of them want straightforward answers when it comes to driving their own learning. As a novice teacher, I believed that I was being dedicated and conscientious when I designed a new test at the end of every unit. I realized that not all parameters would remain constant each time I taught a unit of instruction; therefore, I believed that I was doing the right thing when I waited until I had finished the unit to design a new exam. After 10 years of teaching and a stint at the Ohio Department of Education, I finally decided that I had it all wrong. Assessment, I concluded, should not be the one test for which I held the key. Rather, authentic evaluations of my students' learning should come in a variety of forms throughout the learning process.

All of this is especially important when it comes to adolescent literacy. High school instructors face a variety of students each day: the enthusiastic hand-raising teacher pleaser, the quiet listener, the class clown, and the poor soul who seems to be lost in space. We tend to be content-driven experts, striving to expose our learners to solid curricula featuring the cornerstones of American, British, and world literature. We might know how to assess student knowledge of a Shakespearean play or of a great American novel―but how are we to assess student literacy? After all, most of us do not consider ourselves reading teachers. In light of this, we face an incredibly challenging dilemma: How do we know if our students are truly comprehending and making meaning of the material we are teaching or if they are merely memorizing and regurgitating empty facts? The answer to this question lies in the implementation of several strategies. Literacy experts Vacca and Vacca (2002, p. 71) note that using different tools (such as tests, observations, checklists, interviews, inventories, writing folders, and conferences) will ultimately make assessment more valid. Indeed, there are endless possibilities for assessing student understanding. The question is, though, where do we start?

Positive Results with Pre-Assessment

The beginning of authentic assessment actually occurs in a different place from where we might imagine. For many years, I reviewed literary terms with my sophomore students during the first week of school. While I did this, something I did not take into consideration was that many of my students already had a firm grasp on this part of my curriculum--which overlapped with the freshman curriculum. After reflecting on authentic assessment and conferring with other master teachers, I changed the way I start the school year. My new approach for presenting material in each unit is to first assess students' prior knowledge. I do this in several ways, based on what will be taught in the upcoming lesson.

K-W-L-R Charts

In Tools for Teaching Content Literacy (2004), Janet Allen provides helpful strategies in flip-chart form for assessing each phase of literacy. One particularly helpful strategy, regularly used by elementary teachers, is the instructional chart known as K-W-L. After constructing a basic table on chart paper, I use this strategy when beginning my unit on the Puritans. I give each of my students a jumbo Crayola marker, and everyone makes a comment in the first two columns of the chart prior to any literature lessons. Once the class has completed the first phase of the chart, students discuss what they know as a group and what they want to know about Puritan literature. After students have read the literature, they reexamine the prereading comments on the K-W-L chart (Figure 1), completing the third column with information they've learned. In addition, I add an "R" column to the chart--for research. Upon completion of the reading assignments, my students then proceed to a nonfiction research assignment to extend their comprehension and overall knowledge.

Anticipation Guides

When preparing to teach a unit, I've also incorporated the use of anticipation guides (Figure 2) into my lesson plans. These guides enable me to activate my students' prior knowledge and to determine their opinions on certain ideas. Burke (2000, p. 198) notes that such a guide "inspires lively discussions" as students compare their own ideas with those of their classmates. While preparing to teach The Scarlet Letter (1986/1850), an anticipation guide enabled me to determine student attitudes toward public punishment, discover which vocabulary words would need additional instruction, and decide which types of assignments might best be used during the study of the novel.

Figure 2: Anticipation guide for The Scarlet Letter:

Making Meaning by Marking the Text

After I have determined my students' levels of prior knowledge, I typically revisit my lesson plans and adjust them accordingly. For example, if my students lack complete background understanding of Puritan life in early colonial America, I teach a brief mini-unit to develop a context for the upcoming lessons. When assigning text, however, I now make students share in the accountability of their learning. In the past, I tended to read assigned selections with my classes, going over every intricate detail and pointing out every literary device. Of course, this was driven by my self-imposed pressure to "cover all the material"; sadly, what it amounted to was a glorified form of spoon-feeding that did not empower my students to develop stronger analysis and comprehension skills. To combat this mad dash to cover information (which does not foster student accountability), I've added a new item on my list of school supplies--sticky notes. While students are reading their assignments, I give them specific instructions for assessing their own levels of comprehension. Using advice from Cris Tovani's I Read It, but I Don't Get It (2000, p. 29), I have students use different-colored notes with codes: "BK" for background knowledge, "I" for inference or conclusion, and "?" for something that is not understood. I remind my students that when responding with solid literary analysis skills, they should be able to use text-based evidence. When I start a class discussion, I first address the questions that students have marked in their texts. What is significant about this strategy is that it forces students to stop and think about what they are not processing, rather than merely skipping past a section without comprehending what is on the page. In addition, it enables them to appreciate the connection between current curriculum and what they learned in the past―thus solidifying the significance of schema and moving along the continuum of knowledge. Finally, it allows students to become more organized when reflecting on a text. When students come to class upon completion of a reading assignment, they truly feel more prepared to contribute to discussion and to ask questions about material they didn't understand (as opposed to closing their books and announcing, "I didn't get it" or faking it and offering generic answers).

Double-Entry Diaries

Another strategy that empowers students with an ongoing assessment tool is the use of double-entry diaries. Tovani (2000, p. 30) recommends a modification of the Cornell style of note taking, and the process is relatively easy for students to implement while completing reading assignments. Students should fold a sheet of notebook paper lengthwise ("hotdog" style) and use the left side of the paper to jot down key passages, phrases, or words. On the right side of the sheet, learners should note their critical thinking and inferences about the text material they've noted on the opposite side. Teachers may provide specific prompts for the right side of the sheet (Figure 3) if they feel that students will need more structure and direction.

From Study Guides to Comprehension Construction

Once students have learned to mark text and to develop their own double-entry diaries, I then move on and begin to use study guides that specifically require comprehension strategies (Tovani, 2000, p. 32). These guides can be created for any work that is being taught―from nonfiction to novels. First, I create a question or two that requires students to activate prior knowledge (Figure 4). The initial schema-directed questions make students connect with the reading, and such questions enable readers to feel a sense of purpose as they journey through their thoughts. Next, I tell them to read the chapter, the paragraph, the poem―whatever chunk of print I have assigned that day. As students are reading, I ask them to write at least five questions about the passage―using sticky notes (if the book is a school copy) or using the margin (if they have their own copies). After completing their personal questions, I then guide students to write a paragraph of response (a free-style response that is not necessarily based on rubrics, etc.). Finally, I have students select at least two of their questions and try to determine where the answers might be found. These handouts are really quite basic from the teacher perspective, as they are geared more toward student discovery, rather than asking students to skim and scan a text for "the answers." Upon completion of these guides, I am much more equipped to determine my students' comprehension levels. In-class discussion is richer because students have individually prepared―and they have already attempted to figure out trouble spots for which they need help or more resources. In addition, using these comprehension constructors makes students realize the purpose of their assignment--learning how to monitor their comprehension and analysis skills, rather than perceiving the questions as busy work that can be readily copied in the hallway before class.

As a creative extension to reading and to developing comprehension strategies, another form of assessment can be obtained by assigning a RAFT (role-audience-format-topic) writing assignment (Allen, 2004). This type of response features four components: the role of the writer, the audience for writing, the format the writing will take, and the topic covered in the writing. When preparing for a RAFT assignment, which my students generally enjoy, I brainstorm lists with my classes (Figure 5).

In the past, if I asked my students to tell me how they knew when they really learned something, they would have probably responded with answers such as "when I get a good grade on the test." Today, some of my students would still say the same thing, but I also often receive very different answers (Figure 6) to this question. I attribute the reason for these very different answers to my realization that I must do more than teach content matter--I must empower the teenagers in my classroom with strategies that they will use long after they've closed the book on Hawthorne. In conveying this sentiment to my students, I've shifted the responsibility of learning back to them.

Ongoing assessment is truly essential in the high school English classroom, and it must span beyond knowing content-based information. From assessing prior knowledge to monitoring comprehension during reading, we can all help our students to realize the tremendous importance of reading--thus authentically preparing them for the real world.

Colleen Ruggieri teaches honors English, American literature, and composition at Boardman High School. She has worked as a consultant for the Ohio Department of Education's Office of Curriculum & Assessment, where she facilitated writing teams for the development of the language arts academic content standards. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and fellow of the National Writing Project & The Bread Loaf Teacher Network.

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References

Allen, J. (2004). Tools for teaching content literacy. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Burke, J. (2000). Reading reminders. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hawthorne, N. (1986). The scarlet letter. New York: Bantam. (Original work published 1850)

Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don't get it. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Vacca, R., & Vacca, J. (2002). Content area reading. Boston: Pearson.