Please give me all your wonderful suggestions about evaluating reading assignments...

[Janie]

As much as I push reading, I find it difficult to push required outside reading to my middle school students. Reason: I need an easy way to evaluate whether or not they have truly read the book.

 

When we homeschooled, it was easy. I SAW my kids reading. They talked to me about the books. I could ask simple questions to ascertain whether they were flipping pages or really reading.

 

I don't need any long and drawn out method of assessment. I don't need reports or any more additions to my piles of papers to grade.

 

I have thought about assigning only books that Book Adventure has quizzes for and have them take a quiz that can be scored easily.

 

I feel like a failure to have not required so many books per quarter, but without a good evaluative measure, I'm afraid that the students might be encouraged to cheat and lie about reading the books. I'd rather wait for a good method to assess than let the students start trying to figure out ways around my requirements.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[ekarl2]

 

http://www.sparknotes.com has multiple choice reading comprehension questions for a TON of books.

[Tap]

Ds's teacher has them keep a 'dialectical' reading journal. I know you don't want another thing to do but this creates a nice way for the kids to interact with a story, and for you to have a quick, easy, way to monitor if they have read the story or are just faking it by reading Cliff notes. A quick scan of the journal is all that is needed to see if they did it or not and to check the quality of their work. Ds's teacher has them keep a journal and write down the page number of the passage. Even if you don't have the same copy of the book you will be able to tell if they say the quote is at about the right spot in the book. There will always be cheaters, but this is a way to limit it.

 

http://www.sanmarcos.net/ana/Class/Notes/DRJ.html

 

http://www.ccps.org/ehs/summer/summer%2008/apeng12/The%20Dialectical%20Reading%20Journal.doc

Edited March 15, 2009 by Tap, tap, tap

[eternalknot]

Could you do an "end of the book" roundtable sort of exercise? Perhaps throw out a few conversation starters and let the students discuss amongst themselves x, y, and z? X could be a character study, Y could be an examination of writing style (imagery, word choices), Z could be personal reactions to the storyline, et cetera. I'm not sure how you could or would grade this outside of participation levels by individual students, but it would give you a good idea of who read and who skimmed. The weeding out process may help you come up with unique assignments (quizzes?) for those who consistently appear to skim rather than read the assigned book. Maybe assign each student/group and topic a number 1-6; roll a die twice. The first roll of the die will determine which student speaks; the second roll will be the topic on which he or she speaks. Grades are: Participation/No Participation (pass/fail). Those who fail get a week to re-read the book and submit an oral project to be graded (in part) by his or her peers.

 

You could have the kids each come up with 3-5 indepth questions (with answers and page reference) about the book, submit them to you, then you use those questions to compile a quiz for the whole class to take. Assign sections of the book by last name (Students A-L do chapters 1-5, et cetera) so that the entire book is covered. Make a few questions of your own to throw in or replace others with, if there are certain points you want to be sure were taken from the book.The kids could grade the quizzes themselves - either in class against your answer key OR swap quizzes with another student and as an extended homework assignment each student will grade (and correct!) a peer's quiz against a copy of their (the grader's) own book ;) the grader gets the grade of the quiz he or she graded ... not the grade of the quiz he or she took. A week or so to do the assignment at home would be ample for those who read the book, and also enough time for those who didn't read it the first time, to do so and grade their peers' quizzes LOL. Grade in class, as a class. The test's original taker can grade his or her own peer-graded quiz. You could easily manipulate who gets whose exam, so that the skimmers are given appropriate quizzes to grade and correct.

 

Or break the kids into groups a week in advance and let them know that they'll be participating in a Book Challenge. Leave it to them to divy up the work, but it typically goes along the lines of each person assigned a section of the book to teach to the others before the challenge. At least each person will be reading SOME of the book. Ideally it gets them reading all of it, if only to understand the context of their own section. The challenge could be Jeopardy style where they each take a turn representing their group at the board, or it could be a quick answer-before-the-buzzer game where they are graded by participation (prepared to answer the question, whether or not called upon to do so). You could even have them come up with the questions and answers as homework, as detailed in the paragraph above.

 

But some kids just cheat and lie, as discouraging as it is. I never did; I was honest with my teachers, and often chose to take a failing grade if it meant I didn't have to read a book I had no interest in reading. Life is too short to drudge through bad books! I'm just like that though (stubborn), and I drove my poor teachers crazy. But it was harder to write off projects and anything that involved a significant amount of peer involvement. I didn't want to let down my group, and I sure didn't want to look stupid in front of the class by having no clue what was going on in the book.

 

I mean, all of these will take some class time but will result in less independent paper work for you - not too much more time than it takes to take and grade an existing company's quiz. I'm not sure if your goal is honest accountability, reading comprehension, or exposure to quality books ... or some blend of all three ... so if I'm way off base here, apologies. Best of luck finding something that works within your needed parameters.

[Sara R]

How about a parent's signature?

[Sebastian (a lady)]

As much as I push reading, I find it difficult to push required outside reading to my middle school students. Reason: I need an easy way to evaluate whether or not they have truly read the book.

 

When we homeschooled, it was easy. I SAW my kids reading. They talked to me about the books. I could ask simple questions to ascertain whether they were flipping pages or really reading.

 

I don't need any long and drawn out method of assessment. I don't need reports or any more additions to my piles of papers to grade.

 

I have thought about assigning only books that Book Adventure has quizzes for and have them take a quiz that can be scored easily.

 

I feel like a failure to have not required so many books per quarter, but without a good evaluative measure, I'm afraid that the students might be encouraged to cheat and lie about reading the books. I'd rather wait for a good method to assess than let the students start trying to figure out ways around my requirements.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

Is this for reading that the whole class is assigned or independent choice? Are they using books from the classroom or school library or whatever they want?