Literacy Formative Assessment Final

Literacy Formative Assessment Revised

To see my overview on the formative assessment I developed, refer to my prior blog post "Literacy Formative Assessment."  The link above is my revised formative assessment.  I didn't make major changes, but I did make minor adjustments.  For example, I added more specific literacy objectives, which are: Students will be able to summarize the main ideas of the text (both of the informational writing and of the diaries); students will be able to connect the reading to the themes of gender, class, geography, politics, and morality in WWII.  Also, I added a specific CCSS that my students will strive to meet while reading.  By adding specific objectives and standards I, as a teacher, can plan learning opportunities for my students to be able to meet these objectives and standards, and my students will better understand what is expected of them.

In response to the feedback I received on my lesson draft, I made one adjustment in reference to technology. To check for chronological understanding of the war, my students will be asked to make a timeline of the war as a class.  A big timeline will be drawn on the board.  In their "year" groups (groups they have been assigned that focus on a specific year of the war), students need to write on blue sticky notes 5 events of the war for that year.  On yellow sticky notes, each diarist representative will write what was going on with their diarist (the diarist they chose to read about and focus on) during that year.  They will go up and paste the sticky notes on the board.  I was asked if I thought this was something my students could do digitally.  Since I was planning for a 90 minute class, I thought this was a good activity to get students to stand and walk up to the board.  I think technology prevents students from being active sometimes.  Instead, students can just do everything from their device.  So, I kept this activity as it was, but I added the use of a timeline app for during reading.  I planned this lesson as if it was for a post-reading class.  But, I did discuss what I was planning to have my students do before and during.  I think using technology during reading can be very helpful.  As students read, they can use the timeline app to map out the events they read about.  Then, when doing this timeline activity in class, they can take out the app to use as a helpful guide to refresh their memory.  I always want to give my students the opportunity to use technology.  But, I also only want to use it where I feel that it is necessary and meaningful.

As I planned this lesson, I anticipated what I thought my students would find useful.  When reading Our Longest Days, I anticipated that some of the diarists and the many events of the war would all start to blend together, so I planned activities that would help them sort out the text.  This achieves one of my goals as an educator because I'm putting my students first and thinking about their needs.  I also think I scaffolded my lesson well.  In a pre-reading lesson, I would model how to read a diary by annotating a diary entry in front of the class, so my students would know what is expected of them.  Then during reading, students will be given a graphic organizer and shown the timeline app to guide their reading.  This will prepare them for the activities I planned after they finished reading the book.  This achieves my goal as a teacher to set high expectations for my students, but to also give them the means to succeed.