Sarala's Written Reflection 2

In recent years, there has been much talk about using alternative assessments in Literature classrooms. When I was a student, Literature assessment was relatively more traditional, and students were only given worksheets to complete or written tests, to check understanding of the text. Assessment was basically ‘of’ learning instead of ‘for’ learning. However, in recent years, there has been a shift in Literacy instruction in terms of how students learn and should best be taught. This shift in literacy has led to a shift in instructional methods and has seen an increase in importance on personal response (Bisesi, et. Al, 240). This increase in importance of personal response has led to an increasing use of portfolio as a form of assessment in Literature classrooms. In each portfolio, students are to include, for example, written journal entries, creative writing pieces, reviews, scrapbooking and even pictorial representations of what was being taught. These activities allow students to exercise their personal voice in their learning of literature. However, how much understanding is actually achieved at the end of the day is still not known. Students’ understanding of a text they are studying is hard to measure just by assessing the creative writing pieces or journal entries that they produce. This leads to teachers still being sceptical about the idea of portfolio, though many might want to explore it to allow students the opportunity to exercise their personal voice and to allow some form of variety in their Literature lessons.

However, as Comer mentions in his article “Young Adult Literature and Alternative Literature Measures”, the main purpose of assessment is to guide instruction for teachers (239). This means that any form of assessment done on students is to allow teachers to know how to move on from there and how to plan future lessons in order to meet students’ needs in the subject. Assessment is now ‘for’ learning instead of ‘of’ learning. An alternative assessment, according to Comer, would therefore provide a more holistic guide to teachers as compared to a traditional one. As, alternative assessments provide students with an outlet to showcase their creativity and to assert their personal voice, it allows teachers, (with the use of rubrics and checklists), to find out students’ readiness, interest and learning profile (239). This in turn helps them in the planning of future lessons.

By looking at the shift in literacy which now places more emphasis on personal response of students and the fact that alternative assessments actually serve to guide teachers’ instructions for lessons, the use of portfolio as a form of alternative assessment becomes a more viable option. The activities in a portfolio (creative writing, journal entries, reviews, scrapbooking, pictorial representations), not only allow for variety in the kinds of assessment but also make Literature more fun and interesting for students. However, Comer also mentioned that tasks have to be authentic, by which he means that tasks have to have educational merit and to tap into students’ cognitive abilities (240). This would refer to tasks that require students to tap on their critical thinking skills, which draws on reader response theories of textual understanding (Bisesi, et. Al, 241).This will require students to combine what they brought to the text together with what they have read about the text and to respond personally to it. Therefore, by making tasks authentic, teachers can make use of the portfolio as a form of alternative assessment ‘for’ learning.