Tag Archives: assessment

Conventions: They’re just like so whatever

Posted on by

photo by Jai-to-Z

Just finished reading an article in ASCD  by Naomi S. Baron called “Are Digital Media Changing Language?”   Rather than summarizing the article myself, I’ve included the abstract. Take a moment to read it. I’ll wait.

Are instant messaging and text messaging killing language? The author’s research has found that electronically mediated language is only changing the mechanics of traditional speech and writing in a few minor ways—for example, the incorporation of such acronyms as brb (be right back) and lol (laughing out loud) into everyday language. Of more concern, she writes, is the way the new media may be changing attitudes toward language. Two attitude shifts stand out: (1) a shift away from caring about language rules or consistency; and (2) a tendency to view language not as an opportunity for interpersonal dialog but as a system we can maneuver for individual gain.

Got it? Okay.

A while back I was talking to some colleagues about whether or not grammar was elitist, and I was reminded of that conversation while reading the article.

 

Lately the issue has been of interest to me in my role as a learning coordinator working with language teachers and English teachers who are very concerned about assessing conventions in their students’ work. I feel that I can write about this with impunity, having been one of those teachers who obsessed over the lack of subject verb agreement in a student’s essay (Argh! “Them” is plural! PLURAL!). And I still break out into a cold sweat when I see improperly used apostrophes (although I am guilty of recently committing the crime of using “it’s” when I meant “its.” I may be on Lynne Truss‘s hit because of it.)

 

What I’m getting at is this: What is it that makes a piece of writing worth reading? Have you ever set down a book and said “Man, that Atwood sure punctuated the heck out of that book!” ?

(And yes, I momentarily agonized over the punctuation of that sentence and then let it go. And yes, this is not a very good use of parentheses.)

Not likely. That doesn’t mean that punctuation, sentence construction and other conventions are not important to the communication of ideas, but does their contribution to the meaning of a piece of writing warrant the weight they are usually given in an assessment? Unless the teacher is explicitly assessing for conventions because that is what has been explicitly taught, then I say no.

 

Then why does it happen? I would argue because it is the one aspect of the subject of English that we can distill down to something science-like. There are rules. It is right or it is wrong. It’s one of the few things that we can grade without pausing and considering, “Well, maybe….” 

 

But as Baron’s article points out, many of our grammar “rules” were arbitrarily created in the 18th and 19th centuries. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but if I recall correctly, this is a result of the increase in printed texts and a desire for some uniformity in spelling and sentence construction. Prior to that time, there was wide variation in spelling and very little punctuation at all.  

 

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t teach conventions at all. Right now, if a student were to go to university and take a “whatever” approach to their (subject-verb agreement be damned!) writing, they wouldn’t do very well on their essay. But rules are evolving, and it probably won’t be long before the rules that I followed in essay-writing turn into, well, guidelines.

 

The other thing to keep in mind is that not all our students are planning on attending university; in fact, most aren’t! Shouldn’t we place the focus of our teaching and assessment on clear expression of carefully developed ideas? Certainly conventions are a part of that, but if a student has perfect punctuation, spelling, and grammar, but no depth or creativity in their writing (doing it again, I know), then that’s a much bigger concern to me than if the opposite were the case.

 

Saturday Morning Assignment

Posted on by

Our first task of the day is to find something to read on Google Reader, blog about it, then tweet. So I went back to an article I read by Scott McLeod on assessment 

High school grading: Mastery v. handing things in

One of the students in my data-driven decision-making class (for discussion purposes, let’s call her ‘Jen’) posted this in our online discussion area:

Most grading at the high school level is more reflective of responsibility (just handing things in) and not on whether the student has truly mastered the content.

There are a lot of issues embedded in this short sentence. For example…

  1. What does ‘true mastery of content’ mean (or look like) for secondary students?
  2. Does high school grading really get at the idea of student responsibility?
  3. If yes to #2, is ‘handing things in’ a good measure of student responsibility?
  4. Does student regurgitation of low-level factual recall items on quizzes and tests constitute ‘handing things in’ or ‘mastery?’

What do you think? Do you agree with Jen’s initial statement?

So here was my response to this post:

I was just thinking today about how I used to assign a business letter on the first day of my grade 12 English class. The purpose was for students to introduce themselves to me. I gave them a template and a model to follow, but I didn’t really “teach” the business letter.

And then I marked it.

“What the heck were you thinking!” I asked myself. “How can you mark something that you didn’t teach?” Well if I don’t mark it, they won’t see it as valuable and therefore won’t hand it in.

So now I would say to the old me, “There needs to be another reason for them to hand it in other than for marks. If you can’t come up with a good enough reason, then it’s probably not a valid assessment. And if you’re marking something that you haven’t taught, then you’re an evaluator–not a teacher.”

I would really like to see some innovative suggestions to get students to see the value in assessment that is not grading, ie. ways to get around assigning a mark for being responsible when that isn’t a curriculum expectation.

In our board’s report cards, we are asked to record learning skills but they don’t factor into any overall grades.

Should there be a separate grade for learning skills? Are students mature enough to understand the importance of completi

ng formative assessments for reasons other than grades? How do we make it matter?

expbound


It’s all good in theory….

Posted on by

I’ve been learning so much lately in my job and I’ve really enjoyed being able to talk to and learn from the the teachers I’ve been working with. I never really felt all that passionate about or interested in pedagogy and I spent the first five years of my teaching career coming to the conclusion that there wasn’t a whole lot that I could do as a teacher that would make a difference. Kids wouldn’t show up for class because they had family/psychological/social/motivational (whatever) issues and so there was nothing I could do about them, and the rest of the students were either too lazy to try or were only motivated by numbers on a page. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of course. There’s all the administrative pressure to submit marks. I couldn’t control the fact that students were late all the time without consequences and on and on and on. So why would I be motivated to think about pedagogical theory?

It’s a really amazing opportunity to spend a year outside of that situation to be able to think deeply about these ideas and discover things that you are passionate about without the day to day pressures of the classroom (not that there haven’t been pressure this year–don’t even get me started there!).

I feel like I’ve got a tonne of strategies for helping struggling and reluctant readers and I feel so much more confident in my knowledge of curriculum, assessment, and instructional practice. I have so many things I’d like to try when I get back into the classroom but– and here’s the big but– what if I get back into the classroom and I can’t or don’t implement any of the things I’m thinking about right now? It’s so easy to lose sight of the big picture when you’ve got a kid in your class telling you to f@*# off, or when you’re dealing with a parent who really doesn’t care whether or not her son attends your class. How am I going to maintain this energy and optimism when I’m back in the classroom? How do I make sure this year isn’t a waste? 

Any ideas?