Weekly Reading #9

Quote:
"In one classroom, students evaluate samples of writing, ranking them and providing criteria for each ranking. The discussion is synthesized on a handout given to students. In another classroom, students create wall charts of features of good writing, revising them throughout the year as their ideas about writing evolve. And finally, students and teachers generate lists of statements about what makes good writing, and this list is used by students selecting pieces for their portfolios. In each of these scenarios, students learn to write by learning to assess. (Huot 171)"

Why this Quote?:
I made the font large in the part that I want to discuss.  Learning how to assess will help students learn to write.  This is a tool that I like to use in my math classroom.  If I am ever beginning a project I like to show students a "good example."  I also like to show students "non-examples;"  I show students non-examples sometimes and ask questions like, "Why isn't this a good response?" or "What is wrong with the title?" or "What is wrong with the answer?"  It is also nice to show students mediocre examples and question, "Could we add anything to this to make it better?"  When students know how to find error and know the difference between correct and incorrect examples, students "know how" to do what is asked of them.  This is very true in writing.  I know that even in this class(6809) we are often given "samples" of a correct, completed assignment.  We are given rubrics.  Sometimes reviewing correct examples and reading the rubrics help me realize how my work will be assessed and in turn helps me successfully complete the assignment.

Additional Resource:
Article on Benefits of Student-Generated Rubrics

Explanation of Additional Resource:
I thought this was a neat example of how students inputs towards their assessments can be very beneficial. Obviously, we don't want every assessment in the classroom to be student-generated.  However, it is something to think of.  As the article author states, "Developing a rubric is a reflective process that extends the experience and the knowledge gained beyond simply turning in a project for a teacher-initiated grade."

Questions:

1. What should the assessments of multimodal text provide for students?
• It should teach the students composition.  They should be productive, not just a score with no explanation gets thrown away.  It needs to be instructive evaluation or instructive assessment. Both terms denote that help students learn to assess texts rhetorically—their own texts and the texts of others, as they compose and after they do so.  In this way, assessments of student work become part of instruction. 
2. What are the benefits to using formative assessment when asking students to compose multimodal texts?
• Formative assessments provide feedback to students while they are still working on assignments or project. This kind of approach helps to focus students’ attention on a rhetorical understanding of a text as they are in the process of composing it. 
3. How do you feel about collaboratively constructing rubrics or assessment criteria with students?
• I agreed with the author's statement, "Collaboratively composed rubrics can also serve a summative function—providing teachers and students a strategy for evaluating the rhetorical effectiveness of a final composition product. Because such an approach to instructive assessment offers an effective way to make sure that students understand the role of rhetoric in a conventional composition classroom, it is probably an even more important strategy to use in a course that includes multimodal texts."
• I like the idea of students creating the rubric.  It just adds to the authenticity of the project.  Plus, there will be less "arguing" over the final assessment; i.e. "I don't like the way you are grading this."  This is a collaborative assessment so the student had a say in how something was being assessed.
4. Find a rubric or modify this Digital Composing Rubric to assess the multimodal product students will creating as a result of their Multimodal Learning Adventure and link to it from your Blog. You can use RubiStar to find, create, or modify your rubric.
• weather newscast rubric

Reference:

Borton, S. C., & Huot, B. (n.d.). Chapter 8: Responding and Assessing. Retrieved July 16, 2013, from Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6DFAmexYq7veC02bzZxTGVZT1k/edit