Holly's Response to "Literate Arts..."

At first this article caused me a bit of concern.  I was wondering how the website referenced was monitored.  Since these children and teens were accepting "friends" from all over the world who they had never met, I was concerned that the students may be at risk for online predators or other problems.  However, when I went to the website, I was pleasantly surprised to see how it was set up.  I could not get on as I was not a registered user and when users go to register, they have to be approved by their teacher.  I felt comforted that we were not putting our students at risk in this manner.

After I got over that concern, I enjoyed the article.  I really like the idea of incorporating technology into classrooms and enjoyed reading about how that fostered communication among the students.  I thought it was interesting how the students managed conflict and negotiated conversation on the website.  Technology is an important part of our world now and I enjoyed reading about how students are being prepared to navigate that world. 

Ryan Fries’ Response to “Fighting Back: Assessing the Assessments

In his article, Hillocks focuses on the problems related to student assessment, specifically in writing. Is too much time being focused on testing and do we start testing at too early of an age? As a teacher, I have heard this issue brought up on multiple occasions. Are we teaching to the test or teaching critical skills that will give students mastery in key areas of literacy? I have never taught specifically for a test that I plan to give. My experience may be different than most teachers as I’ve usually developed my own tests after the unit or semester materials have been covered.

But Hillocks appears to be bringing up the issue because of its relationship to government funding when he says, “States that do not comply with the demand for testing will fail to receive federal money”, meaning that if states fail to raise their current standards of education, monitor progress, determine results, and dismiss teachers that are ineffective they would be unable to function under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) guidelines.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with aiming for the ideals that are pointed out in NCLB, certainly not given that we lag behind many other countries in the areas of science and math education.  Whether or not the assessments are effective or accurate enough is the issue Hillocks is focused on.  However, in his critique he aims to either improve or, which I found strange, eliminate some testing practices altogether.  Eliminating the testing shouldn’t be the goal but improvement should.

Hillocks cites an essay given the highest score on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and discredits the merits of its assessment.  He claims that in the exemplary sample essay on the subject of taking an exam to pass high school fails to support the student fails to provide accurate support of the claim that such a test shouldn’t exist.  I think Hillocks’ expectations regarding  a high school student’s ability to qualify his/her claims is slightly grandiose. The aim of the test and writing testing in general according to NCLB is primarily to satisfy grammar and organization/structure requirement. Perhaps in focusing his attention on criticizing the Illinois assessment he negates the general goals that assessment achieves in relation to NCLB.

I’m also skeptical of Hillock’s claim that standard writing assessments may not be comprehensive because they exclude ‘advertising, poetry, drama,’ and of course ‘jokes’. Hillock’s stresses the teaching of critical thinking skills because it is such a ‘crucial time in American democracy’ but I would be interested to see the data regarding how many high school students share the same concerns. Basically, many educators complain that students aren’t able to produce grammatically correct essays. So to focus on the critical skills of explanation, evidence and example to support a persuasive essay is rather ambitious. More often, those skills are developed and fine-tuned at the post-secondary/university level.

Holly's response to "Why is everyone talking about..."

You'll have to excuse this post if it doesn't make too much sense.  My city has now tested the tornado sirens about five or so times and it's making it very difficult to form a coherent thought.

Onto the article though...

I thought the authors made some interesting points in this article.  The first being that literacy needs to be incorporated into content specific instruction.  I think that many times we may be adequate in the literacy of one content area but in another we are in helplessly over our heads.  In high school I would have been fairly competent in the literacy of history, but in science I was lost most of the time.  I think this is especially critical as you get into the high school years and have more in depth instruction in different content areas.

I also thought the point that the authors made about literacy instruction happening not only in the classroom was interesting as well.  Having a support system outside of the schools makes sense also.  It seems we never have enough time in the classroom and while we should be the first to offer instruction and support in literacy, it is also helpful to have the outside support and I think students can really benefit from the additional instruction.

Mitra's Response to "Why Is Everyone Talking About Adolescent Lit..."

Snow and Moje make the argument that the inoculation fallacy- “the fallacy that an early vaccination of reading instruction protects permanently against reading failure” (66) - is failing, as proved by the increased demand for adolescent literacy instruction. What I believe further complicates this failure is the vast range in literacy skills presented by students beyond elementary school. For struggling readers, for example, comprehension strategies including previewing, predicting, monitoring, questioning, and summarizing may be effective. But Snow and Moje make the claim that proficient readers already do these things, and that “making them aware of skills they automatically employ or strategies they don’t need may actually interfere with comprehension” (67). 

I appreciate the authors’ emphasis on reading instruction across the curriculum, and professional development that supports this instruction. I particularly like the approach of making apparent to students the differences in structure, language conventions, vocabularies, and criteria for comprehension that the text of each content area includes. Snow and Moje write, “While these differences may be obvious to skilled adults, adolescents benefit from being let in on the secret” (67). In the same way that writing instruction focuses on the differences in genres, reading instruction needs to acknowledge that not all reading is done the same, for the same reasons and purposes , or according to the same rules.

I was confused by the last point about literacy across multiple domains and media. Snow and Moje write, “Digital texts tend to be approached laterally, with ideas running across different chunks of text, whereas paper texts present ideas embedded in a hierarchical structure within a single text and need to be read linearly” (68). I have never heard of reading “laterally” versus “linearly” and am unsure what it means.

Goldie's response to:Fighting Back: Assessing the Assessment

Hillocks asks the question about assessment:  “But will simple complaints be adequate to make any change in the testing system?” His answer, “. . . testing has become the official driving force to reform education” (63).

He notes that teachers do whine about all the testing that has to occur.  However, he advises that in order for the complaints to be affective and to have an impact on school administers and state legislators, educators “they will have to rise above whining” (63).  In other words, they will have to prove their case.  He suggests that a research study in terms of analysis.  Teachers must take note as to how the testing is driving or not driving their teaching and assessment.  As I work on my final research project, I want to know why so many people are against testing and standardize testing.  I would like to be in that group who would collect and analyze data to prove that certain testing may or may not prove to be beneficial.  I don’t want to say that a particular test is not necessary, but rather to prove my case.

In order for me and other educators to prove our case, Hillocks maps out four assessment questions to pursue along with helpful follow-up questions for each question (subheading).

·         Questions about Learning Standards:

·         What are the learning standards upon which particular tests and test items are based?  You will need to discover what the standard writers really mean by their phrases about supporting ideas and critical thinking.  On Sunday, I asked my grandson about his homework.  He said that the teacher wanted them to work on their critical thinking assignment.  I wanted to ask him about his teacher’s definition of critical thinking.  Unfortunately, at that moment, I did not have a copy of state standard’s definition of critical thinking for comparison. That’s a definition that I will have to explore:

·         Questions about the Theory of Writing: To what extent do they hold up to careful scrutiny?

·         Questions about Test Items and Prompts: For this question, Hillocks wants us to “examine the test times and writing prompts to see if they reflect the language of the standards” (64)?  He clues us in by highlighting that “while the standards reflect some concern for critical thinking, the test items and prompts do not” (64).  Could the previous sentence be the answer to my research study question?  I not going to make that a flat out yes at this moment.

·         Questions about Scoring Criteria: For this question, Hillocks informs us that “more and more tests are including constructed responses” (64).  He recommends that we examine the scoring criteria for test.  This question may also help me to examine why some people do not like standardize testing.

·         Questions about Benchmark responses or compositions:

Who are we fighting?

Hillcocks presents a rant on the many murky features of "standardized tests" around the U.S.  Overall, his argument is that there is a huge disconnect between the pedagogical theory being taught in the classroom with what is being expected on "these tests."  Teachers are speaking a different language, using different processes, and coming to the classrooms with different assumptions about demonstrating knowledge.

Hillcocks especially argues that the constructed response required on a standardized test forces a student to abandon the framework of understanding taught by her or his teachers.  There's only so much time to write.  A student cannot go through a meaningful process of learning in writing without time to reflect, revise, and confer.  I agree that there are some policy decisions that need to be addressed, but critical eyes are always on the other side.

Here's a question we need to consider: Who's making the decisions in Lansing?  Educators fight back in various forms.  Hillcocks is challenging people to stop quaking in their books and speak out about concerns.  There is a vital piece missing to his arguement, in my opinion, and that is the solution to these problems.  If teachers want to be a voice for reform, there needs to be solutions that can start conversations.  Overall, I agree with the problems presented, but what is he proposing we do about these challenges? 

Mitra's Response to "Fighting Back"

It was funny to read NCLB described as the new federal education act (63). However, it immediately called my attention to the date of this article and how much may have changed. In particular, I wonder if teachers are not doing more to fight back.

I feel better armed now to discuss the negative implications of standardized testing after reading this article. Hillocks’ argument regarding writing prompts was enlightening. In made clear to me that far too complex tasks are being asked of children.

Hilocks writes, “…when students have been subjected to this instruction for eight to ten years, they come to see the five paragraph theme and the shoddy thinking that goes with it as the solution to any writing problem” (70). Hilocks continues by saying that this type of writing instruction “shuts down thinking” and makes college level writing even more challenging. So not only are teachers teaching to a bad test, the instructions they do deliver has no further use and, in fact, hinders learning.