Anne Matava sent this question in, with my answer below it, in about the spring of 2016. I am publishing it here for Jennifer:
One of my classes has gone completely NT. About 2 months ago they created a character and the whole thing has exploded into this long, drawn-out epic story in installments. We have been continuing the story on one day, then reading the latest installment and taking a T/F quiz on it on the following day. It is, of course, more fun than anyone should be having in school.
The problem I have is this: in my standards-based school, those T/F quizzes are considered formative assessments, worth 20% of the grade. I need to come up with some kind of summative assessment, some kind of grand test, for all of this.
I just spent the last hour or so reading over all of the crazy stories and trying to picture how to make a test out of it. I am just so lost. One thought I have, is just to go in to the grades I have for the quizzes, and randomly make a few of them summatives in the grade book. Or, not so randomly – pick a few that the students did really well on, so most everyone has an A. A bit disingenuous, but fuck ’em, I don’t agree with their system.
If you have any other thoughts I’d appreciate it.
Thanks
Anne
My response:
I would give a summative or even a final exam thusly:
Section 1: Translation. Translate the following story (25 points):
(and here you put one of their very recent favorites that they created).
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Section 2: Vocabulary. Translate the following words into English (25 points):
(here put the 25 most common words they all know cold from the stories you made in the NT story process.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Section 3: Auditory Comprehension. Write down in the space below the story you hear read to you. Write in Engish. You will hear each sentence read three times. (25 points):
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Section 4: Dictee. This sections tests your ability to write in French. Follow the normal dictation format. Write down in the space below the story you hear read to you in French. (25 points):
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
So obviously it only looks summative bc you test them on the most recent story you did and only ask (very recent) words you know they know bc they still have them all in short term memory*.
Something like this would do a good snow job of placating the legacy teachers in the building bc it looks alike it tests for three skills. (Obviously we can’t test for speaking bc speaking is mechanically too hard to test in a summative setting anyway.) Section 1 tests reading, so that is covered. Section 2 makes it look like you are testing for vocabulary, so they love that bc it’s a list! Section 3 tests listening and Section 4 writing. Three of the (19th/20th century based concept of language instruction) “four skills” are tested. But all that you are really testing is their last story, or, in my case, one I actually make up during the review and exam period if I have a total of 3-4 hours for those time slots, which most schools offer. This aligns with that video Tina just make how assessment needs to not just OF learning but also FOR learning. If we do this at the semester and end of year on the final we gain up to 8 additional hours of comprehensible input instruction for our kids, and all w/o any preparation on our parts.
And the kids love it because it requires no memorization/study before the exam. And bc it’s only 10% of the grade in the first place! I would put this kind of exam in the cake counter on the top shelf. Fudge cake. Ummm!
Also Anne’s idea of changing quizzes to summative grades is my favorite tool of the trade. I did that hundreds of times and nobody ever asked a single question about it. That’s because they’re idiots.
*We CANNOT know if a word has been acquired or not, so let’s not lie to ourselves when we test whether they remember a word or not. Each kid is different. We cannot know. All we can do is evaluate for their confidence and create in them a desire to go on. In life, not just the language….