Put Thinking to the Test
Written by: Lori Conrad, Missy Matthews, Cheryl Zimmerman, and Patrick A. Allen
In the continuing battle between teaching to the test and providing a high quality education the fosters the development of critical thinkers, Put thinking to the test merges instructional ideas for test prep with the ideas of Mosaic of thought by Ellin Oliver Keene. After explaining how they plan on tackling this seemingly impossible task, the authors discuss how to break down reading testing as a genre by looking at reading skills, strategies, and purpose. They continue by breaking down craft lessons for asking questions, mental images, inferences, synthesis, schema, determining importance, and monitoring for meaning. In a way that will make reading teachers fall in love just a little, they push relentlessly to incorporate test-prep into authentic instruction, critical thinking, and critical writing. The samples of student work will make skeptics believe that it is possible to integrate test prep into high quality instruction.
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Conrad, Lori, Matthews, Missy, Zimmerman, Cheryl, & Allen, Patrick. (2008). Put Thinking to the test. Portland: Stenhouse Pub.
Writing Through the Tween Years
Written by Bruce Morgan
With Deb Odom
Written by teachers in response to their frustration with over-emphasis on test prep in their school. They look at writing essentials for students in grades 3-6, best practices for mentoring tweens as writers, and the incorporation of spelling and grammar conventions into authentic writing.
Besides the discussion on who tweens are and where they are developmentally, section one includes a sample writing block schedule with writing warm up called Living Books, mini-lesson, independent work time, small group sessions, and group reflection (p. 20). Along with scheduling suggestions, Morgan and Odom provides a breakdown of crafting categories (p. 23) and uses ideas from Mosaic of thought by Ellin Keene to align reading and writing skills/ strategies (p. 43).
In section two, Morgan and Odom begin by providing insight into the use of Living Books to mentor tweens in the wrriting process. They continue by arguing the importance of teacher's using their own writing with which to model, despite our common fear that we aren't "good enough" as writers to write anything worthwhile. Next, they model how to use mentor texts and provide countless examples and lists of outstanding mentor texts for tweens. The authors have pointed out what stragegy they suggest teaching with each mentor text.
Finally, in section three, the authors tackle the integration of authentic writing and test prep. This section covers conventions, grammar, and spelling. It also pushes on the need to create a safe environment to discuss growth and assessments.
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Morgan, Bruce & Odom, Deb. (2004). Writing through the tween years. Portland: Stenhouse Pub.
Put Thinking to the Test
