Drew Hiben uses novels to assess his kids at the end of each semester. I have incorporated some of his ideas in this suggested semester/final exam process:
During the semester you read the book, doing a lot of PQA, pulling themes for the PQA discussion from ideas that are in each chapter that might appeal to teens. Then, when the book is over and we want to test skills during the exam week (we have to start this exam process before exam week, as we need the extra time), we could do what is described below:
[Caviat: I would not recommend this plan for level one classes and, in my opinion, Drew is even pushing it by asking for as much output as he does with his level two kids, but he must have the students for it, because it worked. In Denver Public Schools at level one we definitely summatively assess in April according to the following percentages, to keep the input/output ratios reflective of the kids’ capacity, as we know from Krashen that vast amounts of input are required before any real output can occur:
Listening – 40%
Reading – 40%
Writing – 10%
Speaking – 10%]
Here are some pertinent comments made by Drew here on how he uses the novel to lead up to the exam:
No set plan except to be done with the book two weeks before the exam. Sometimes we will do a Chapter over the course of a Tuesday/Thursday reading period. In a 17 week semester there is a lot of time to find a day here or there to read. The kids aren’t really into the books but as teacher I like them because they bring a little bit of unity between 2 or more teachers teaching multiple sections of the same class. The kids groan when I take the books out but I think sometimes they need to see that school doesn’t always have to be fun. From the 1st time we read I informed them that this stuff will show up on their essay at the end of the book.
Drew also notes:
1. The chapters open up a wealth of PQAable material that is more interesting than the novels themselves (which is key). This sort of CI helps build the vocabulary for the chapter ahead and helps to communicate the ideas that they will use in their essays.
2. Apparently Drew allows the PQA on each chapter to expand into stories if that happens, as per:
3. Actors and actresses help. I try to make the kids hate Mindy and love Anabel in the novel. That love interest really appeals to their hormones.
The following points are key in Drew’s approach:
1. he doesn’t “snow plow” through the novel – he dabbles his way through it over the course of the semester, pulling PQA discussion and even stories from the novels.
2. nothing is forced in the reading, and he seems to want to focus more on the discussion that emerges from a chapter than the chapter itself, using the chapter merely for a vocabulary feeding ground, a place to teach new words to prime the pump and keep everything totally in bounds for the eventual writing process.
3. he uses the reading of the novel consciously to set up his semester exams.
4. The exams require four class periods, of which one is the actual 90 minute block set aside by most schools for exams. Drew comments: “Our department agrees to give a 4-part final exam like this to test all of the modalities. I play along.”
So the exam semester/final exam process associate with the novel as Drew has designed it might look something like this:
Week 1
Monday (45 min.): Brainstorming Session. Big class brainstorm on all motifs, characters, and themes from the novel. We PQA phrases like “se trata” (it’s about), “Turner y Ray muestran” (Turner and Ray show), “se puede ver” (one can see), “se nota” (it’s noticed), phrases that the students will need for the AP test.* We take a possible theme and look for a quote and talk about how to introduce it in a text and parenthetically cite (connection to English/Lit classes) “Turner y Ray escriben: … (Turner y Ray #).” And then follow it up with a phrase like “para mostrar” (to show).
Homework Monday night: Write your thesis statement. Use the brainstorm to focus on one or two ideas that you will analyze using the book.
Tuesday in-class (45 min.): Listening/Discussion of thesis statements. In 2nd period I let kids turn in their thesis statements for discussion under the document camera and on the projector. We talked about how “el tesis es un mapa” (a thesis is a map) “¿cuál es su idea y cómo me va a presentarla?” (what is your idea and how will you present it?). Then they saw examples of all of the thesis sentences on the screen. They also had the books and were using a notecard to pull any quotes from the text that they wanted. Every paragraph needed to have a quote.
An option to using the document camera to discuss the thesis statements is to call kids up five at a time to discuss the five thesis statements. The cool thing was that some kids said “Oh I need to redo mine, I’ll be back” before we even got to theirs. Powerful group learning. I think I preferred the one-on-fives.
Tuesday after school: A few kids wanted more help outlining, and writing thesis statements. A few kids wanted to pull more quotes.
Wednesday: (45 min.): In-class writing. The students wrote an analysis of the story that we spent the semester reading. Since the story is 100% comprehensible and we have already analyzed all parts of the story in class, this is totally doable, in my opinion.
I checked their notecards for quotes. They could use their pink sheets with about 100 transitional phrases on it. (Those hard-to-PQA words like “in summary” “throughout the novel”). They had the entire hour for the 4-paragraph essay (Intro, 2 body paragraphs, and a conclusion). They all finished in our 52-minute class period. We practice free writes every Friday so they know how to write a lot in a short period of time.
It’s forced output, but once you see what I have to show my department chair, my principals and anyone else who wants to see, it’s worth it. They get a rubric grade for Analysis (3.0 Student draws inferences from the text and creates and supports a thesis); Fluency (3.0 student produces language understood by a sympathetic native speaker) ; Vocabulary (3.0 Student shows accurate and appropriate use of vocabulary in alignment with the curriculum); and Completion (3.0 student addresses all parts of the prompt with some extension).
Thursday (45 min.): Reading Comprehension 1
Friday (45 min.): Reading Comprehension 2
Week 2 – Exam Period (90 min.): Speaking
Laid back, bring a snack, come speak Spanish for a minute. I have a collection of hundreds of 4-panel story boards that kids have made over 3 years. I chose 50 for Spanish 2 and 50 for Spanish 1.
In Spanish II, I sent 2 kids to the back. They grabbed any poster and their 10 minutes started. Two minutes later I sent 2 more kids to the back for their poster and their 10 minutes started. Group 2 has 10 minutes to prepare and Group 1 had 8 minutes left.
Two minutes later I sent 2 more kids to the back for their poster and their 10 minutes started. Group 3 has 10 minutes, Group 2 has 8, and Group 1 has 6 minutes left.
We kept rotating the groups to the back until Group 1 came to present to the class. We threw the posters under the document camera. One kid stepped up to be the poster-projector while another busy-body student (probably a future teacher) understood the cycle of students, kept track of the next group to prepare and called the next group to the front. I just sat on my couch with a clipboard and watched the presentations. Kids in sweatpants eating snacks speaking some Spanish. Great final exam in my book.
The kids did it ping-pong style. One kid started speaking until the other kid stopped and he picked up his sentence where he left off. It was really cool to see kids helping each other out when they were struggling. Pretty much a true negotiation of meaning.