Blog 9

Chapter 7 in Spandel has some helpful commentary on assessment, which is an apparent developed skill in itself. I imagine it would be a difficult task to be compassionate and useful with students who could care less and put little thought into their work; while being offering perceptive commentary would come naturally. I can envision that teachers eventually become accustomed to being shocked by the creativity or lack there of or totally misguided attempts when assessing. Students know that feeling of hanging on every word of an assessment from an instructor, while we fear the honesty; it can be a very positive and reaffirming experience to have praise heaped upon us from a respected, knowledgeable source. This chapter actually speaks more of the large scale state or national testing assessments which have and will always be under scrutiny. At a quick glance I could totally see how writing could be an even greater challenge to assess on a large scale, but if the reviewer themselves meet specific criteria and are coupled with a proven rubric it does seem more likely to function systematically and be useful as a gauge. However, the pleas for compassionate assessment would be a difficult and predictable request unless you had the luxury to have multiple reviewers. But I always suggest people to remember the constructive side of assessments and to not take the criticism or praise too seriously, it’ll make you kooky.

The Juska piece was fascinating, as are most stories derived from prisons. We are amazed at why people do what they do and this chapter showed examples that some prisoners learned poor examples at young ages, but most were under educated. Prisoners certainly produce unique reactions, sometimes threatening bodily harm, to assessment but it is insightful to examine how education may have better served them and that despite all that is troubling about a prisoner and their crimes, they still demonstrate potential and desire to improve even when they have no have no need for it anymore (life sentence).

Chapter 14in WW offers some valuable advice and insight for the writing teacher to remember in their classrooms. The teaching of writing will be more useful for students if the teacher is a reader/writer themselves, committed, and has a grasp of the probable challenges. The challenges come in many forms: the students, the environment, the administrations, the parents, the support, and just the knowledge of the approaches will best serve your classroom. Smith continues to include many suggestions in a teachers approach that should yield results, such as the power of positive feedback, an understanding the realities of testing, an acceptance of the realities that are educating in masses, and that those who never appreciated simply never had an inspirational instructor.