Students can prepare presentations that demonstrate to teachers their level of understanding, plus teach their classmates in the process. This learning experience serves as a formative assessment as teachers listen and observe students engaging in the preparation and presentations. For example, teachers can focus on students’ learning of skills associated with writing an opinion or argument. Secondary students can select a debatable topic (such as animal testing, the death penalty, or euthanasia) and then collect and review evidence from a site like ProCon.org or another reputable source. They present an example of key evidence along with accompanying commentary to show how it furthers their claim.
Elementary students read or listen to a picture book about a protagonist who asserts a position and goes about justifying it. They prepare a presentation to demonstrate to teachers how they can identify an opinion and support it. Here are some titles teachers can use for this purpose.
• Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett (1970)
• Earrings! by Judith Viorst (1990)
• I Wanna New Room by Karen Kaufman Orloff (2010)
• I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff (2004)
• I Want a Dog! by Helga Bansch (2009)
• A Pig Parade Is a Terrible Idea by Michael Ian Black (2010)
• The Perfect Pet by Margie Palatini (2003)
• Red Is Best by Kathy Stinson (1982)
Student-Generated Assessments
Teachers can invite students to propose ways to provide evidence of their understanding. The choices are endless. Students might suggest completing a graphic organizer that shows the causes and effects of a relationship among characters or write a paragraph that explains this association. They can write a self-reflection, draw and explain a diagram or model they create, or write and perform a monologue. In studying allusion in preparation for incorporating it into a written piece, students might annotate a text that includes allusion or discuss and record a conversation with a partner about the presence of this literary device. They can write about the degree to which they feel they are mastering a skill and explain what more they need to do to be fully proficient. Or, they can score their written work on a rubric and compare it to what the teacher has scored. By looking at the discrepancy, they can determine what support they need to improve their paper.
This overarching question can guide teachers when using assessments: How will I design and administer assessments that help students understand how their test scores and grades are related to their status on the progression of knowledge I expect them to master? Consider the following questions aligned to the elements in this chapter to guide your planning.
• Element 4: How will I informally assess the whole class?
• Element 5: How will I formally assess individual students?
Conclusion
Assessments are feedback tools for both students and teachers. Used well, they serve as instructional and evaluation mechanisms by offering students information about how to advance their understanding of content and providing teachers a vehicle for assisting students to do so. By informally assessing the whole class and formally assessing individual students in various ways, teachers can support students in this progression of knowledge. To master new content, teachers design and deliver direct instruction lessons as explained in the subsequent chapter.
PART II
Content
CHAPTER 3
Conducting Direct Instruction Lessons
Students benefit greatly from direct instruction on new content. This type of instruction commonly suffers from the perception that it is straight presentation in lecture format. This is far from the truth. As this chapter illustrates, direct instruction has a number of essential components that teachers can deliver in a wide variety of ways. Regardless of the specific strategies that a teacher uses, the net effect of direct instruction should be that students understand the key parts of the new content and how together they form a unified whole.
This teacher action includes the following elements.
• Element 6: Chunking content
• Element 7: Processing content
• Element