In chapters six and seven of Blasingame’s, Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools, in and out of classroom assessment is addressed as well as the importance of flexibility needed in all such assessment. All educators must adapt to each student’s individual learning style to the best of their ability in order to help the student reach their full potential in the class. Blasingame quotes from Vaencia, Hiebert and Aflerbach saying that, “Teachers have always viewed their ongoing interactions with children as occasions for assessing students’ learning processes, abilities, and accomplishments.” I see this type of assessment as the window into the student, allowing the teacher to adapt and teach to the strengths and potential of the student. From here, Blasingame describes what has become one of the controversies of teaching: a form of assessment that he calls “High-Stakes Testing”.
High-Stakes Testing, as it is called in chapter six, was originally designed as a form of summative assessment developed after World War II with an original intention of merely assessing the current status of a student’s progress so an educator may continue to make adjustments to a curriculum and further adapt to a student’s learning style. Over time, this form of assessment has taken on an entirely different purpose that is more or less unrelated to the student’s benefit. The results of these types of tests are now used as teacher’s incentive for promotions or raises, making it harder for teachers to truly focus on their jobs as educators. Blasingame spends the rest of the chapter discussing all types of “Authentic Assessment,” geared towards getting the focus back on the student’s progress and aiding their progress rather than simply observing the progress.
Chapter seven describes one of the authentic assessments for writing skills named “The Six-Trait Model.” Blasingame reviews the origin of this assessment from Robert Pirsig’s research done in 1974 in which he wanted to “define quality writing” and Paul Diederich’s research in which he “validated a set of traits for defining quality writing.” (121-22). The traits are then listed in grading rubric form over the next few pages: Ideas and Content, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, and Presentation (optional). Upon reading to this point, I realized that many of my assignments in English classes, as well as some other classes with writing involved, did actually use this type of assessment, though I do not remember any of my teachers actually helped us to understand these rubrics by reviewing other forms of literature with us and letting us use the rubric in practice.
I enjoyed this reading because it really gets one of the biggest fears of teaching into the light for me. I have worked at jobs that require the paperwork showing the progress in numbers and if you don’t meet a quota, you are in trouble. I don’t believe that education should focus on that, but I do believe that in an effort to ensure that students are learning by a standard goal, teachers have inadvertently become pressured into focusing on their job rather than on the benefits and education of the student. Reading about the different authentic assessments makes me feel refreshed and takes the weight off of my shoulders in regards to the standards of students and teachers. Especially now that I understand what many of my teachers were doing with the six-trait model, I see that there are many ways in which to assess students summatively while still focusing more on the student rather than the quota presented by the standard. One thing that I intend to incorporate along with these assessments is a way in which to introduce my students to this assessment in a similar way as Blasingame suggests in chapter seven. I feel that though this assessment is a great way to help students learn and grow in reading and writing, it would be best if the students had a clear understanding of the assessment itself. I feel that by putting it into practice in the classroom, I would likely see greater progress and students would understand the goals that I have set for them and be more likely to want it for themselves.
6+1 Traits evaluation:
For the 6+1 traits evaluation, I chose the 5 point 3-12 and the 6 point 3-12 writer’s rubric. I have used these two rubrics as both a student and practicum teacher in the classroom. For a genre, I chose that my students would be required to write and perform either a song or poem in class in which the student will present information on a selected topic through their original work. The pros for this type of assignment would be extensive. Students would have to show creative and original thought in their work as well as a clear understanding and mastery of the topic. They would have to present their topic through the work in an organized manner which would likely be dictated by the song or poem. They could show creativity in their use of formal or non-formal language and show how the work benefits from the use of their chosen style of speech. They would be required to use a style of writing that flows smoothly with the work. Finally, the student would have to use a voice that is captivating and fits what they write. All of these are traits that could be assessed with the rubric.
A few possible flaws with this genre is that there would likely be students who are not fond of presenting original works to an audience due to shyness or apathy of the form of art. The quality of voice could be greatly affected by this as well and cause the student to not use a strong and clear voice that captivates the audience. Also, the presentation would be lacking. I would have to grade sparingly due to the lack of enthusiasm or courage of a student to perform in front of their peers. So much could play into the assessment in the way of a student’s personal life that would deem the assessment as unfair in some cases. I do know that I would use the 6 point rubric in order to provide more specific grading in each area, but even then, I could never assess what goes beyond the student’s topic and what I see in the presentation according to the rubric.
A note on this genre: When in high school, I had the opportunity to choose this genre in both my freshman and senior year for the same teacher. What I liked about her assignment was the way in which she used the multi-genre assignment in a way that allowed us the opportunity to show the same quality of work in a way that would best fit our personal interests. I plan to use this same style in my classroom.