Key Assessments as Course Requirements

With weekly and quarterly reflections throughout our course generally set, I needed to turn my attention to the specifics of assessments. This post, and my next two planned posts, will articulate my current thinking. This post will briefly discuss key assessments, while my next two will explore how I plan to set up my gradebook (we use Infinite Campus) and set up my rubrics for feedback.

KEY ASSESSMENTS

As written, our district curriculum (whose composition I led) has set writing assignments and a cold-reading multiple-choice test (modeled after our state test) for each of our four units in English 9 and 10. Depending on the unit, the writing assignments range from literary analysis paragraphs, to creative writing, to a multiparagraph persuasive composition, to script-writing, to a multiparagraph argumentative piece, to a multiparagraph literary analysis (spread across grades 9 and 10). I plan to label these assignments as “key assessments.”

Following Joe Feldman’s (@JoeCFeldman) call for requiring re-assessment in Grading for Equity, I plan to make completion of these common assignments required for a passing grade. A student will not be able to take a “pass” or an “F” on one of these assignments. If one of the key assessments are missing, students will receive an “Incomplete” for the class. My district currently turns “Incompletes” to Fs after a couple weeks, but with a workshop approach in class and our constantly reflection and one-to-one conferring opportunities, I’d like to make these key assessments required. Students cannot choose to not be assessed. These are normally the majority of assignments whose grades I would normally include in my gradebook anyway.

We intend for assessments to reflect student learning, so why should they not be required? When students do not complete work, teachers cannot appropriate assess their academic progress, so how is an F for missing assignments indicative of student learning?

The quality of the completion may vary this semester, but all students must attempt each of these key assessments of their reading and writing abilities. My plan is to clearly set the bar and expectations for each student to succeed.

CONCERNS FOR THE FUTURE

As I begin to implement these key assessments, I know I will need to reflect on how they work. Communication with students and their families, the workshop approach, and improved reflections will all need to be utilized in working with some students who may otherwise feel defeated by English Language Arts as a content area. If our curriculum changes or I feel that a few other assessments should become key assessments, I can also swap those in or out. To keep as much of what I usually do this year (given our hybrid approach and my shift to going gradeless), I will maintain using the curriculum-mandated assessments. I could, theoretically, still give them but not make them key assessments, but I’ll start with these set pieces. Of course, since we are on a hybrid schedule and could go fully virtual at any time, the cold-read multiple-choice test could also be removed completely. Since I am on an intensified semester block schedule, my iterative process is also shorter than a full school year.

Just as students will be doing heavy reflection this year, I will be reflecting as well.