Chapter 8
"What Do I Do With All These Sticky Notes?"
Tovani really advocates for having students make notes on sticky notes as they proceed through text. She even has them remove some sticky notes and turn them in on a sheet of notebook paper so she can see where they were connecting with the text by page number. But she admits that's not enough to assess if they are thinking, remembering, or actually learning from what they read. And she admits also that there is no single way to assess that.
Rather, she has multiple methods that she uses. But before she does any of them, she has her students set goals. They brainstorm them as a class and then revisit them individually and collectively throughout the year. They can chart this as a class or have individual charts, and they revisit them every month or so to see if their goals have been met, need adjustment, or were unrealistic.
One method she uses for assessment and to check in with students is through the use of what she calls "conversation calendars." Each sheet is divided into columns for five days of the week and two rows--one for the student to write and one for the teacher to answer the student's question or concern. She feels this particular method is a great way to connect with her students, and that it can be adjusted for any content area. She takes the time to respond to them daily and awards points in her class to keep students motivated to fill them out.
Tovani also advocates for using reading response logs. She shows samples of good ones to her class so they have an idea of how to go about using it. She has them complete the logs for books that they select for themselves and she tries to give them a reasonable reading amount, such as 25 pages per week. They are required to summarize what they read in a few sentences; then they respond to the reading with more sentences to show ways in which they connected to it. Finally, they submit five sticky notes to show how they are using the particular reading strategy she has been showing them in class. Tovani admits that while these logs are great for assessing how students are connecting to text with their own background information, as well as questioning it, making inferences, drawing conclusions and utilizing strategies for overcoming difficulties with it, they are also a grading nightmare that needs to be spread out over the week instead of lumped onto a weekend that is essentially hell for the teacher.
Tovani also uses file folders to keep writing samples for each student throughout the year to monitor progress and tries to find time to have quick conferences with students one-on-one during class. She tries to find students who are on the right track so she can point out their behaviors to the rest of the class as an example of what works for successful readers. Her conferences also allow her to give a little extra help to struggling students so that they don't fall too far behind the rest of the class.
At the end of the chapter, Tovani makes a case for using assessment to let students show what they are thinking when they read and how they connect to what they take in. She says tying grades to the effort they put into thinking and participating in class and in reading assignments makes more sense than simply relying on a test at the end of the unit that has a set of "right" answers. I agree with this wholeheartedly. If the test at the end and the grade it garners are all that a class boils down to, the effort you put in feels sort of hollow and useless. I would like to believe we can find better ways to determine if our students are really getting something out of what we try to teach them.
