Dr. Sarah J. Donovan __________________________________________________________
Recording Book Groups: An Alternative to More Testing One section of the whiteboard in my junior high reading classroom was a calendar. The horizontal and vertical black Expo lines were slanted because I didn’t use a yardstick ruler, and much of the lines were faint because the marker was dry. (Markers are always dry when you need them.) I began every eight-week quarter by mapping our plans onto this calendar. First, I plotted the school events: institute days, assemblies, fire drills, and, of course, testing. And then, I planned the upcoming reading unit. On one particular cold February afternoon, I began the process with a blue Expo. I blocked out six days in February for Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing; five days for Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners (ACCESS) testing; and four days for state testing in March. The calendar squares that remained open were scarce and scattered throughout February and March, which made unit planning nearly impossible, and the loss of routine combined with the constant talk of testing was bound to create an atmosphere of disorientation and apprehension. The once-blank, slightly slanted calendar that began in anticipation of reading possibilities became a lackluster-blue “testing” display sprawling across our days and weeks. So as I planned the next reading unit, I refused to add another test to our calendar. Testing Culture Tests are one way that teachers hold students accountable for what they know, specifically in “objective tests” such as multiple choice or matching tests. However, education author Alfie Kohn (2014) writes, “[Multiple choice tests are] meant to trick students who understand the concepts into picking the wrong answer, and they don’t allow kids to generate, or even explain, their responses” (n.p.). Further, Starr Sackstein (2016) writes in “Overcoming the Pressure to Test” that a testing culture actually teaches students to view the test as the purpose of learning. When we assess student reading, we want to know what students know and can do, and test designer Roger Farr (1992) ultimately concludes, there is no way to “build a multiple-choice question that allows students to show what they can do with what they know” (p. 26). Indeed, tests may do more harm than good in nurturing a healthy reading life in our students. If reading is to offer windows into the world and affirm our lives with mirrors (Bishop, 1990), the stress and anxiety of reading tests can actually undermine such experiences by creating negative associations. Kohn (1999) writes that tests have the potential to alter students’ goals and the way they approach learning. In other words, assessments should not be used to compel reading or assignment completion but rather help teachers figure out who needs support and what aspects of their instruction have been effective. Essentially, teachers should want to know how students are making sense of things. For that to happen, teachers have to be able to observe, watch, and listen as students make meaning, which is difficult to do in an independent, “objective” test.
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