Writing and Tests

This week we read two chapters from our textbooks Content Area Writing: the first “Public Writing” and the second “Writing for Tests and Assessments.”

 

These chapters look at going more in depth with student writing. Earlier, I posted about short writing assignments called Writing to Learn. Today, I am moving away from that subject and on to the bigger writing assignments. However, not all bigger writing assignments are research papers or literary analyses. Students also need to learn how to write for the tests and assessments we give them. This means how do we teach writing for essay tests not only within our classrooms but also on Standardized Tests.

 

First we look at this idea of Public Writing. So far we have looked at the private, unedited, spontaneous Writing to Learn assignments that are not graded. What about Public Writing is different? Well, this kind of writing has the following qualities:

• Substantial – longer, more in-depth pieces
• Planned – intentional writing with a focused purpose
• Authoritative – writing that argues a point or gives information in a confident manner
• Conventional – writing that strives to reach its audience by conventional writing standards
• Composed – writing that has been drafted and revised a few times to make sure it is polished and clear
• Edited – writing that pays attention to the pesky details of grammar, punctuation, and spelling
• Graded – writing that will be evaluated

 

Now Public Writing is a great idea, but many times it can be daunting for students. How do we as teacher make Public Writing more accessible and less daunting for our students? Well, we can work on giving students choice. If students have a choice on topics about which they can write, then we are making our assignments relevant and engaging. It is often easier for students to approach an assignment they had a choice on rather than getting forced to write about one specific topic. Besides choice, we can give the students time to write in class. If we make students do all their writing outside of class, many students can fall behind or get confused, but if we allow time in class to write we can provide the support and modeling they need throughout their writing process. Furthermore, we can respond to the student’s writing. Our feedback during the writing process can greatly enhance the student’s writing and give them more confidence when writing alone for tests and assessments. Quelling students’ fears about big writing assignments can be easy if we model good writing and turn our writing assignments into processes that slowly move from step one ‘til the end with plenty of support and feedback along the way.

 

Step Two – let’s look at what kind of writing students will be doing besides the big papers. Let’s look at what writing students will be doing for tests and assessments. Now tests are supposed to assess what students learned; however, there are limitations:

1. We have taught students to write for an external reason. They write for a grade. They do not write to persuade or inspire. They write simply to regurgitate the information we fed to them.
2. Tests do not have a large audience. The student either writes for the teacher or an anonymous test grader they will never know. There is no connection or desire to want to reach people through their writing.
3. Our questions we pose for them to write about are limited themselves. We get what we ask for and nothing more. Students do not elaborate. They answer the question in as basic terms as possible and move on.
4. Students only get one chance to write their answer. They are given a fixed amount of time and no way to add in the writing process of drafting and revising.
5. Tests only look at one moment in time. They do not show how a student progressed throughout a unit. What you get in an essay could be what they learned or it could be what they already knew. Tests do not allow for overall assessment of how that student learned.

 

So now that we know how limited tests are – how do we fix it?

 

We design better essay tests. We ask better questions. We focus on the big picture and long term meaning rather than the specific, tiny details the student will forget the second the next unit is started. We use tests throughout the unit that focus on writing and create a process the student can really learn from.  We give students more time to write their essays either in class with fewer questions or use take home tests.

 

We prepare students to respond to questions in a variety of ways. We give them examples and we model for them. We teach them how to look at a question or testing situation and approach it logically. We teach them how to take essay tests and by extension standardized tests.

 

There are three strategies to do this:

1. Keep students writing year round. Give them assignments that have them explain their ideas, elaborate on them, and connect them to other ideas. The more comfortable they become with this process – the easier the tests will be.
2. Make sure the students know the expectations about what is supposed to go in their answers and how they present their answers. They need to be able to look at a question and decipher what it is asking and how to give their answer.
3. Relate test taking to what they know: video games. Teach them that test taking is all about being ready to engage, being alert, using strategies, thinking over modes of moving forward, and deciding the best route to take.

 

By preparing students for writing on tests, we can help them improve their overall learning in every area as well as improve how they approach other problems in life once out of school. We no longer need to “teach for the tests” because we can learn to use the tests to really teach for the kids.

Building Student’s Vocabulary

Chapter 8 of Content Area Reading looks at developing a student’s vocabulary. Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz write “teaching words well means giving students multiple opportunities to develop word meanings and learn how words are conceptually related to one another in the texts they are studying” (CAR, 235).

 

Why is this important? Why do students need to have a better vocabulary?

 

To improve their reading comprehension. If students know the words they are reading on the page then their reading comprehension will improve.

 

However, how do we as teachers define vocabulary?

 

There are three distinct types:

• General – everyday words with well known meanings
• Special – words from general vocabulary that take on specialized meanings when adapted to different content areas
• Technical – words that are only used/applied in one specific area

 

To teach vocabulary it is important to know when to preface a reading and teach certain words, when to give a list of words for students to keep in mind during their reading, and to have a list of words students should discuss after reading.

 

To begin this process it is vital we look at the term “concept.” Many students learn in terms of concepts and every concept has its own hierarchy of relationships. To teach a concept it is helpful to look at this hierarchy of relationships, oftentimes through a graphic organizer.

 

To create a graphic organizer that explains the hierarchical relationships of a concept it is helpful to follow the following six steps:

1. Analyze the vocabulary and list the important/key words
2. Arrange the list of words in terms of a hierarchy from most important to related
3. Add in example words for your vocabulary list that you believe the students already know to help clue them into the meanings
4. Evaluate the organizer and make sure the relationships are correct
5. Discuss the graphic organizer with the class before doing a learning task
6. After learning task relate discussion back to graphic organizer and add more words if needed

 

However, before graphic organizers can be used in the class it is helpful to work with students before learning new vocabulary to activate their prior knowledge. Have them write on what they already know about the words with Word Exploration activities. Put the students in groups and have them brainstorm related words to the given vocabulary words.

 

If there is one word in particular that stands as a word beneficial for the student’s long term vocabulary, have them work with that one word. Have them categorize it, define it in their own words, brainstorm their own comparisons, illustrate what they think it is like, anything really that gets them using their own words/experiences to learn this new word will help commit it to their long term memory.

 

Other activities for long term memory include:

• Semantic Feature Analysis – create a chart of similar words and have students determine which properties go with which word and which words have overlapping properties
• Categorization Activities – create activities to help students explore the relationships between words
• Concept Circles – help students describe a concept by looking at relationships of concepts in circle

 

However, when faced with an unknown word while reading it is helpful if students have activities they can use to help unpack an unfamiliar word. Helping them learn how to use context, word structure, and the dictionary will help students learn unfamiliar words on their own.

 

Context offers three clues that will help students learn an unfamiliar word. The first clue is typographic and this clue can be found in footnotes, italics, bold, parenthetical explanations, pictures, graphs, etc. They are the visual aids included in text books meant to help explain an important concept, and teaching your students how to use these helpful clues will improve their reading comprehension. The second and third clues are syntactic and semantic clues – the clues hidden within the text. Learning how to unpack a sentence and write it in the most basic words will help student discover the meaning of words they don’t understand.

 

Word Structure can help students decipher an unfamiliar word too. The smallest unit of words, morphemes, will help students predict the meaning of a word. Teaching your students about well known morphemes, suffixes and prefixes, compound words, etc. will help prepare students to figure out a word while reading.

 

Finally teaching students how to use a dictionary may seem trivial, but most students don’t know how to approach the dictionary. Emphasizing the “best-fit” option for definitions will help students find the correct definition they are looking for in relation to what they are reading (a relation that can be helped by knowing the context of what they are reading.) it is important when asking students to use a dictionary for an assignment to use it sparingly. Have the students learn a few big concept words really well instead of overwhelming them with every descriptor word you can think of. (And a helpful side note is to teach students about the pronunciation keys and how to decipher the symbols and translate them into sounds.)

 

Vocabulary may seem like a trivial, memorize and go topic, but vocabulary is vital for a student’s reading comprehension. The better their vocabulary – the better their reading comprehension – the more they learn!

Twofold Literacy

The two pieces we read for this week’s post were chapter ten of Content Area Reading by Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz called “Studying Text” and an article by Alan M. Frager and Elizabeth A. Frye called “Focus on the Essentials of Reading Instruction.” Both readings focused on the literacy of a student in a classroom. And both took on the two different sides to literacy: one the student’s side and one the teacher’s side.

The chapter took on how students study a text. If students do not know how to study a text, then their literacy will not be the best it can be. Students need to be equipped with the right tools to tackle a text if we teachers want them to learn from the text. This chapter argues that studying texts help students “make connections and think more deeply about ideas encountered in reading” (CAR, 317). However, students need to have reasons to study the text like acquiring knowledge, organizing/summarizing/using information and ideas, etc. And texts can offer several benefits to students like reflective thinking, self-directed study, hard work, and smart work.

A student’s work is directly related to the structure of the text. Texts include two types of features that aid this process:

1. External – format features, organizational aids
2. Internal – text patterns which revolve around:

• Description = information about topic
• Sequence = putting the information into a logical sequence
• Comparison and Contrast = point out similarities/differences about topic
• Cause and Effect = show how information originates and informs other information
• Problem and Solution – show development of problem and list solutions.

These text structures are usually recognized by signal words/phrases such as: to begin with, now, as, before, however, but, as well as, because, since, therefore, etc.

Along with linguistic pieces, students can use the visual aids within texts to help study. Graphics organizers are the best examples of these visual aids because they help learners comprehend and retain textually important information. Most often these graphic organizers reflect the text patterns and more often than not they can be used to revolve around questions students either have or should be aware of. Examples of graphic organizers include: word maps, semantic webs, flowcharts, and tree diagrams (CAR, 324).

Another tool students can use to study texts are written summaries. Writing summaries is a great activity for students because it teaches the students how to discern and analyze the text structure. A great example of a writing summary activity is GRASP or guided reading and summarizing procedure. GRASP happens as follows: teacher selects a passage, students read passage silently, students recite information they believe to be important, teacher writes information on the board, students re-read passage, class discusses list and adds/subtracts information.

The last tool is note taking. Now most people are very familiar with this tool, but unfortunately most students do not know the most effective means of note taking. Note taking is all about paraphrasing, summarizing, reacting critically, questioning, and responding personally to a text. It is not about copying down word for word a definition or other important concept. Most forms of note taking happen in reading logs, T-notes, cornell notes, and text annotations.

Text annotations address four types of notes:

1. Summary – condensing of main ideas
2. Thesis – addressing what main point of piece is
3. Critical – captures reader’s response
4. Question – looking at what the student thinks after reading

If students can learn these few tricks to studying a text then their literacy will improve.

However, it is not only up to the student. The second reading, the article “Focus on the Essentials of Reading Instruction,” addresses the teacher’s side of literacy in a classroom. Frager and Frye provide a rubric for teachers and evaluates how teachers are addressing literacy. They believe that there is a gap in between education classes where literacy is crucial to instruction and student teaching where literacy is optional. Their grades range from F to A just like any other rubric and are explained as follows:

F = Teacher reads entire text aloud or uses round robin reading techniques. Teachers focus on reading for information and ignores reading for meaning.

C = Teachers assign students to read texts silently and then immediately asks questions about what they read. This is problematic because either the books assigned are too difficult/too easy and the students do not know how to read to generate good answers to any questions the teacher might ask.

B = Teacher designs B-D-A reading activities (Before-During-After) to motivate students, activate prior knowledge, introduce new vocabulary, and develop awareness of questions/issues/debates.

B+ = Teacher is gradually releasing responsibility to the students.

A = Teacher continues to build on principles of good reading instruction, pushes personal meaning, and has high-quality discussion.

A+ = Teacher engages in critical literacy which means they are mindful of students’ lives, have a broad definition of text, ask provocative discussion questions, and encourage opportunities to reflect.

Getting Their Interest

This week’s reading was centered around student motivation and even though the idea for the chapter seemed to be a common sense sort of thing – it still is vitally important for every classroom, especially when student’s attention spans are harder to direct. But I feel like this is more than just getting the students to pay attention and do the reading. It is getting the students interested in doing the reading, interested in learning which is like a teacher’s highest goal that never seems to ever be reached. I feel like I had a lot of teachers that just gave up on trying to get us interested in learning and instead just sloughed through the same process day after day, unit after unit, just making sure we covered the content required in the curriculum.

 

How do we change this? How do we motivate students to read? To learn?

 

Our text, Content Area Reading by Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz, brought up an interesting point about self-efficacy. According to the text, self-efficacy is having a can-do attitude when thinking about applying your skills to learning, believing you can actually learn. I guess I never thought about that going through my schooling. Now it stands out as one of those flashing light bulb ideas that scream pay attention to me! And depending on when you come into the student’s schooling – you can have a huge impact on their self-efficacy (CAR, 169).

 

I plan on teaching high school so my main concern will be getting the students interested in the material. Motivation is key. And as the reading pointed out – self-efficacy and motivation go hand in hand: “if students believe, for example, that they have a good chance to succeed at a reading task, they are likely to exhibit a willingness to engage in reading and to complete the task” (CAR, 170). This motivation is increased when the student feels that the text relates directly to his or her life. So moral of the story is to make things relevant! Any chance you get – relate the text to the lives of the students, to today’s world, to something the students will know and relate with, anything (CAR, 170-173).

 

The text gave a few examples for increasing motivation in the classroom:

• Story Impressions – I found these to be really cool (maybe that is just the creative writer in me) but to do this the teacher hands out worksheets divided into two columns. In the first column the teacher lists words/phrases/concepts related to the text the students are about to read, and in the second column the teacher leaves space for the students to then write what they think is going to happen in the story/what their impression of the story is so far based whatever is in the first column (CAR, 173-175). (This idea is brilliant and I sort of can’t wait to use it and see if it works.)
• Problematic Perspectives – put the students in a role of one of the characters in the text they are about to read and pose the problem that character is going to face. Let the students imagine how they would solve the problem. Let them discuss with the other students. Get them involved in the story through the role-play (CAR, 176-178).
• Guided Imagery – this to me seems like guided mediation and might not work for every student, but it should help students invoke visuals of the text they are reading by getting them into the world, the time period, the feeling of the environment. It helps explore concepts and fosters discussion. It is another way to look at the problem perspective activity by having them imagine themselves working through the problem (CAR, 179-180).

 

Another important element of motivating students to read is prediction making. According to the text, “prediction strategies activate thought about the content before reading” and that the students need to use what they already know to make “educated guesses” about the text they are going to read (CAR, 180).

Two prediction making activities are:

1. Anticipation Guides – a list of statements with a wide range of ideas/meanings to which students must respond (CAR, 183-184).
2. Imagine, Elaborate, Predict, and Confirm (IPEC) – the teacher selects a passage to be used as introduction to a text, summarize it for students, have them Imagine the scene while paying attention to the senses, have the students Elaborate on their initial responses with a class discussion, have the students Predict what they think will happen throughout the rest of the text, and then have them Confirm what they imagined/elaborated/predicted during and after reading (CAR, 184-186).

 

The final push of this chapter was to get students asking their own questions. If they ask their own questions it usually means they want to find the answers. This can be helped along by you asking them questions that are answered by their own questions. For example, ask them what they want to learn about a character, about a scene, about the motivations behind a plot. Getting them to generate their own questions will help raise motivation to discover the answers. Then of course, if they raise questions that don’t get answered, after reading discuss them (CAR, 187-191).

 

The biggest take-away from reading this is to really get the emphasis off yourself as a teacher and what you want to talk about or explore, and instead focus on the students and what they want to talk about and explore within regards to a text. Motivate them to read, and they might find what you wanted to bring up.