Authentic Lessons for 21st Century Learning

Formative Assessment in the English Language Arts Classroom

Lindsey Link, Margaret Salesky | Published: October 29th, 2021 by K20 Center

Essential Question

What is formative assessment and what does it look like in the ELA classroom?

Learning Goals

  1. Explore a variety of strategies that support formative assessment in the English language arts classroom.

  2. Examine metacognitive strategies for supporting students in their efforts to be self-directed learners.

Materials List

  • Session Slides - Formative Assessment for the English Language Arts Classroom (attached)

  • 2021 Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts (attached; one per participant)

  • Note Catcher - Formative Assessment for the English Language Arts Classroom (attached; one per participant)

  • Caption This - Formative Assessment for the English Language Arts Classroom (attached; one per participant)

  • ABC Graffiti - Formative Assessment for the English Language Arts Classroom (attached; one per group)

  • Magnetic Statements - Formative Assessment Institute ELA (attached; one for the whole group)

  • UFO Fans Will Descend on Tiny Town Near Area 51 for Alien Stock Festival; NewsELA Article (attached and linked; one per participant)

  • Will We Know Alien Life When We See It? CommonLIT Article (attached and linked; one per participant)

  • Cool Jobs: Reaching Out to E.T. Is a Numbers Game, CommonLIT Article (attached and linked; one per participant)

  • Area 51 Finally Declassified by the CIA; Buzzfeed News (linked; one per participant)

  • Highlighters (several colors for each participant)

  • Chart Paper

  • Pens (multiple colors)

  • Personal Devices or Computers

  • Wifi

  • Projector

Engage

Using the attached Presentation Slides, display slide 4. Welcome participants to the English language arts content-specific day of the Formative Assessment Institute. Briefly introduce yourself.

Display slide 5. Share the essential question for the institute: What is formative assessment and what does it look like in the English language arts classroom?

Display slide 6. Share the session objectives with participants:

  1. Explore a variety of strategies that supports formative assessment in the English language arts classroom.

  2. Examine metacognitive strategies for supporting students in their efforts to be self-directed learners.

Display slide 7. Remind participants of their list of purposes for formative assessment that they generated on Day 1 of the Institute. These purposes will be driving their work throughout the day.

Display slide 8. Share the instructional strategy, Magnetic Statements, with participants. Give them a few minutes to walk around the room to read each of the quotes. Once they find a quote that they are most attracted to, have them discuss why they feel “pulled in” by this quote with the others who selected the same quote.

Review the quotations on slides 9-14 with the whole group. Ask a volunteer from each group to share out what they liked most about the quotation as you display them one at a time,

Display slide 15. Pass out the attached Note Catcher and go over the reflection questions for this strategy with participants. The goal of this is to get participants thinking about its value in formative assessment as well as how they could use this in their own classrooms.

Display slide 16. Pass out the attached 2021 Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts. Provide participants with a few moments to review the eight academic strands.

Display slide 17. Share the link to the K20 LEARN Website. Introduce participants to the strategies and lesson samples found on the website that they will be examining throughout the session.

Explore #1: “Caption This” from The Story of an Hour

Move to slide 18. Pass out the attached Caption This handout and share the instructional strategy, Caption This with participants. Share with participants that the photographs of couples on slides 19-24 are from the era of the Kate Chopin stories. The time period when these stories were written is very different than the times we are living in today. Gender and marriage roles are not the same today as they were in the 19th century, and the way people thought about these topics differs vastly from what many people think in the modern day. Ask them to pay careful attention to the photographs to imagine what each spouse is thinking or to create a story behind the picture from the perspectives of both spouses. Instruct participants to write responses on their handouts as you display the images on the screen.

Explain #1: “Caption This” from Story of an Hour

Display slide 25. Share the link to the lesson, Totally Different Stories, and provide participants with some time to review the lesson. Ask participants the following question:

Based on where the assessment strategy, Caption This, is placed in the lesson, what information could this assessment tell you about your students? How could the lesson change if you used this assessment strategy in a different spot in this lesson? How might the purpose of this assessment change if it is used in a different context (i.e. with a different text and images)?

Allow for time for participants to discuss this as a table group or whole group before moving on.

Explore #2: “Fist to Five” from Ichabod and Brom: GhostFacers

Move to slide 26. Prepare participants to view a video of people telling stories about personal ghost encounters. Before playing the video, share the reflection questions they should keep in mind as they’re watching the video.

Display slide 27. Play the video, “People Tell Their Spookiest Ghost Stories” linked below.

Display slide 28. Introduce the instructional strategy, Fist to Five. Invite participants to hold up a fist (zero fingers) or up to five fingers to indicate how believable they thought each story or storyteller was. Ask them to share the reasoning for their responses with the group.

Display slide 29.  Ask follow-up questions to help guide the discussion:

  1. Did you believe these storytellers? Why or why not?

  2. What made these stories believable or not believable?

  3. What did you like or dislike about these stories?

Explain #2: “Fist to Five” from Ichabod and Brom: GhostFacers

Display slide 30. Share the link to the lesson, Ichabod and Brom: Ghostfacers, and provide participants with some time to review the lesson. Ask participants the following question:

Why was the assessment strategy, Fist to Five, used at this particular place in the lesson? Could you have used it in a different part of the lesson? How might the lesson change if you used it in a different spot? How might it change if you used it with a different piece of literature?

Allow for time for participants to discuss this as a table group or whole group before moving on.

Display slide 31. Bring participants’ attention back to their Note Catcher handout. Give them time to reflect on the assessment strategies that they have participated in up to this point and answer the question, how was the strategy used and how can I best use it?

Announce a ten-minute break.

Explore #3: "Why-Lighting" from Alienstock

Display slide 32. Pass out the attached and linked articles:

  1. UFO Fans Will Descend on Tiny Town Near Area 51 for Alien Stock Festival

  2. Will We Know Alien Life When We See It?

  3. Cool Jobs: Reaching Out to E.T. Is a Numbers Game

  4. Area 51 Finally Declassified by the CIA

  • Share the instructional strategy Why-Lighting with participants.

  • Group participants into groups of four.

  • Ask them to number off from 1 to 4 within each group.

  • Have them read the article corresponding to their group number.

  • Each group member will read a different article ("ones" reading article one, "twos" reading article two, etc.).

Once participants have finished Why-Lighting the articles, ask groups to temporarily reshuffle so that those who read the same article are now grouped together. Depending on the size of the session, you may have more than one group of participants who have read the same article.

Display slide 33. Ask participants to share with their group any evidence they found to support either the case for or against alien existence. Encourage them to discuss why they highlighted certain things. Invite them to collaborate within their groups to gain a thorough understanding of what they read.

Explain #3: "Why-Lighting" from Alienstock

Display slide 34. Share the link to the lesson, Alienstock. Give participants enough time to review the lesson. Ask participants the following question:

Based on where the assessment strategy, Why-Lighting, is placed in the lesson, how could you adapt this to your class?  What information can you glean from students’ responses? What skills/standards/content might you use this particular assessment to work toward?

Allow for time for participants to discuss this as a table group or whole group before moving on.

Explore #4: “They Say/I Say Writing” from Lord of the Flies Unit: Lesson 8 (In the End)

Display slide 35. Instruct participants to listen carefully to William Golding for the following information:

  • The general topic of the speech

  • Main point

  • Examples/quotes that support the main argument

Display slide 36. Share the instructional strategy, They Say, I Say Writing, with participants. Explain to them that they will be writing two paragraphs:

  • The first paragraph summarizes the information about the novel and its characters that they gathered from the video and the novel (Lord of the Flies) itself;

  • The second paragraph summarizes the participant’s views on the topic.

Display slides 37 and 38. Provide sentence frames to help participants structure their paragraphs.

Explain #4 “They Say/I Say Writing” from Lord of the Flies Unit: Lesson 8 (In the End)

Display slide 39. Share the link to the lesson, Lord of the Flies Unit: Lesson 8 (In the End). Provide participants with some time to review the lesson. Ask participants the following question:

Based on where the assessment strategy, They Say/I Say Writing, is placed in the lesson, why was this strategy used here? Could you have used it in a different part of the lesson? How might you have adapted it if you used it with a different piece of literature? What does this show about student learning?

Allow for time for participants to discuss this as a table group or whole group before moving on.

Explore #5 “ABC Graffiti” from “Just Say No! Exploring Temptation Through The Lotus Eaters”

Display slide 40. Pass out the attached ABC Graffiti handout to each group along with a different color pen. Share the instructional strategy, ABC Graffiti, with participants.

Ask your participants the following question: What are different temptations that people face?

Display slide 41. Ask the groups to jot down words and phrases for as many letters as they can in the time provided. To complete the activity, they must use their prior knowledge of different motivations people could have for their actions. Give them an allotted amount of time, ideally 2–3 minutes.

When time is up, display slide 42. Have the groups rotate to the next table. They should take their pens with them so their contributions can be traced back to their corresponding pen color. Have each group pick up where the last group left off, again adding words and phrases for each blank letter. If time allows, they also can add words and phrases to letters that were previously used. Allotted time is maximum of 3 minutes.

When time is up, display slide 43. Have the groups rotate once more. After the third round, ask participants to return to their seats. As with previous two rounds, allotted time is a maximum of 3 minutes.

Engage participants in a whole-group discussion about what they wrote or saw on the posters and what their perceptions about about common temptations are. What words and phrases did the posters have in common?

Explain #5: “ABC Graffiti” from “Just Say No!: Exploring Temptation Through the The Lotus Eaters”

Display slide 44. Share the link to the lesson, Just Say No! Exploring Temptation Through The Lotus Eaters. Provide participants with some time to review the lesson. Ask participants the following questions:

How might you adapt this to your class? What are some temptations your class might share? How might you used this in _______? What information can you glean from your students’ responses? What skills/standards/content might you use this particular assessment to work toward? 

Allow for time for participants to discuss this as a table group or whole group before moving on.

Display slide 45. Direct participants’ attention back to their Note Catcher. Provide them time to reflect on the assessment strategies that they have explored up to this point and answer the question: How was it used and how can I use it?

Display slide 46. Before taking a break, ask participants to briefly examine the Magnetic Statement on the importance of establishing learning goals for the assessments themselves.

Announce a ten-minute break.

Extend

Display slide 47. Ask participants to pick one of the formative assessment strategies that have been covered today and create an assessment in their content area. Ask participants to add their assessment to the Formative Assessment Collaborative Slides.

Templates for slides have been created for participants to add their created assessment. Explain that these slides will be available after the session for all participants. Consider grouping participants into subject areas and provide time for the assessments to be created.

Evaluate

Transition to the evaluation slide 48. Ask participants K20 TREK Rapid Feedback: Within the feedback list 2 strategies you want to implement this next month.

Research Rationale

Analyzing the current skill level of students in a classroom at any given time and determining the best course of action for ensuring they all meet the target learning goals can be a challenge even for seasoned teachers. The idea of using formative assessment to meet the individual needs of students is not a new topic. In fact, researchers as far back as Benjamin Bloom has shown that one-to-one tutoring is the most effective form of instruction because of the tutor’s ability to pinpoint misconceptions and provide immediate feedback and correctives (William, 2011). Despite continued research backing up the claims that formative assessment can enhance student success, teachers may continue to struggle in their efforts to use the full array of formative assessment practices available. The question then becomes: what can teachers do to effectively improve and enhance their use of formative assessment in the classroom environment?

Resources