Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning and Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook

            One thing that stuck with me after I had read the entire handout was that there are different conceptions of learning literature and your conception of it will influence the kinds of assessment tools you use in the classroom.  I agreed with the text when it stated that if you think learning literature is only about acquiring facts and knowledge about literature, there would be a lot of limitations to that conception.  Teachers who have this conception about learning literature focus simply on if a student knows that fact about the story, they don’t focus on the student’s ability to apply that knowledge to texts.  Tests that only give the opportunity for students to give the right answer rather than allowing students to express their thoughts through open-ended responses are not very effective because students will then focus on trying to retain only the facts they need to get a good grade on the test.  “Correct answer” tests do not let students be creative and thoughtful with their responses and in the long run I don’t believe that always administering these types of tests is going to get students to the types of learning goals teachers have for their Literature students.  I liked the alternatives to “correct answer” tests that this handout gave.  My favorite was to provide “reader-based” descriptive responses.  A favorite quote I got out of the reading was this: “To assert through a multiple-choice test that a piece of text has only one meaning is unacceptable, given what we know of language.”

            As far as the “Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook” article goes, I thought it showed how much a failing grade on an assignment can affect a student’s overall grade.  A student could be doing great in class, with good grades, and if they have one little slip up their grade could be in the toilet.  I don’t think this is fair because a student’s grade, in my mind, should reflect what they know and how hard they are working.  I’m not sure what I would do as far as my grading system goes.  I don’t like the idea of giving a student a zero for a grade, but then again, I don’t want students to think that there won’t be consequences for not doing an assignment and turning it in on time or not trying at all on an assignment.