How to Assess Reading Through Writing [S6 E205]

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Have you gotten to the end of the year not knowing what kids have truly learned? You know you’re teaching. You know what some students know and really understand. But when it comes down to it, you feel like you don’t really know what everybody learned. We completely understand! That’s what it felt like for us before we started backward planning and planning our year and assessments the way we teach in Down with the Reading Quiz and Curriculum Rehab.

We know assessments are key in guiding our instruction and gauging student understanding. You’ve heard us talk quite a bit about Sesame Street Quizzes and how much we love them but there are other assessments we absolutely love for assessing student understanding, too. One of our favorites is the paragraph chunk quiz!

Today, we are diving into paragraph chunk quizzes and ways to implement them in your ELA classes. We’re sharing what paragraph chunk quizzes are, why we love them, and different ways to format them to fit what you and your students need.

Topics discussed:

  • What a paragraph chunk quiz is

  • Different ways to structure paragraph chunk quizzes

  • How this type of quiz is great for scaffolding, especially for EL students

  • Ways that you can use paragraph chunk quizzes throughout a novel based unit

  • How they can be used to expand student learning and connect back to the essential question

Resources Mentioned:

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More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like  Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. 


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