Steve's+Portfolio+Assessed

Dear Steve: I appreciated your tracing your own challenges in school to literacy problems you want to address as an English teacher. Secondary English teachers are often doubtful about how to insure students are comprehending their reading, other than the usual reading quiz, which just reveals failure. Formative assessment assumes that the teacher will identify reading issues before the student has to perform on a summative assessment, when the stakes are high. This links to your teacher research proposal and your unit plan. In your Unit, you have an excellent summative assessment about part-time identities. The one deficiency in that assessment is that you ask students to look __outside__ the novel for examples of part-time identity, but __then__ you require them to quote __from the novel__ in your rubric. In the essay you might ask students to define “part-time identity” with an example from the novel, then compare it to examples outside the novel. You have to make these expectations explicit, however, because students are not good mind-readers J To meet these expectations in your summative assessment, you should ask students to notice the part-time identity as they read and give examples in their journals. As you read the journals you can observe whether their examples are legitimate and show understanding of the text. This is how formative assessment prepares for summative assessments. Your reflection is a little skimpy on these details of process and formative assessment. You also don’t address how you will evaluate Standard English in your classroom, how you will provide inclusion for students with special needs, or your general philosophy of assessment of writing. These issues can be constructively addressed by the use of rubrics, reflection letters, and portfolios. Realizing that the semester ended in crisis for you, I appreciate that you have assembled this portfolio, which shows substantial work. As you move on to student teaching, just remember that students need to know your expectations for reading and writing, even if they may not like them. 60/70