Drew also had some new ideas for summative testing with CI. This posted here last December. Drew explains:
I am thinking out loud here how I could incorporate Drew’s recent description to jen of how he evaluates his level two students on the semester exam into my own end of semester assessments. I don’t think that any of us have such a process yet – not one that covers all four skills anyway – and this could be a good one to work from. We need some clarification, however.
First, before asking Drew to clarify, I would like to recap what I understand him to be saying about how he uses novels to assess his kids at the end of each semester.
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. The process for that reading of the book, for me at least, will be the process that I developed over the past few years and described here:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/10/21/additions-to-option-a/
Then, when the book is over and we want to test the four skills during the exam week (and before, as we need the extra time), we could do what is described below, based on Drew’s response to jen.
[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:
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.
Apparently Drew allows the PQA on each chapter to expand into stories if that happens, as per:
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.
So, then, in his own summative assessment after reading the novel, I hear Drew saying to jen this:
Day 1 (three days before the exam) – …we do the writing* the Wednesday before….
*I made the students write 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. 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).
Day 2 and 3 (the days immediately preceding the exam block) …we did two days of reading* Thursday and Friday…
*I would assume to finish the novel. Drew could you comment on this?
Exam block day: …[we did] the oral exams during the 2-hour exam block…. [and] they had Monday for in-class recap** of the novel, Monday night homework was thesis writing***, and on Tuesday I let the kids pull quotes from the book and did thesis statements****. I said I’m aiding with thesis statements on the document camera, if you want to watch, watch, if not, just don’t bug everyone else.
**class report of the novel while oral exams occur – pls. clarify this process, Drew.
***thesis writing – pls. clarify
****thesis statements – pls. clarify
So Drew if you could clarify what happens during the exam block and during that period of the last few days of the semester [the asterisks] it would help some of us who are thinking of implementing your ideas in our own summative assessment plans. I love the idea of basing a final exam on a novel and this is certainly a good plan. Merci d’avance for the clarifications.