Dyana_Journal+7

Dyana Brown Journal Assessment 7 This morning, the teacher had placed red booklets on the desks of her students. As a morning task and to assess comprehension, the teacher had asked the students to color and cut out a story map of the process of “How to Make Bread.” My cooperating teacher had informed me that the children had read and learned about the process of how bread is made. So, the children were required to color the pictures, cut them out, and paste them in their red booklets in the correct order of how bread is made. Then, the students were required to write at least two sentences describing the picture that they had pasted on each page of their red booklet. The teacher explained these directions to the whole class and then went over what she expected from them. She asked the class not only to do the previously mentioned directions, but to also write at least two sentences that began with a capital letter and ended with a period. She also went over how she wanted their sentences of the pictures to be detailed and descriptive, as they have been working on together as a class. Lastly, she reiterated that words on the word wall and in their spelling books had to be spelled correctly. After going over all of these instructions, my cooperating teacher had her students paste a “My Writing” titled piece of paper on the inside cover of their red booklets. This “My Writing” piece of paper had all of the directions that the teacher had just gone over with the students that she wanted to see in their writing descriptions of the bread story map pictures. This “My Writing” acts as the rubric for this particular writing assessment that the teacher created. Overall, I feel that this particular assessment not only assesses and incorporates everything the teacher had been working on with the students thus far, but it also incorporates and encourages student creativity. For instance, the students begin this task with coloring the pictures. I feel that this is a great warm up for the students to transition into their writing skills and task. Yet, if I were to change or add something to this particular assessment, I might ask the students to write something at the end of their booklet maybe as a bonus. For instance, I could ask them why they thought bread was made in this particular process or how they would run a bread factory if they owned one. Overall, I feel that this task, though assesses comprehension, does not create meaning or value to the students. This is simply a task for them to do in order to satisfy the teacher. Yes, it is important for them to fulfill what the “My Writing” rubric was asking, but I think that an authentic question at the end of the booklet writing could have built more value for the students. On the other hand, the teacher could have done this already or have it planned for the future, but I could not have been present for the entirety of the lesson.