One of the most difficult things for me about assessing students is that I tend to want to create only the assessments that would like to do as a student. In other words, I don't want to make students create drawings, posters, or anything else too artsy, because I always hated those projects. I always felt that if I wasn't in at class, I shouldn't be forced to do art projects. That said, there will be a number of students in classes that do enjoy those types of assessments, so I need to be able to create them as second or third options.

The difficulty in using an art-related project is making it equivalent to a traditional essay/assessment. A five-page paper is not the same as a poster. The time involved might be the same (for a student like me, who has no art skills whatsoever), but the level of thought is entirely different. So, what steps can be taken to make them equivalent? Adding a short write-up to the art assignment would be fair, but I still don't think that gets the student to the same level of depth with the work. That is one of the biggest problems I'm having right now, because I know there are students who do like the non-traditional assignments. Between the task and the grading, though, I'm not quite sure at this point how to create them effectively.

On the other hand, I feel pretty comfortable making the traditional assessments. My feeling is that reading quizzes should be based on the topics I want students to take away from the reading, but at the same time--if I'm truly checking to see whether students read--I need to be conscious of what's on Sparknotes. That is what makes it hard to make a "fair" reading quiz, or one that's not just based on details that are hard to pick out. In that case, I'd rather lean towards a "prove to me that you read the chapter" quiz. It would be open-ended, and students would be required to prove more than that they read Sparknotes to get full credit. It's difficult, but it's also higher-level thinking using the text. The different responses and their scores would probably need to be modeled for the students.

Rubrics for essays and other assignments are relatively easy. Make requirements for the assignment, then read down the assignment sheet and create a section for each part of the assignment. If the paper is supposed to be 2-3 pages, there should be a "length" section on the rubric. Makes sense.

Exams and assessments for middle-schoolers are also a concern, because I don't know what those are like. I know papers are capped at one or two pages, but is that a good thing? Should we actually be pushing them to write two or three pages instead? Part of the problem is the education the students have received up to middle school and high school, because many teachers have not properly equipped the students with the appropriate skills for their age. That means topics and will have to be retaught, or certainly enriched, before moving on to more difficult skills. How do we compensate for the failures of prior teachers?

:(

Even though I was interested in the topic, the sheer length of the first two chapters made me want to commit readicide halfway through.

Much of that feeling was due to the fact that Gallagher is preaching to the choir, at least when I'm the one reading. For the last couple years I've been planning to take the Social Studies Praxis exam when I graduate so I can be certified in both English and Social Studies. While part of that is a way to (maybe) increase my chances of finding a job, the other part is that I'm interested in history (and, to a lesser extent, the other aspects of Social Studies). That being the case, I included texts on the American Revolution and the web collective Anonymous as reading in my conceptual unit. These are real-life examples of some of the topics covered in Fahrenheit 451. I'm all about putting real-world texts in the classroom, because I know that many people lack information on many fronts. CNN.com and the front page of Yahoo aren't in everyone's "Wanna Waste Time?" bookmarks.

That being said, I love the idea of the Article of the Week, and I would love to be able to require SSR on Fridays (though the classes at the end of the day might need that moved to Mondays...or I could just move it there for everyone).  I know that there will be some push against that idea, but one of my high school teachers used to play a class game of Taboo with us on Fridays; as an administrator, I'd be much more apt to think, "But that's a game," than, "Why are they reading?" (I'm not saying Taboo has no merit. It does.) Something else I'm trying to do is work off the Khan Academy model and move all of my parts-of-speech instruction outside of the classroom and work on practice inside it--maybe using the AoW as a basis for the sentences we'll break down.

The idea about using Amazon to build a classroom library is a great idea, too. No one wants to be "that guy" and push and push for things in department meetings and planning centers, which is likely a large part of the reason that schools are lacking in positive change. The Amazon library avoids that issue totally. I actually ask for people to buy my birthday and Christmas presents (I feel awkward mentioning my own "birthday and Christmas presents" at 22-years-old. Huh.) used on Amazon. Why? Well I'll be honest--I can get more of them that way. Do I want Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland for $18 or for $6? Duh.

So basically, I'm all in. I just wish there had been a SparkNotes version of the first two chapters, because I really didn't need to be convinced.