Book Club Plus reading reflection

After reading through the through the assessment chapter I found that some of these forms of assessment rarely cross my mind. When students discuss texts as a group in a book club format I would just assume that participation is enough for students to receive some sort of grade, but then how to teachers actually assess students? The chapter was incredibly insightful and specific in the types of discussion students should be having. Students should be respectful, stay on task, bring new ideas into the discussion and support their team members. One of the main criteria for assessment that I thought was important was the concept of using evidence from text and connecting this to student’s prior knowledge. I thought that it was incredibly interesting and my students are working on this right now. When they eventually get into their book club groups they will be able to do this flawlessly because of the practice they have received. We also have reading logs students need to fill out, which is yet another for of assessment, but our reading log is not as specific as the one listed in chapter six. The reading log we use just tracks the student reading by the minute. But, as the year progresses I think that at second grade level they may be able to take notes and actually interact with the text while reading. As for now, we are focusing on students reading and comprehension and maybe towards the end of the year we will be able to create a more in depth assessment for their reading logs.

The other form of assessment that I thought would be useful in the classroom was the personal assessment students fill out based on their own work. We have not done this type of assessment in our classroom but I am interested in trying it out to see what our students have to say about their own work. Lastly, writing samples are taken constantly in our classroom and this is mainly what we focus on. Students are constantly writing and we are able to assess both what they read and how their writing is developing.

The classroom management chapter was intriguing as well. I though that it was interesting that one of the main topics was to choose an engaging theme so student’s interests are peaked. The idea that literature will either capture of set off a group student is so powerful and literature is at the basis of classroom management. If students are at a low level and are reading difficult books they will choose to give up and management is lost. Grouping is also key and we are working on that with our students currently. All of our students know that they will work with everyone in the class and they have to learn to work cooperatively. If these standards are set up in the class a classroom community is created and students are expected to work together. I also enjoyed reading about the types of groupings that are possible in the classroom and hopefully as the year progresses my students will be able to try a fish bowl activity. I would love to do this but understand that I would have to plan out the activity more fully.

Lastly, chapter eight reinforced standards that are need to be met for books clubs. Although as teachers all of this may seem “fun” to students, our job is to make sure we are meeting standards out students need to learn. I thought this reading was incredibly helpful and hope to use a great deal of these techniques within the classroom this year.