Evaluation and assessment of literature learning. PTs need to be able to formulate criteria for evaluating students’ responses based on constructivist theories of literature learning.  These criteria may include student degree of elaboration in their recounting or retelling of narrative events or in connections to other texts or autobiographical experiences; ability to:

- link the current text to other texts in terms of similar genres, settings, character types, narrative patterns, themes, or stances

- consider alternative perspectives operating in the text

- explain characters’ actions in terms of a range of different characteristics—characters’ traits, knowledge, beliefs, plans, and goals

- entertain alternative hypotheses for explaining events or characters’  actions

- define patterns in characters’ actions and infer related beliefs, traits, and goals

- contextualize actions within larger historical and cultural contexts based on inferences about characters’ reactions to norms operating in those contexts

- interpret larger themes by inferring the underlying value assumptions inherent in characters’ actions related to the norms operating in the text world.

- construct a text’s story world in terms of the particular cultural or historical norms and conventions operating in that world

     PT’s also need to grapple with issues of literature assessment.  A central issue facing PTs is the influence of mandated standardized reading tests on the literature curriculum.  PTs need to understand limitations of standardized related to issues of validity and reliability, as well as how uses of multiple-choice testing limits that nature and quality of transactions with texts and classroom response activities. PT’s also need to understand the problematic aspects of use of test scores on standardized multiple-choice tests as a means of demonstrated “accountability” as mandated by No Child Left Behind, particularly in terms of having to “teach to the test” in ways that limits exploration of alternative meanings and critical analysis of texts (Kohn, 2000; Sacks, 2001; Swope & Miner, 2000). 

    PTs also need to be familiar with alternatives to the use of multiple-choice testing as evident in users of performance assessment and portfolios of student classroom work in Kentucky, Nebraska, and Vermont.  George Hillocks’s (2002) research on the impact of states’ writing tests on writing instruction in those states indicates that the type of assessment determines the focus and type of instruction employed.  He found that in the four states (New York, Texas, Illinois, and California) that were employing a traditional writing assessment, teachers were teaching the five-paragraph format, with little attention to the composing/thinking processes, audience analysis, inquiry-strategies, or writing across the curriculum.  In contrast, in Kentucky, which employs a portfolio writing assessment, teachers were focusing more on teaching process writing, rhetorical strategies, revision skills, and writing in different contexts.

    They may also develop strategies for assessing student growth using the product or showcase portfolio (Sunstein & Lovell, 2000; Yancey & Weiser, 1997; Yancey, 2004), particularly through use of digital, e-portfolios to display relationships between different aspects of their work and that can be readily accessed others. 

    And, PTs can develop their own teaching e-portfolios to model the process of constructing portfolios for their students.

Further reading on evaluation and assessment of literature:

Anagnostopoulos, D. (2005). Testing, tests, and classroom texts. Journal of Curriculum Studies,

37(1), 35-63.

Broad, B. (2003).  What we really value: Beyond rubrics in teaching and assessing writing. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Huot, B.  (2002).   (Re)Articulating writing assessment for teaching and learning.  Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Kohn, A.  (2000). The case against standardized testing: Raising the scores, ruining the schools.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 2000.

Sunstein, B. S.,  & Lovell, J. H.  (Eds.). (2000).  The portfolio standard: How students can show us what they know and are able to do.   Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 

Swope, K., & Miner, B.  (Eds.).  (2000).  Failing our kids: why the testing craze won’t fix our schools.  Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998).  Understanding by design.  Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/wiggins98book.html

Yancey, K., & Weiser, I.  (Eds.).  (1997).  Situating portfolios: Four perspectives.  Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.