Katie Brown

2014

Bellingham School District | Shuksan Middle School

Teaching at Shuksan for the past 11 years. 

Two+ years ago ELL Specialist. 

It seems like Katie is very good at including parents and the community with her teaching and the events or involvement activities she is engaged in. 

I enjoy that her blog is very current and seems reasonably updated with important and interesting ideas or experiences... She talks a lot about cultural inclusion and the powerful role it can play within the classroom and school.

According to her blog she doesn't seen interested in administration at all right now. She sees herself as already being in a “hybrid” leading role within her school and community and therefore doesn’t see the need to be in administration to make anymore of an impact. She feels she can do what needs to be done as she is, for now. 

Katie is very much about inspiring and setting an example for teachers. I do believe that she is a great role model in the teaching world to refer to and reflect on. I am really looking forward to meeting her and listening to her speak in class this coming week.

I found an article she was involved in regarding common core and why our students need it and I was really blown away by how much sense she made of the standards and their necessary role in improving washington’s education and learning. 

Questions to ask:

• If we don’t know a lot about ELL, should we consider taking classes to help us better understand and/or incorporate or work with ELL students?
• What were your fears going through college and during your student teaching? Main struggles during this time?
• How do you overcome and eliminate the motivational issue present in so many classrooms and students today?
• What is your opinion opinion about the edTPA? How would you approach or overcome fears and related frustrations?
• The "finding a job" process... hard? easy? sub first? jump right in? pursue your masters first? during?
• How do you approach dealing with students who are not up to the level of their classmates---significant deficit... How do you manipulate assignments to facilitate their needs without lowering the entire DOK level or what have you....
• SO MANY MORE

“Readocide” Review

There were a lot of good topics and points that Kelly Gallagher pointed out in his book “Readocide”. However, as a whole I felt like the book was very common sense based for those of us who have observed or taught reading and ELA. Even present day students currently in an ELA or reading class would read this book and say, well yeah….I will point out that I like seeing what I have thought over and over again in written form. The strategies and suggestions Gallagher makes for teachers teaching reading are excellent and like “I Read It but I don’t Get It”, the provided worksheets and access tools to use in the classroom are awesome ammunition to add to the artillery case as a teacher. I agree that testing is a driving force in how we teach our students now days. In fact we are overemphasizing the importance of “The Test” instead of emphasizing the importance of learning and developing our students into what Gallagher calls “expert citizens” with important life skills. These life skills include creativity, ethics, dedication, handwork, fairness, honesty, flexibility, common sense, teamwork, and life long learner drive. I think that these are all great skills to have but it leaves out important 21st century skills in both cognitive and conative aspects. There needs to be emphasis on self control and self understanding. Teamwork and communication between others and being aware of how one’s voice affects the feelings and views of others is also very important for our students to understand and essentially grow into in order to be an “expert citizen”. Problem solving and deeper discussion based thinking is also very important in terms of being an “expert citizen”, I would think. Teaching to the test essentially accounts for content cut of two-thirds of the information a student receives according to Gallagher. That's over half of the content being thrown away. The book suggests two reasons as to why developing “test-takers” is degrading and eating our students reading skills to be literally non-existent. The first, curriculum's are being based more on students abilities to successfully take multiple choice questioned tests, thus the teaching and learning structure becomes very shallow and eliminates content as mentioned above, The second, emphasizing multiple choice only solidifies the fact that students who are already struggling will only continue to struggle and fall even further behind. When we emphasize multiple choice in our learning and teach to test successfully we lose skills and only build memorization skills. Essentially we create fact  regurgitating robots for students. Not successful thinkers, problem solvers, and citizens. The other topic that caught my attention in the book was the talk of SSR or silent sustained reading. Gallagher suggests that and recommends this to help build reading skills and reading capacity. However, I strongly disagree. Since discussing the issue of reading among students and the types of readers we have, forcing them to read silently can present a multitude of problems. With students who have comprehension issues or are reluctant readers, they won't read, and if they do they won’t comprehend a damn thing they have read. We have a “word poverty issue” which I agree with in the sense that our students vocabulary and word knowledge is very limited and is only getting worse because we have a reading issue among schools due to, teaching to test. Using reading as something students may do optionally at the end of an assignment or task completion is a starting point for getting our students to read more, and to read independently. This Free Voluntary Reading is a choice and along with the choice of reading the students need to be able to choose their materials. I thought that the section of the book that listed the ingredients to building a reader were both basic but fairly on point and accurate in theory. The reading material must be something interesting to them.They must have time in school to read.They must have a comfortable place to read their material.
All of these components should and could help encourage reading IF we as teacher can eliminate all the other external distractions that seem more appealing to students than reading does. This includes internet, cell phone, peers, sketching, and other homework that is due next period… We need to teach students to both read and test. Teachers need to teach their students to actively read and read for comprehension in addition to encourage students to read for leisure which is very difficult with all of the technology we have today. I think that when using literature in class teachers need to engage student’s background knowledge and prepare them for the reading they are going to be engaged in so that they don’t feel blind sided or lost and give up before they even start. This book was saying what we all know is happening I feel… A good read, but one of common sense.

TPA.TPA.TPA.TPA.TPA.TPA.!#$@%

Reactions/Responses to TPA lesson plan:

I do not enjoy the TPA lesson plan but I do see it’s purpose. I don’t like having to break down my lesson minute for minute and try to program every single second because really, it’s unrealistic. You never know how each day is going to play out. As a teacher working with kids, you never know when one of your kids is going to have a behavioral issue or outburst. You never know who is going to be behind or absent. There is too many factors that come with working in an environment with children, especially a learning environment. I find that the TPA confuses me more and makes me more nervous when I teach. Days that I am not teaching using my TPA, which I will admit happen... I have more fun, the kids have more fun, they learn more, and they are more willing to be engaged in the lesson because they don't feel so stressed by a time framed assignment that I am trying to coordinate to. 

The TPA is more of an annoyance over all else because without it I basically do the same thing just less micro details that are kind of mindless points because they are GIVENS. 

I like that it is an organized way to make sure we are hitting our standards and making our connections however the terminology and buzzwords we are being asked to use are irritating. The format isn't going to make someone a better teacher... It might help organize and teach someone how to lesson plan to an extent but the real learning process of becoming a teacher happens in the classroom with time, trial, error, and success. 

What seems valuable/worthwhile:

I think the organization TPA brings to the lesson planning process is great. It helps with making sure you have your bases covered and it also makes sure you are intentionally teaching to an objective the entire time frame you have with your students. 

Questions/Concerns: 

My only concern is that my students will suffer because I am so concerned about my TPA being perfect and stressed about hitting the TPA flush on the timeframe that I will lose my personal connection and relationship to my students which is so important to have in the classroom. The students aren't numbers or robots that should be performing our TPA plans like they are on a conveyer belt. Education is about more than that. I have been doing TPA for 2 years now and it still is a pain. No questions or concerns about that, it is fact.

Why is TPA useful for beginning teachers:

Like I mentioned earlier the organizational factor about TPA helps insure that everything labeled “important” is completed and incorporated. It’s a great floor plan of how you want your class period to go. I think it helps beginning teachers to be intentional with the assignments and content in addition to ensuring that objectives and standards are being taught to. 

Problems with the lesson plan format:

TPA doesn’t require the personal side of being a teacher. It doesn’t account for potential problems that could occur and TPA is so time consuming. The way I am required currently to write my TPA lesson plans are so detailed and time consuming that by the time I am done writing them I don’t even want to teach the lesson. At times it has made me reconsider my career path choice. When I am not doing TPA but am making sure all my objectives and such are hit using the TPA format but simplifying it --- thats when I remember why I decided to teach. I enjoy the interaction and process of teaching kids not the process of TPA. I love lesson planning and getting creative with my assignments but the TPA is a buzz kill.

Tovani Reading: It Got Personal...

TOVANI READING: It Got Personal...

While reading CrisTovani's book, I felt myself making many connections to what she was saying. It took my back to elementary school about half way through my 3rd grade year, when my parents were told that I could not read and should be held back. My grandfather was still in the CVSD as an administrator and was with my parents at the meeting as well. Instead of holding me back, because I wasn’t struggling with anything else, just reading comprehension--- my grandfather took me to Sylvan Learning Center and had my reading tested and leveled to see where my errors and deficits were. I attended Sylvan for the remainder of the year and that summer. By the time I left Sylvan and began my grade 4 year, I was reading at the 8th grade level and had plenty of comprehensive strategies and reading skills to use when we would read in class. I even started enjoying reading on my own in my free time. The strategies I was taught as a child at age 8 have carried over to the strategies I use as a college student. The note taking, the questioning, the self-monitoring.

I see value and necessity in everything Tovani talks about because I was one of these students… I too read it but didn't get it.

First off, I more than appreciate the “worksheet” or strategy ideas in the back of the book starting on page 113 in part 3 “Access Tools”. I think with the majority of these tools it will be easy to hit on a variety of multiple intelligence sectors, but also, these are tools that I can use in my own learning as a college student now. I really think that visualizing what you are reading is a major help in understanding what is being read for a lot of students. Students today are all so visual and hands on— especially with their phones or other technological devices. They refer to these a lot of the time for visuals out of boredom or for educational reference so why not incorporate visualization into our reading for understanding.

One of the key concepts or statements I gathered and noted while reading was that understanding meaning is essential to improve reading comprehension. Decoding the words and recognizing them is one thing and it decoding does not mean that a person is comprehending what they are decoding. In order to ensure good comprehensive reading a student or really any individual reading for comprehension must lean on and utilize reading strategies while they read. This can be anything from using pre existing knowledge to make connections to asking themselves questions before, during, and after they read the text. My favorite strategy is note taking and page marking. The sticky note is my best friend while I am reading my textbooks because it flags important details or ideas that I will need to call upon later or that I may just have found to be personally important.

Utilizing cues and symbols relating to words, ideas, connections, or questions helps a reader focus on the text and self-monitor one’s comprehension. I do not believe that using strategies will always help a reader with certain texts. This is because some texts are just so dense or evoke so many questions that the reader can’t focus on moving through the reading. This is where discussion about a text to check for understanding helps comprehensively with reading.

I really enjoyed the section Tovani presents with the “types of readers”. I really dislike and disagree with labels applicable or not, however, these labels helped identify readers who exhibit specific behaviors and gives us examples of how we as teachers can work with these readers.

These types include:

• Resistive readers:
• “I’ll do anything BUT read…”
• They wait to be fed answers or information from teachers or peers and that is how they comprehend the text.
• listen, wait, copy, feed.
• Essentially, these students CAN read. They are completely capable of reading BUT they choose not to.
• Word Callers:
• mastered decoding and therefore choose to use their decoding skills to read…
• BUT…. they don’t understand and comprehend what they read and eventually quit or give up. (frustration)
• These readers can pronounce the words they see but they struggle with understanding what these words mean, especially when applied to an idea.

I think Tovani points out a few types of readers, however I know there are other “breeds” of reader. I think as a teacher it is important to utilize and understand all the types of reader you have within your class so you know who is going to require more strategies and encouragement to read independently and comprehensively.

There are a lot of experiences from the classroom that Tovani gives as examples and helps us place strategies with scenarios. One that really caught my attention and that I hadn’t heard before reading this was the story she tells about setting expectations. Tovani starts the first day of class by first asking her students to share their expectations of the class with her. Usually, teachers TELL and GIVE the students the expectations of the class (I have both witnessed and experienced this as a student). Instantly, it feels like you are being babied or in a modified subject specific boot camp. The teacher tells you what you will do and you as the student, well, you’re expected to just do it. Letting the students give their opinions, wants, needs, and expectations of the class FIRST helps them to see that their needs and opinions, their VOICES are of value to you as the teacher.

Tovani also talks to her students as if they are her equals. She portrays herself as a real person who has a life and doesn’t want to spend hours on end grading and reading book reports for example. This in a way allows the students to be less defiant or for lack of a better word resistant to you as the teacher just because you are an authoritative figure.

Self Chosen Article: Teaching and Learning Social Justice 

by Leah Reinhert & Rebecca Ropers-Huilman

http://acpacsje.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/teaching-and-learning-social-justice-by-leah-reinert-rebecca-ropers-huilman/

The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you can alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change the world. – James Baldwin 

Social justice is "justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.

When we effectively teach social justice according to Reinhaert and Ropers we are teaching students to change the world and this why it is so important to teach students social justice. The role education is to create citizens and members of society that can create change and form beneficial relationships to help the larger society as a whole. 

The hard part about teaching and learning from all standpoints is the ability to engage this learning and teach skills with good information to help individuals grow. Grow to help avoid or “resist” oppression in addition to problem solve and better our society. If it is oppression that limits us, then we must develop skills and knowledge to avoid and overcome oppression that our students may face later on in society. 

By avoiding oppression as they speak on, we must then educate our students on what oppression is and how it happens in addition to the solutions involved in avoidance and overcoming. These could be called “social justice skills” I suppose. 

The authors of the article suggest and emphasize that when teaching these concepts and skills, important themes to focus on include:

1. Stressing the importance of reflexivity or accountability for oneself… CONATIVE SKILLS

Reflexivity is so important when teaching social justice because it teaches on perspectives of not only ourselves but others as well. It teaches to interactions and communication with others which is an important aspect of social justice. We all have our own identities and need to be mindful of others identities just the same. Some of us may be more privileged than others and when dealing with oppression we need to see all perspectives including our own respectively and take into consideration all points of view.

2. Being mindful in our vulnerability… Knowing our strengths and weaknesses and working around or with them. Knowing where our society is vulnerable is important for our students to see and learn about to help promote change and help establish growth in these areas through being mindful and aware. 

“Some strategies for being mindfully vulnerable in an effort to teach and learn social justice include: putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations, experiences, or environments to enlarge our boundaries of lived experience; putting a voice to our experiences when we have faced or viewed injustice; and being reflective and cognizant when we encounter privilege and using that awareness to further education on social justice.” 

In other words, if I understand correctly, teaching students to face things that make them vulnerable, voicing their opinions, and DISCUSSING issues currently spinning in our society, we are teaching them how to address vulnerability responsibly and respectfully. In doing this we would need to promote fully engaged DISCUSSION between our students.

3. The necessity of reciprocity… sharing knowledge, skills, or resources with others for mutual benefit or in other words cooperative learning, working with others to achieve success. 

Again this can go along with discussions had in the classroom and being mindful of everyone and their perspectives… In teaching students to be mindful of themselves and others in their opinions, views, and discussions we are essentially developing our students into more open minded and flexible citizens. 

We as a society are so closed minded and instead of working together and resection opinions and the perspectives of others within our societies we fight - - - morally, religiously, economically, politically and in many other ways… Changing these closed minded ways and developing citizens that are socially just in their thinking will help to alleviate some of this conflict and help build a society where we all work and grow together using each others strengths in a “reciprocative” manner to grow as a society. Social justice being taught to better our future socially with citizens who understand how to be socially just.

Questions of Canons. Culture. Goals. Environments.

Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

Q: What types of writing are the focus and what skills are we focusing on as teachers of writing and literature? 
(pg.185 persuasive, informative, formal, informal)
From reading this, I feel like our goal as educators for our students is higher education or college. We teach to prepare our students for college. For the SAT and ACT tests because they reflect our work and our school on an “important” level. I think that this teaching “goal” is supported by the Common Core State Standards. We need to realize though that college isn’t for everyone. There are other professions and avenues for students to explore and consider.

I am just wondering if the way we teach is aimed at preparing our students 

for life or for high education.

Q: How do motivate our students to want to be engaged in the literary works we teach from? 
We must connect with our students. We have to make it matter. Not just on the outer most level of mattering but find a way to personally connect them to the works, to the writing, and to the content we are working with. When working with our literary content we need to connect and teach our students to be culturally aware from multiple perspectives and seek levels of justice within the conflicts and solutions that are presented.  

There is so much to be said about urban schools. The idea I stand by and always have stood by with regards to location and the environment a teacher teaches in and students attend has nothing to do with the education or success they should, could, or would achieve. Part of a teachers job is to be creative and overcome barriers or obstacles and provide their students with the best possible education. Location and economics get messy and so influence students greatly, however, it can be worked with and overcome. All students are equally as capable of finding success. Some will just require more work, effort, and teacher support than other.

Q: Is the canon chosen on a basis of what national minds want us to think, hear, and interpret our lives off— if this is our literary “history”? 

The hope of the canon study is to gain a sense of appreciation for the works and western culture of which they came. The hope and the reality of using the canon are different though. The canon leaves out a lot of cultural awareness and justice that are associated with all this talk of being “critical” and thinking “critically”. With the canon use we as teaching are given many different means of learning to help teach the material. Many of the works have been made into films and thus provide students with a visual engagement helping with more understanding.

To teach these canonry pieces I couldn’t agree more than with the statement on pg. 188. The units we teach using the canon works need to be paired with film studies, newspapers, magazines, and with this we need to give our students the opportunities to translate what they have read and connect it with their culture and community. No matter what kind of community or culture it is, they need to connect it or show why and how it is so brutally different. The fact and goal is to connect it with their lives, with their reality. 

Q: Is the Literary Canon simply just a compilation of works that support ideas or political agendas? Do we suggest and teach to the canon because that is what we are supposed to hear, or more so what “they” want us to here?

I don’t want to think this but I do believe that a lot of teachers do not teach intentionally much deeper than surface level. Especially with the canon list. I did a little background research— I feel like teachers agree with teaching the works listed because if they didn’t there wouldn’t be anything to do about it anyways and because it is the norm to teach them. To not teach them would not only against the curriculum most of the time and it would be so unusual to not have a list to work from that you would have to find reasons to teach whatever replacement you could find. We discussed the canon briefly in my Intro to Fiction class last Spring in addition to reading a lot of the works listed. I wasn’t against any of the works and looking at the list from a far, they are all great works but also very old and very, well, … white. Grated it is the “western” canon but I feel like really there is a lot of other culture that could and should be present here especially if it is being taught in our schools.

Students from both personal and observed experience really don’t enjoy the readings they have to do at the time and don’t appreciate them until later on in life if ever. I didn’t appreciate the reads I had to work on at the high school level literally until last year when I started working on my English endorsement and started working with that content. Only then because I didn’t have to reread it to actually do the assignment. Sad, but very truthful. 

Politics, economics, sciences…rights… politics….

Critical Pedagogy: Peter McLauren

The intentions of Peter McLauren’s article and the actual reaction that I happened to have, I am assuming, couldn't be further from each other. I started out the reading thinking about types of thinking and teaching theory like dialectical (process/product), contradiction vs. paradoxical issues, forms of understanding, macro and micro objectives, and knowledge or learning in general. 

As I continued to read, in the back of my mind it became more about all of the social aspects and affects school has on our students or children. The question that has posed itself in my mind since reading about all these concepts and pedagogies is: 

If we continue to teach our students cultural, social, economic, political, historical, technical, and practical information and continue to use history as a guideline, ... continue to show how woman were portrayed, show how cultures separate and differ from our own, continue to fall in line and teach social normalities and separate people on a basis of the previous--- are we then directing and predisposing though, feeling, roles, and standards or mindsets of our children? 

The question is so loaded but it kicked itself up in my thought process after reading McLaren’s “further questions: ...” on page 64. 

This is a very interesting reading on the basis of cultural and social questioning. The reading is very bold and blunt, it says what we all are thinking but typically wouldn’t mention with regards to approaches, theories, past and present social norms and interactions between classes, cultures, and genders. 

On page 75 McLauren talks about classroom sexism which, in my experience has always been a constant “issue” and has had a presence for as long as I have been in the classroom both as a student and as a teacher. For whatever reason teachers and students alike separate male and female student traits. In doing this I feel like we are setting a standard or an “ideal” expectation that predetermines the characteristics of a male or female students. I never thought this to be true but McLauren says

 “the hidden curriculum displaces the professed educational ideas and goals of the classroom teacher or school. ...teachers unconsciously give more intellectual attention, praise, and academic help to boys than to girls.” 

This is all stereotyping and I have seen students themselves use these stereotypes or ideas as excuses for why they “can’t” do something or “why” they do something the way they do it. This being said when we focus so much content on cultural histories, separation of classes, politics , economics, and all of these “things” that classify us as people or individuals, we set our students up for classifying themselves into categories verses encouraging them to grow and think into  the culture, class, or structure of thinking and strategy that will make them the best form of a person that they can be. Male or female. Page 76 gives numerous of examples collected within studies that demonstrate the issue of classroom sexism in action. Female students were not only spoken over the top of by male students but they also doubted themselves and were unsure of their answers (subordinate role).

“Classroom sexism ... results in unwitting and unintended granting of power and privilege to men over woman...” (75)

The theories and strategies by which we teach paired with the information we are teaching inadvertently can lead to cultural, economical, racial, and gender based stereotyping and biases. The content paired with how we communicate these topics and  information will ultimately guide and help students form and mold their own mindset about others and themselves. Educators and schools produce mindsets and thinking. What a powerful role schools honestly play for humans. 

Page 62 -- What is a school?

• indoctrination
• socialization
• instruction site
• cultural exposure
• cultural opinion formation
• social justice
• the teaching and formation of socially obedient worker development 
• domination
• liberation
• economic placement
• sexual placement
• gender role determination
• place of education 
• place of political formation
• place of mental programming 

An incredibly frustrated and brief response to              P. Freire's Ch.2: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

To be completely honest… I only made it to page five before i threw this reading across my room with impressive force given its incredible un-aerodynamic form. The way Freire talks about education and how “awful” it is, well is just ridiculous. He labels educators right off the get go as either teaching children in a “bank-concept” manner or in a humanistic revolution manner. He then goes on to say that the majority of educators treat their students as containers or deposit boxes for us to “fill” with our meaningless information that isn’t applied to reality. 

When this was written in 1993, I assume education was very different although I was only six months of age I cannot confirm nor deny that teachers could have been treating their students as uneducated being whom were being gifted or “bestowed” with the teachers “great and glorious”  knowledge. My mother has taught for nearly 30 years and my grandfather before here close to 60. I can guarantee neither of them, neither generation of educators saw their hundreds of students as knowledge-less containers waiting to be filled by their wealth of flawless knowledge. 

Freire also talks of communication as being the soul device to a student retaining information; but what form of communication? Communication comes in so many forms and can be used in a multitude of ways. Communication seemingly, according to Freire, is best when it is happening in teacher student contradiction. What about simple discussion, response based questioning, cooperative learning, writing, application to critical thinking skills and a variety of other methods of thinking and communication that go hand in hand with learning or retaining information?

Without banking connecting as a means of sharing facts and information with our students, we have no knowledge base to communicate or relate to reality with. I am not sure if some of the language Freire uses is appropriate with regards to teaching methodologies, pedagogies, or anything else pertaining to the education and thinking means of teachers. YES— there are “bad” teachers whom do not put effort into their lessons, projects, or strategies but I feel like even “poor” teaching can be altered with effort and guidance. I hope to never meet the ignorant educator that is talked of in the majority of this reading. I hope to never for one single second see my students as uneducated containers. I also home to utilize communication, creativity, fact-based-learning, discussion, and relationships to reality in my teaching to provide a successful education to those who come through my classroom doorway. 

A Response to “A Response-Based Approach 

to Reading Literature”

Judith Langer’s article “A Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature” was very interesting and engaging while discussing the different processes of involved with understanding given literature. It was when I read...

 “ Research Indicates that literature is usually taught and tested in a nonliterary manner, as if there is one right answer arrived at through point-of-reference reading or writing” (Langer), 

that I literally froze and became almost inadvertently concerned and very confused. It made me question everything I have observed thus far in my student teaching observations and classroom/educator interactions.

That quote literally perplexed and twisted my mind on so many levels. I had to read it several times to make sure I wasn’t imagining what I had just read or at least misinterpreting it. The fact that  educators could ever even think to assess literature in a nonliterary manner makes no sense. We try and teach our students to use different points of view and think complexly constantly digging deeper in search of more in depth meanings or underlying points that could potentially be present. The search for a deeper meaning and more complex thinking is destroyed by assessing it in the opposite way. To assess fact is one thing but to assess opinions or points of view after reading apiece of literary works cannot be treated the same. Each student is going to interpret things differently especially when reading literature. Some may be affected one way while others another. That piece is out of our control. 

Directing learning in search of meaning while reading can be orientated as suggested in the text in two forms: literary orientation and discursive orientation. Literary being used to place a reader in a characters actions or life from a psychological or social perspective in which you read from. Discursive orientated reading looks to facts and details in a more research based form; question and answer. This approach is more specific and, in my opinion, the assessable form of reading literature. When I think about assessing literature I always think about written response that is more so assessing a thought process. Looking for more complex thinking and dissection of the content the literature is presenting. Literature can be assessed from a discursive oriented perspective if that is applicable to the literature. Characters, dates, locations and details as such can be assessed through a one right answer standpoint. As far as assessing why a character is the way they are based on text based information or what they might do in a given scenario; that is not only a loaded question but a very in-depth question that requires analyzing a piece of information from a multitude of perspectives. True false questions cannot be used to answer questions regarding issues in the literature that can be looked at through different view points in the reading. If this is going to be done, the point of view must be established and the question must follow. 

There is a reason that we have Common Core State Standards for BOTH Literature and for Informational Text. They must be assessed in different ways because they are involving two separate types of reading and meaning.  The shift from focusing on textural content to actually focusing on the way a student interprets and understands the text is going to develop and encourage student growth on a deeper thinking and learning level which the CCSS's are looking for. Assessing them off of their individual understanding and analyzing is where assessment and response post literary study should be and should have been. Realistically it is what makes sense. 

The sad truth that I felt while reading this text was that what determines which orientation and what determines which method of learning or assessment is used is a direct reflection (seemingly) on the teacher and their level of commitment and effort. Assessing a student on their understanding and their analyzing or thinking and determining growth takes a lot more time, energy, and dedication from a teacher than giving fact based, true/false, nonliterary assessments. Directing learning in a literary formation requires more guidance and engagement from the teacher because it is asking the students to dig deeper than surface level, get creative and really be engaged in the literature which at times, is a difficult task. Dealing with discursive approaches to literature, hopefully informational text, is someone easier because there are going to be factual details to the reading that are concrete and do not require a deeper understanding or study to be had. Dates and places are easy to assess on a test because there are right and wrong answers. Looking at students thinking and processing is time consuming and is original from each student because not every student is going to think or perceive literature the same way. Literature and perspectives taken by students will make them feel certain ways or connect them to memories that are specific to them. It is a more original form of thinking that shows process and that process is where assessment should be.

As educators, we need to be teaching our students to decipher between the types of literature and the approaches or forms of reading in which they can orient themselves to before they begin engaging themselves in the reading. We should teach the how to take positions and develop opinions or literature in addition to showing them how to think critically and develop their own understandings while reading. It is important for students to know what they need to be looking for before they begin reading. If they are researching and using the text for discursive purposes, they need to know how to pull facts, quotes, and necessary information from the text rather then developing an opinion and investigating different situations, points of view, or characters. The framework of optional strategies Langer provides is an excellent guide to guiding students in the direction and mindset they should be approaching the text with.