Who doesn't do "assessments' in content areas for middle schoolers?

[Chrysalis Academy]

I'm talking about history, science and literature. Anybody not do any kind of formal assessment in those areas during the elementary years? No worksheets, no short answers, no fill in the blanks, no lists of facts, no outlines, no notebooks/lab books/writeups. Just reading, discussion, and _________?

 

How's that working for you? ;)

 

And, if you don't do more traditional brick & mortar type assignments, but you do some kind of written assessments, like writing across the curriculum, weekly or daily papers/writing assignments, how 'zactly does that work? Frequency, length, etc. Do you assign them in each subject, or rotate through subjects, or something else?

 

Anybody not do any kind of written assignment at all in the content areas? (I guess I'm assuming you still might be teaching writing - the skill - using a writing program)

 

I'm thinking specifically of the upper elementary years (4th-6th grade), not littles who aren't really writing yet and/or who are focusing on phonics & handwriting.

 

I can't wait to hear what y'all are doing "outside the box" :bigear:

[ktgrok]

Well, we only started homeschooling in 5th grade, but we fit that category. Every so often maybe every couple of weeks I'd give an assignment like writing down five facts from the Kingfisher Encyclopedia page he was on, or seomthing, but not beyond that. We just talked about stuff.

[Hunter]

I often went long periods of time with no assessment of content with my younger son, sometimes even in high school. I think history was entirely DVD for the entire year he was 15-16, while we were frantically obsessing over calculus and ancient Greek. He learned a ton, despite not even using books, not even living books. Shakespeare and the particular Loeb Classics he was reading for literature didn't have much history in them except for Plutarch. He did get some Biblical and church history during morning worship that came from a book, I guess. But basically it was all DVDs watched during snack time.

 

Huge chunks of time were DVD science too. And other times included just living books and our encyclopedia collection.

 

He did a few CLE lightunits, and the American School General Science textbook and the beginning of Chem, while trying out enrollment in correspondence schools. Other than that, all content was non accessed, even high school science.

 

He was an ultra-radical LCCer. If it wasn't in Climbing Parnassus it wasn't accessed. Not saying I'd do that again, but...it's what we did, and according to the junior college it was all fine. He decided he didn't want to complete the volume of work necessary for 4 year college or to take out the loans involved. I'm not sure what a 4 year college would have thought of his education.

[EKS]

We did reading, discussion, and short reports/other writing.

 

So, for example, we would read about the French Revolution for a while and then he would write something about it. The prompt would be "Tell me about the French Revolution." It was a chance for him to develop his writing skills but it also helped me understand what he was getting and what he found interesting.

 

For science, we did comprehension questions orally. Then I would have him write about the larger topics in a short report.

 

Same with literature. Read and discuss, then write something about the longer works. This past year (5th grade) that meant writing a book review in this format: Intro, plot summary, something specific to the book (how did the main character change? for example), conclusion. If I were to continue to homeschool, I would have this evolve over the course of middle school to writing actual literary analysis essays.

[Chrysalis Academy]

We did reading, discussion, and short reports/other writing.

 

So, for example, we would read about the French Revolution for a while and then he would write something about it. The prompt would be "Tell me about the French Revolution." It was a chance for him to develop his writing skills but it also helped me understand what he was getting and what he found interesting.

 

For science, we did comprehension questions orally. Then I would have him write about the larger topics in a short report.

 

Same with literature. Read and discuss, then write something about the longer works. This past year (5th grade) that meant writing a book review in this format: Intro, plot summary, something specific to the book (how did the main character change? for example), conclusion. If I were to continue to homeschool, I would have this evolve over the course of middle school to writing actual literary analysis essays.

 

This is very, very appealing. Keeping the mantra of engagement at the forefront, the fact is that my dd is engaged by discussion & interaction with me. Writing is a critical skill, and she does that every day, but reading aloud and discussion is immensely engaging, whereas "Go read and fill out ____ or go read and write _____________" is not.

 

It is incredibly teacher intensive, but I find the more we read together and discuss, the better school goes. I'm just trying to find that magic, sweet spot with the amount of writing and other assignments a la WTM, and the amount of independent work vs together work that is appropriate at this stage . . .

 

anyway, it is really helpful to hear about how others are doing more open-ended, discussion-based "assessment of learning" and how that is working and how much engagement/retention there is with this method. Am I looking for validation for what I feel is right for us? Yeah, maybe.

[8filltheheart]

I'm talking about history, science and literature. Anybody not do any kind of formal assessment in those areas during the elementary years? No worksheets, no short answers, no fill in the blanks, no lists of facts, no outlines, no notebooks/lab books/writeups. Just reading, discussion, and _________?

 

How's that working for you? ;)

 

And, if you don't do more traditional brick & mortar type assignments, but you do some kind of written assessments, like writing across the curriculum, weekly or daily papers/writing assignments, how 'zactly does that work? Frequency, length, etc. Do you assign them in each subject, or rotate through subjects, or something else?

 

Anybody not do any kind of written assignment at all in the content areas? (I guess I'm assuming you still might be teaching writing - the skill - using a writing program)

 

 

 

You pretty much summed up our homeschool. ;) When they hit high school level courses, they start outlining chpts, taking notes, doing labs/notebooks, etc. Prior to that, a single weekly writing assignment pulled from lit or science or history (random rotation through the various subjects) is the only formal written work and everything else is oral. (though starting in middle school, they do take notes from history or science while they are reading for future writing assignments.......meaning that if they are reading a bk that might take 3 weeks to finish and they know that at the end of the bk they will have X for a writing assignment, they will start compiling their info during those preceding weeks.)

 

How's that working for me? Well, it works great for me. ;)

 

I think the more important question is ......How does it work for my children? :lol: My kids all do succeed academically (oldest 3 are all strong at the collegiate level and #4 made 5s on the 2 APs he took last yr (chem and cal BC) and was just accepted into a university's advanced scholars program. So apparently it works well for them as well. :D

Edited July 25, 2012 by 8FillTheHeart

[FairProspects]

Well, I teach like that but we haven't reached middle grades yet. We are entering late grammar stage here and laying the groundwork. :)

 

I'm moving ds into those kinds of oral discussions this year in content subjects, and working on getting sentence writing solid, so I may have him write a grammatically correct sentence about the Black Plague or in answer to what kind of machine he would like to solar power for science, etc. If we were doing 4th-5th grade, I'd be looking for him to expand those answers to a well-written paragraph 1-2 times per week.

[angela in ohio]

We didn't do any formal science or history to speak of until 6th or 7th grade.

 

I taught the basics of writing through our grammar program, and we did writing on subjects of interest. I didn't really push writing until 7th grade, though.

 

What we did was a lot of math, a lot of reading quality literature, and a lot of grammar and spelling, as well as Latin and reading widely on many subjects and field trips.

 

It worked out very well. My oldest is going to be a junior. She has completed Honors Bio and Chem and is enrolled for Honors Physics at home and CC university-level Chemistry. She is starting her third year of a Great Books study. My middle is entering her freshman year and has completed Honors Bio and is enrolled in Advanced Chem for next year at the local PS. Both have an interest in STEM fields, but also love history and geography.

Edited July 25, 2012 by angela in ohio