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Reflection as a Component of
Authentic Assessment
As the school year draws to a close, final assessment is on everyone's mind. By asking students to
reflect on their own language arts and composition abilities,
teachers can foster more authentic assessment of student achievement and more
engagement in the classroom.
Explore a range of assessment strategies in the October 2004 School Talk, which focuses on "Improving Learning through Classroom Assessment" (E-M). The issue includes suggestions for collecting evidence of learning, ways to support struggling learners, and strategies for involving parents in the assessment process.
Tap the ReadWriteThink Graphic Map (E-M-S) for a reflection activity on your most recent unit or the year as a whole. Using the interactive tool, ask students to reflect on the steps they have taken in any classroom project and assign high and low values that evaluate their experiences. With their printed map, ask students to turn in a short paragraph that summarizes the experiences recorded on their graphic maps.
Draft letters are a simple strategy that asks students to think critically about their writing on a specific assignment before submitting their work to a reader. The ReadWriteThink lesson Draft Letters: Improving Student Writing through Critical Thinking (M-S-C) explains the strategy and provides models for the project, which can be adapted for any grade level and any writing project.
To make reflection a core element in the literature classroom, take a look
at the NCTE book Teaching
Literature as Reflective Practice (S-C), which outlines
a course that invites students to theorize -- about their own reading
practices, about how literature is made, and about texts and their relationships
to
culture more generally. The book includes details on two kinds of literature
portfolio -- print and electronic. Chapter
One is available online.
NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this Inbox is provided
for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available
to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 05-31-06.
Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary,
M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, G=General).
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