Assessing the Process...Continuing the Inquiry

One of the most common inquiry questions surfaced in the first five days of training asks about how to assess students on the reading process while also assessing content, all while maintaining our sanity as teachers. This is the million dollar question!

In the spirit of true inquiry and collaboration, we are asking you to share some tips and recommendations for how you have been able to assess your students’ reading.

In order to model, I’ll start by sharing one of my assessment routines. When students complete a Talk to the Text, I always make explicit what my one or two reading strategy focus(es) are. They are encouraged to do what they need to in order to make sense of the text, but I ask them to especially focus on what I have selected to be the critical strategies that piece of text (based on genre, goals, previous T4s, etc). Then, when I collect their T4, I scan through their annotations, trying to answer or comment on a few questions they ask, and leave them a note on the top of their page. This note is in code and might look like this:

S √+

Q √

C-RW √

U √+

In this grading system, I identify the strategies they have used (S – Summary, Q – Questioning, C-RW – Connections to the Real World, U – Underlining) and rank how effective they seemed and were engaged in this text (ranging from a √- to a √+). Students then record these notes on a chart I give students at the beginning of the year. Over the range of assignments, they are able to see trends in which reading strategies they are using and which ones are most effective in each genre.

This is not extensively time consuming, but by the end of the 2^nd quarter, I start to fade to student independence where they will self-assess by the end of the year. We practice this in the 3^rd quarter with more peer assessment. In terms or numerical points, I follow the compliance-practice-expertise model  based on the T4 focus and where we are with student experience per strategy for each genre.

I hope this model clarifies the possibilities of sharing our experience. There’s no one right answer to this question, but with our collective thoughts and anecdotes, we can put together a more comprehensive understanding of the question at this stage. 

Social Dimension: What's Next?

Rita Jensen is quoted in Reading for Understanding Chapter 3, page 85:

 Teachers get confused that doing particular activities at the start of the year to set a classroom culture is the extent of how the social and personal dimensions operate in Reading Apprenticeship. If you're paying attention to the social and personal dimensions, building safety in your classroom takes more than a getting-to-know-you activity or norm building or personal reading history. These are important, no question, but they're just the beginning of what it means to build a classroom that feels safe. And students do need to feel safe if you're asking them to talk about being confused about something you asked them to read.

It's also important to keep in mind how all the dimensions keep interacting, all the time. Maybe the next time students are reading something really hard, you ask them to stop and reflect with a partner. They're going to need to be metacognitive, they're going to need to collaborate, they have an opportunity to develop stamina and to use cognitive strategies, they're probably going to learn something - all from a three-minute Think-Pair-Share - if the social and personal dimensions are being tended. The more experience you have with Reading Apprenticeship, the more you will appreciate the genius of how the dimensions are always interacting and the social and personal dimensions are always instrumental to the learning. They make the learning possible! 

 At this time in the school year, the crunch often starts to set in when we feel that the content does not allow for us to continue building the personal and social dimensions. On the other hand, though, we know and have experienced that when students are addressed as individuals with their own emotional and personal needs, they are more able to accept and learn the content. The personal and social dimensions are conduits to the content; therefore, students are positioned to be ready to learn more deeply. This is a steady reminder to all of us that a single routine has incredible power in honoring our students and their learning.

Some other routines that readily work on building these dimensions include the following: small group discussion (especially before large group share out), comments on students' questions in their homework/T4s, modelling complex texts for students (taking the risk with them), sharing chapter annotations and trying to answer questions raised by a peer, individual time to reflect on a question before discussion.

And to think that this is just one quote from Chapter 3! Enjoy your reading of Chapters 3 and 4 over the next three weeks.

A Buffet of Texts

So our textbook isn't the only text that we have have . . . so what else is considered a text?

• newspaper article
• word problem
• graph
• chart
• song lyrics
• lab report
• video
• essay
• novel
• comic strip
• graphic novel
• political cartoon
• manual
• directions
• equations
• pharmaceutical insert
• list of ingredients
• magazine article
•  pamphlet
• brochure
• journal
• children's book
• flyer
• poster

The best work is the hardest work...

Last week at the RAISE training, a participant made an observation that struck me as poignant and highlighted the difficulty of truly teaching our students and teaching them deeply:

 "Sometimes as teachers, we cut corners by teaching students as if they all think and read the same way. If we really want to build them to be successful thinkers, we need to show them how to do it."

Even though the practice of theory of differentiation is not new, considering it in the light of reading and thinking is not something that we often give precedent to. Instead, we believe that if we teach the content, the thinking will come with it. It takes courage for us to reexamine this assumption in our teaching and embrace a paradigm shift. This quote made me uncomfortable and upset at first, not wanting to ever think that I am cutting corners, but it certainly warrants deeper reflection methinks...

Really? Reading in Science, Math, and Social Studies?

In Reading Apprenticeship

"An abiding focus is how supports for all the dimensions of Reading Apprenticeship, together with metacognitive conversation and extensive reading, work together to support engaged disciplinary learning.  The multiple text reading, modeling and argumentation inquiry is intended to underscore how close reading supports rigorous disciplinary learning."

So does that mean we all need to become reading specialists in order to better support engaged disciplinary learning?  Absolutely not, rather, you will need to merely tap into the invisible, unstated practices of science/math/social studies literacy that you already have.  You will have the opportunity to make those processes visible to yourself and your students.  Your students will in turn make their thinking visible to you allowing for deep disciplinary conversation and ultimately great understanding.  The strategies are not new and 'fancy-fangled' but rather being made explicit and utilized on a routine basis until they become inherent in our students so that they too can think, problem-solve, and learn like others in your field.

Reading Strategy: Identifying Irony

Driving home on Friday from the Leadership In Reading Apprenticeship Conference:

It's everywhere.

The Great RA Shift

I've noticed that my classroom/teaching has been making a gradual shift.  It is significant, yet unfinished, and terribly exciting.  My colleagues studying RA this year have also expressed similar thoughts.  As I was reading Reading for Understanding by Schoenback, Greenleaf, and Murphy (2nd Edition) I came across this line that described what we are experiencing.

"When classrooms are places where teachers do things for students or to students, teachers are doing all of the intellectual work.  When classrooms become places where teachers do things with students, the intellectual culture of the classroom shifts, and students have a purpose for investing in learning."

Admittedly, I am nowhere near mastering the art of Reading Apprenticeship.  In RA the teacher serves as the mentor of the student apprentices who are learning how to read, think, and learn in a specific discipline; in my case science.  Amazingly, despite the snail's pace of my learning curve, the change is beginning to happen and it is truly invigorating after 11 years of teaching.  There is a new sense of hope on the horizon and I am genuinely excited to share in this process with my colleagues.

So What Is Reading Apprenticeship?

The phrase Reading Apprenticeship has been a bit 'foggy' for me for quite some time so I have been on a quest to 'de-nebulize' the idea for myself and perhaps help a few others along the way to make sense of it all.

One of the major principles behind RA is that the teacher is an expert in the content and discourse of their subject matter.  The students in their classroom are therefore the apprentices under the care of the expert teacher.

So what does that look like?  I have begun a list of thoughts about what RA entails.  In order to keep the list going throughout our time, I have placed it on the next tab - just click here or on the tab called Reading Apprenticeship.

Note On Range & Content of Student Reading

I found this quote quite interesting from the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (page 60)

Reading is critical to building knowledge in history/social studies as well as in science and technical subjects.  College and career ready reading in these fields requires an appreciation of the norms and conventions of each discipline, such as the kinds of evidence used in history and science; an understanding of domain-specific words and phrases; an attention to precise details; and the capacity to evaluate intricate arguments, synthesize complex information, and follow detailed descriptions of events and concepts.

Welcome to Berkley's Reading Apprenticeship Blog.  Here we will post updates and create a forum for questions and responses!  You can follow the blog via e-mail by using the "follow by e-mail" link found on the right hand side of this page!

Tracy