Assessing Reading and Writing

     A big topic in the education field that I struggle with is assessment.  As teachers we don't seem to get very far into any conversation without this topic coming into play.  There are two kinds of assessments: summative and formative.  Summative assessments are the kind that occur after instruction when all is said and done.  Formative assessments are the kind that are ongoing and show us as teachers where our students have been, are now, and hopefully will be.  Subject areas such as Math, Science, and Social Studies are as cut and dry as you can possibly have when talking about assessment, but reading and writing...where do I even begin to instruct a student on their progress and worst of all give them a grade when it is all said and done?  When grading a paper or a story that a student has written what rubric do I follow?  What guidelines do I have set in advance for my students so they succeed in meeting my standards to receive an A?  Am I then "teaching to the test'?  Do I grade every paper the same?  Are there exceptions?  Can you even imagine grading poetry?!  It is exhausting to think about! Writing and summative assessments go together like oil and water.  They do not mix well.  They best way to assess writing, I believe, is through formative assessment and the writing process.
     Debbie Miller talks in detail about the importance of formative assessment with writing.  In Debbie Miller's book Teaching with Intention, Erma Bombeck makes this statement about formative assessment, "I see our children as kites.  You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground.  You run with them until you're both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail...they hit the rooftop...you pluck them out of the spouting...you patch and comfort, adjust and teach.  You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they'll fly...Finally, they are airborne, but they need more string and you keep letting it out.  With each twist of the ball of twin, there is a sadness that goes with the joy because the kite becomes more distant and somehow you know it won't be long before this beautiful creature will snap the lifeline binding you together and soar as it was meant to soar - free and alone."  This is exactly how formative assessment and teaching is.  This is how I aspire to teach my students about writing.  I believe students need a lot of comfort, courage, reassurance, and respect when it comes to their writing.
     Debbie Miller offers plenty of examples of how we can use formative assessment with our students writing.  She talks about conferring, listening in, observing, examining student work samples, charting student thinking, reflecting, sharing and teaching.  Something in particular that I enjoyed reading about from Debbie Miller and Anderson was conferring or conferencing.  Conferencing with our students is huge to their development in writing.  Anderson talks about starting conferences off on a positive note.  I COULD NOT AGREE MORE!  They talk about in education the "positive-negative-positive sandwich".  Start things off on a positive note, then giving CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, then ending on a positive note.  Students receive information and feedback so much better when they feel like they are appreciated and respected and what better way to do so then have a one-on-one sit down with them to praise and critique their work.  Debbie Miller says, "When we pull up a chair and sit next to a child to talk with them about their learning, we learn valuable information about how individual children are processing what we've taught them.  And when we look at our conferences as a whole, we can use this information to consider the implications for small, needs-based groups and whole-group instruction."  I think this is how we should teach everything we do in school.  We would learn so much more about our students this way and how we as teachers can better instruct them.  However, there is a big "but" when it comes to conferencing...But where do we find time out of our already hectic days to conference with each of our students individually?  Is that even possible?  If so what does it look like?  How is it managed?  What is the rest of the class doing while the one-on-one conferences are going on?
     Assessment will always and forever be apart of the teaching world.  If assessments did not exist how would we know where we stand or how far our progress has come?  Assessments and I may not be the best of friends now, but I have a feeling we will learn to grow on each other.  I think it is very important for me to learn when to use what kind of assessment, and how to use the assessment to gain knowledge about my students and how I can better instruct my students.

Over the Shoulder Miscue Analysis

     Last year I was enrolled in the class Literature and Learning 1 and 2.  In this class one of our biggest assignments that we had to complete was what the teaching world calls a "Miscue Analysis".  A Miscue analysis is done when we try to gain more knowledge about our students as readers in our classroom.  A text is chosen that the student will read, as a teacher you have a written out script to follow along with while the student reads, the student is recorded while reading, then the student is suppose to give a retelling of what they just read to you.  Truth be told, this was one of the most challenging and frustrating experiences I have had in education so far.  It is hard for me to really rely on something like a miscue analysis to judge what kind of reader my student is.  I think this analysis does not account for a lot about how a reader learns to read and why they read the way they do.  Sometimes students can have a lot of syntax, semantic, or graphophonics miscues that may lead you to believe that a student cannot read but when they retell the story they just read to you it shows that they have comprehended the main ideas, listed characters, make connections, and can even make higher order thinking connections.  However, I do think miscue analysis' are necessary to see where a reader is at the time and it helps you discover strategies that are being used by the reader.  With all that said, and I believe that was a mouthful, I was very apprehensive to do an Over the Shoulder Miscue Analysis (OTSMA) for my Literature and Learning 3 class this semester.
     I was reassured by my teacher that this OTSMA would be far less painful than the initial miscue analysis that we had done the previous semester but I still had my doubts.  While this analysis was less in depth I was still worried that it wouldn't show me what my reader was capable of.  I did my best to change my attitude towards the analysis going into it and make it a positive experience.  I worked with a sixth grade student to perform this OTSMA.  At the time sixth grade was reading Phantom of the Tollbooth by Norton Juster so I had the student read to me for about fifteen minutes from that book.  One thing that I was skeptical about, and I think this is very important when performing the OTSMA is knowing the student as a reader before doing the analysis.  I had only been with my sixth grade class for a couple days and knew barely anything about them so I was naturally I was worried.  I got through the OTSMA with no qualms and surprisingly the student wasn't panic'd either so that helped me a lot.  With the Phantom of the Tollbooth it is hard to catch the puns that the author writes in but my student did a fairly good job at that.  My student is a proficient reader so he did not have many miscues.
     I think that it is very important to know your student as a reader when doing your miscue analysis.  Because I did not have much time with the student prior to doing the OTSMA it was hard for me to know where the student is and how I can I can better help them while doing the OTSMA.  This is something that I think that I can improve on.  Working with the student for more time prior to the OTSMA will help me help them.  Another thing that I believe that I can work on is being more familiar with the text before I work with a student.  Being more familiar will allow me to ask better questions during the OTSMA and it will help me ask better questions during the aided retelling part of the OTSMA.  One thing that I thought I did very well is encourage and reassure the student that what they are doing is for me and does not reflect on their reading abilities.  Sometimes students can feel a lot of stress and pressure to read perfectly when I tell them what I need them to do and they actually don’t read as well as they can because they are nervous.  I thought I did a really good job of reassuring the student and making them feel comfortable.  Another thing that I thought I did really well was engaging in the book with them by not only asking questions to help with my OTSMA but also engaging in conversation about the text with the student.  I am the type of person and I think that I am the type of teacher that really is all about reassuring that my students are important and intelligent.  I think tests can really overwhelm most students and if I can help alleviate some of that pressure by teaching them the correct tools to read and giving out positive attributes.