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January 19, 2005 |
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Scoring on Standardized
Tests Inspired by this week's Chicago Tribune story on high school testing and the Washington Post story on SAT scorer preparation, this collection of resources focuses on ways that we prepare our students for the tests and the ways that those tests get scored. Read "One Teacher's Resistance to the Pressures of Test Mentality" (E) from the January 2005 Language Arts (E) to see how one Special Education teacher stresses authentic assessments and informed individualized instruction with her students. Teachers at all levels can apply author Jim Burke's suggestions from "Learning the Language of Academic Study" (E-M-S-C) from the May 2004 Voices from the Middle (M), which includes an academic vocabulary list, a main idea organizer, a comparison organizer, and a list of practical teaching principles. By exploring academic language with these tools, students are better able to respond to the prompts and exercises they encounter on tests and in the classroom. To read more of Burke's ideas for helping students become more successful, check out the NCTE Selects title School Smarts: The Four Cs of Academic Success (M-S). Take a look at one teacher's method of preparing students for the upcoming written essay included in the SAT. "Timed SAT Writings" (S) from the January 2005 Classroom Notes Plus (M-S) explains how students write short responses to prompts to become more accustomed to the kind of writing that the SAT essay will require, then use the responses as material for peer review and more process-oriented writing instruction. "Reflections of an AP Reader" (S-C) from the March 2004 English Journal (S) recounts the author's experience as a reader for the Advanced Placement Language and Composition exam, including questions raised by -- and about -- the process of assessing these written essays. "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key" (C), from the December 2004 College Composition and Communication, asks us to think about how our definition of writing has expanded beyond "words on paper" to encompass a range of multimodal expressions, including kinds of composition that are rarely reflected on the tests our students take. Celebrating Award-Winning Books
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