Assessment Ideas
Sometimes you want to assess understanding, and sometimes you want to assess process. Here's a sampling of both.
Assessing a Student's Understanding
- Student-teacher one-on-one reading conferences. Here's Edutopia's version.
- Students publish essays or book reviews on the Loose Canon platform, visible only within your school.
- Students answer Questions To Ask of Any Literature- for middle and high school (from Loose Canon™) Download
- Fifty Alternatives to the Book Report from NCTE's ReadWriteThink.org
- "In-book" Oral Assessment for Primary Students Doing Independent Reading (from Columbia University Teachers College)
- Student Presentation: Book Review and Analysis (from Josh Bledsoe at Greenville City HS Download
- Lit Circle Book Review and Analysis (Common Core Aligned) (from Josh Bledsoe at Greenville HS) Download
Assessing a Student's Process
- Students self-evaluate with semester reading ladders described in Teri Lesesne's original book or as modified by Penny Kittle and described in Erica Lee Beaton's blog post.
- Students publish their reading responses on the Loose Canon platform, visible only within their school.
- Student-teacher one-on-one reading conferences. Here's Edutopia's version.
- Spotlight Reading (Roy Smith at AP Lit Help)
- Unpack passages with a Commonplace Book, appropriate for middle grades through college (from Loose Canon™): Download. An example from a 9th grade student: Download.
- Discuss or respond to "Questions to Ask of Any Literature" (middle and high school) (from Loose Canon™) Download
- Teaching Students How to Annotate (from NCTE)
- Creative Annotation (From Lauren Gehr at Edutopia)
- Student to student reading conferences, speed-dating style. Here's teacher Miss G's explanation.
- Student to student presentations, round robin style.
Teachers: We would love to hear from you. Please send us a link to your favorite assessments for independent reading.
