RM Winter 2017

learners, and Teaching Tips. All assessments are aligned with the 2010 International Literacy Association (ILA) Standards for Literacy Professionals and can be used in a variety of commonly offered literacy courses, including Foundations of Literacy, Literacy Assessment, and Content Area Reading andWriting. Multicultural Book Blog: Identifying Mirrors andWindows As more and more teacher education courses move to an online or blended format, there is a growing need to think beyond the text-based discussion board to the development of innovative ways of sharing ideas and resources. Although asynchronous discussions allow students time and space to create thoughtful reflections on critical ideas, “discussions do not automatically become interactive and collaborative simply by virtue of being in an anytime/anywhere asynchronous medium” (Pawan, Paulus, Yalcin, & Chang, 2003, p. 138). The goal of the Multicultural Book Blog blog was to build a collaborative repertoire of texts, ideas, images, videos, and resources related to multicultural children’s and adolescent literature. In order to encourage students to collaborate, post, and access resources long after the course had finished, we used Google’s Blogger, a free blog-publishing site, rather than a learning management system. For each post, students were asked to focus on texts that honored the cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds of their students—texts that served as both mirrors , which reflect the cultural norms and values of the reader, and windows , which juxtapose the familiar with the unfamiliar (Bishop, 1990). In their initial posts, students created four responses: EVALUATOR RESPONSE: Imagine that you are a children’s/YA book editor. Critically evaluate distinct elements of the text, such as the words, images, format, structure, plot, and characters. What are its strengths? Weaknesses? TEACHER RESPONSE: Howmight you engage students in reflecting on social and political issues present in the text and the world? What texts might provide students with an alternate perspective that challenges their thinking? LITERACY COACH RESPONSE: What suggestions and strategies would you provide for teachers using this text in the classroom? What resources (websites, articles, lessons, units, discussion prompts) would you share? Initially, students were required to respond to two colleagues’ posts. However, in a class discussion after the first blog posts, many students pointed out they were commenting to earn a grade, rather than engaging with their colleagues’ ideas. So, we collaboratively decided to make blog responses optional and to instead dedicate time to in-class reflection. After making this change, students actually began to post more detailed and specific responses on the blog. We used a variety of formats for READER RESPONSE: As a reader, what was your aesthetic response? Your efferent response?

In South Carolina, as more pre-service and in-service teachers seek to fulfill the Read to Succeed Literacy Teacher and Literacy Requirement, literacy teacher educators must find new ways to provide meaningful assessment experiences that explicitly connect to our students’ past, present, and future classrooms. Something They Can Use on Monday Morning One of my goals for any professional development or class session is to provide teachers and teacher candidates with at least one tool, one idea, one activity, or one principle that they can use on Monday morning. Of course, not every assessment in a pre- service or in-service education course can or should be used on Monday mornings. For instance, during class discussions about the most important attributes of literacy leaders and coaches, my students often mention one trait—resourcefulness. The traditional research paper, which could ostensibly be held up as an example of an “inauthentic” assessment, allows students to develop essential skills in locating, evaluating, and adapting information. Likewise, written reflections, which are generally created for an audience of two (the student and the instructor), provide powerful forums for critical thought and personal development. However, one of the perennial complaints of both experienced and novice teachers enrolled in teacher preparation programs is that their coursework is too far removed from classroom realities— in short, that there is too much theory, and too little practice (Zeichner, 2012). In reimagining assessments as responsive to both context and culture, I wanted to provide opportunities for teachers and teacher candidates to wrestle with the ways in which evolving policies, increasingly diverse student populations, and 21st century digital tools continue to shape student and teacher learning. In addition to scouring pedagogical articles, blogs, and syllabi from literacy education courses across the country and in international contexts, I surveyed students, visited classrooms, talked with school administrators, held focus group discussions, and went through the process of completing each potential assignment myself—all with the goal of creating assessments that bridged theory and practice. Grossman and McDonald (2008) suggest that a shift from pedagogies of investigation to pedagogies of enactment, in which teachers and teacher candidates engage in “deliberate and systematic experimentation with a variety of approximations of practice,” can connect “the everyday and the academic” (pp. 190-191). In my own course redesign, I envisioned assessment not as an end in and of itself, but as a means of actively engaging students in a recursive cycle of inquiry, application, reflection, collaboration, and action. In shifting the focus to enactment rather than investigation, students were able to make explicit connections between practice, research, and theory, grapple with the social and political aspects of education in the real world, and understand the whys as well as the rubrics. Six Ideas for Authentic Literacy Assessments In the following sections, I describe six assessments that attempt to bridge the everyday and the academic: a multicultural book blog, literacy videos, literacy action plans, coaching observation reports, professional development presentations focusing on culturally and linguistically diverse

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