For most of middle school, succeeding in English simply means to know the grammar rules and be able to understand the information from a text. At the time, English is not much different from all the other school subjects. Math, science, and social studies, are all based on memorization and problem solving. Middle school English was also based on memorization, such as remembering vocabulary words or events from a novel. However, the memorization based English began to change in eighth grade.
There was not much difference in my eighth grade English class and my prior English classes. The teacher taught us grammar, such as subject-verb agreement and active voice, vocabulary, the point of views, main idea, context clues, characterization, and imagery, like prior English classes. However, there are one striking difference between them and that is the county formatives.
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I was expecting the test to be something simple, like correcting grammatical mistakes in a reading, or reading comprehension questions. Upon receiving the test, I looked through the questions and found that they were dramatically different from the questions that I was expecting. I expected the questions to be about reading comprehension with a BCR question requiring me to describe the main idea from the reading. Instead, they were questions involving the writer’s techniques and purposes with an analytical writing prompt. This style of writing questions pervades through the school year in later county formatives which were given each quarter and the semester exams.
I hated this style of writing questions because it requires a wholly different way of thinking, one that is based on serious questioning of the author. The introduction of this way of thinking created a great drift between English and the other subjects, particularly with my favorite subject,
Generally in school there is an emphasis on reading and writing, which are just one of numerous learning
While the reading assessment will be different for all students I learned that I must be attentive to the student and what they say, also I learned that even if the student gets frustrated I should not aid in the reading that is in front of them. Instruction for the students should be clear and precise; I believe that every student should have their own Vocabulary Dictionaries in the classroom. I believe that this will aid the students so much in the way that they will be able to acquire harder words and each students will be different, they will be able to have fun with it as well as learn at the same
Teachers who work with English Language Learners know that academic language takes longer to achieve proficiency in than does conversational language. On average, ELL students need at least two years to achieve conversational language and, five to nine years to develop academic language proficiency. Many English words ELL students are exposed to in school, they have not yet learned or even heard in their first language, which makes transference of knowledge impossible. The vast differences in the ability to use conversational versus academic language can be a hindrance to these students and have lasting effects on their academics and therefore, their lives.
The book Readicide by Kelly Gallagher is the ugly truth of the policies adopted in the school system to prioritized test taking strategies for the most part of the day and killing the enjoyment of students reading. The author points out that students’ reading has shifted negatively and the reading percentage has decreased. Students hate to read and classic novels are slowly vanishing from classrooms. The findings to Gallagher’s discoveries are research based and heartbreaking as the movement of standardized testing has been reinforced in most states. There are too many standards to teach and teachers are held accountable for students testing performance. Therefore, educators are forced to do test preps where students are provided with facts to be memorized and lack of comprehension. The author emphasized that students are no longer able to choose a book for the enjoyment of reading. Students’ interests are no longer taken into consideration. Students are reading less and less at school to make time for test prep. Gallagher says that as an educator and parent young
Since this test has been devised, the number one question everybody is asking is, “ isn’t it unfair to base a student’s entire future on one test, when he or she simply could have had a bad day when taking the test”? The president Kirk T. Schroder of the Virginia Board of Education, answer this question by saying, “First of all, these tests are untimed, so no student is under arbitrary time pressure in taking the test.
Assessments should guide instruction and material selection. Any likely manner, assessments should measure student progress, as well as help, identify deficiencies in reading (Afflerback, 2012). One important indicator of reading deficiencies is spelling. Morris (2014), advocated the importance of administering a spelling assessment in order to have a better understanding of a student’s reading abilities. My school uses the Words Their Way spelling inventory to assess students’ reading abilities at the beginning of the year and throughout the reading year.
As she goes on, she also questions the effectiveness and validity of the standardized tests. She accomplishes this through the use of rhetorical questions like “can you really infer whether or not students deserve to move forward in their education because of what your test states?” and that if it is evident that the district policy is not accurate enough to make decisions on whether student should move forward with their education then “why is there a strict policy that forces the school
...e into consideration the characteristics of young English language learners and their language development, the learning conditions that are most effective for these learners, and the kinds of instruction that best meet their needs.
She felt the test was challenging, but had confidence she had passed. To her surprise she passed every section excluding one, writing. She could not understand how she could have possibly failed. “How could I have screwed up writing? I surely spelled every word correctly, used good grammar, and even used big words in the proper context. How could I have failed?” exclaimed Nichols. Ultimately, she got over it. She continued her honors English class and passed with an A. By October she felt she was
Pedagogical classroom instruction as a means to social change: The Academic English Mastery Program (AEMP)
My first college English class was ENC 1101 at the State College of Florida. In this course, I learned a vast amount of information about writing, reading, and grammar. When I first walked into ENC 1101 in August, I expected the class to be like any other English class in High School; with rushed busy work and a lot of useless tests and quizzes. However, throughout each week of the semester, Professor Knutsen’s class made me beg to differ. This class was not like any other high school English class. In this class I actually learned important information and did not do work just to complete it. This class had a few assignments here and there, enough to maintain, in order to learn proper information. I learned a lot in this class because I was not rushed to
-The test consists of multiple choice questions on content area. Written responses are also used. Labs are used
After almost one-hundred and eight days, the 2015-2016 school year is approaching an end. So far, I have concluded that middle school is basically like building a house. Before middle school has started, in fifth grade, the house only has the boards and the main skeleton of the whole structure. All of the basics are learned in elementary school: learning how to read, learning basic grammar, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, fractions, the founding of America, how plants create their food, etc., but by the time students reach sixth grade, new knowledge builds onto what is already known. Letters are added into the familiar math equations; stories are written with all of the reading and grammar knowledge; unfamiliar people, wars,
College English is a big difference compared to how high school English was taught. Many differences that I have noticed with these few past weeks that I have been here at Fresno State University would be how the group exercises are structured, how the professor shows interest about the student’s improvements with their work, and how the course materials are presented to the class. High school was not the greatest experience that I could have had during my educational years. Many of my teachers that I had throughout my high school career were not the worst but they were far from the best. I always felt like they did not care about how our work turned out, also they always seemed to help the students that were good in the subject, and that they
Understanding the difference between assessment and testing. (2008, January 2). The Faculty Center. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://facultycenter.stonybrook.edu/articles/understanding-difference-between-assessment-and-testing