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Teacher Tools
Whether you are a classroom or preservice teacher, teacher
educator, content leader, department chair, or administrator,
the materials below can assist you in implementing the practices
presented in the video clip.
Assessment and Evaluation: Some Useful Principles
The terms assessment and evaluation are often
used as synonyms. Distinguishing between them can be helpful
as you plan instruction. Assessment means looking at what
students can do in order to determine what they need to learn
to do next. That is, assessment, whether of individual students
or an entire group, occurs as students are engaged in the
act of learning in order to inform instruction. Typically
assessment is holistic, often recorded simply as "credit"
or "no credit."
Evaluation occurs after a concept or skill has been taught
and practiced and is typically scaled, indicating the level
of achievement or degree of competence a student has attained.
Responding Visually to Literature
Many language arts teachers have come intuitively to use
visual activities to support their literature instruction.
Non-verbal activities provide an opportunity for students
to develop and display their growing understanding and enjoyment
of the literature in informal ways as they develop visual
representations of their thinking.
In his preface to Phyllis Whitin's Sketching Stories,
Stretching Minds: Responding Visually to Literature (for
the complete citation, see "Additional Resources" in the
library guide), Jerome Harste reminds us that "literacy is
much more than reading and writing" (x). He tells us that
literacy is "the process by which we mediate the world" which
"means to create sign systems-mathematics, art, music, dance,
language"-which "act as lenses that permit us better to understand
ourselves and our world" (x).
When we take what we know from one sign system and represent
it in another-as when we take a written text and represent
it graphically-we are using transmediation, a process that
"is both natural and basic to literacy" (x). Such transmediation
has enormous value in the classroom. As students resee, they
rethink. Rethinking, they understand in fresh ways, and their
pleasure grows with their developing insights.
For less able readers, the very act of focusing on a brief
passage or scene and doing what more skilled readers seem
to do invisibly helps them develop the visualization powers
to process texts effectively. Not only are they developing
their understanding of a specific text, they are expanding
their skill as readers.
Sketch to Stretch
Based on ideas developed by Phyllis Whitin and presented
in her book Sketching Stories, Stretching Minds: Responding
Visually to Literature, the basic premise behind Sketch
to Stretch is that creating a visual based on a literary
work stretches student thinking, helping them to see the
text in new ways.
Written Conversations
Each student begins a conversation about the book by writing
a question and giving it to his or her Book Buddy who then
writes an answer. The papers are passed back and forth as
students explore their understandings of, and responses to,
the selection. The process continues until one of the partners
terminates the conversation.
Text Pairings
As you plan literature experiences for your students, consider
offering text pairings. Some teachers like to introduce students
to a number of books by the same author. Others try to find
books with similarities in theme or content. Books that have
received awards and appear to be developing into contemporary
classics are also favored choices. No list of suggestions
can be complete or can address every criterion. However,
the following list of some of Patricia Polacco's works may
help you choose titles to complement Chicken Sunday.
Babushka's Doll
Boat Ride With Lillian Two Blossom
The Butterfly
Christmas Tapestry
El Pollo De Los Domingos
Just Plain Fancy
The Keeping Quilt
Mr. Lincoln's Way
My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother
Pink and Say
Rechenka's Eggs
Some Birthday!
Thank You, Mr. Falker
Thunder Cake
When Lightening Comes in a Jar
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