Sharing: Strategies for Assessing Reading Comprehension
Key Considerations for Assessing Comprehension:
There are many ways to assess learners' comprehension of the texts they have read, listened to, or viewed. Typically, instructors ask students to "prove" that they have read a text through comprehension questions or reading quizzes. Such strategies are certainly options, but asking learners to focus on SHARING what they enjoyed or found interesting about the text with a new audience who has not yet read it (as opposed to "proving" to you that they have read it) can make the process more meaningful for all involved. Although alternative assessments such as creating a graphic organizer or a poster can make the process more fun, they still lack the motivating element of a public audience for the work. To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few possibilities of creative products that a worldwide audience might be more likely to consume for different purposes:
- Creative Product: Ask learners to generate a creative product based on what they read, listened to, or viewed. Doing so requires them to take ownership of what they have read, internalizing it more deeply.
- Reinterpretation: Require learners to "translate" the text into a different genre or to "transform" it into a different type of media. (For instance, you might give learners options such as transforming a short story into a comic, music video, poem, theatrical interpretation, etc.). Such adaptations require learners to identify essential elements of the text and push them past surface interpretations.
- Examination from Multiple Perspectives: Invite learners to consider the text from a variety of different perspectives. How might they need to adapt what they share about the text in order to appeal to different audiences or to demonstrate the point of view of characters other than the protagonist? These kinds of explorations foster critical thinking and analysis as well as cognitive flexibility.
- Application: Encourage learners to make connections between the text and contemporary life. How does the text apply to modern day issues or concerns? Examining these connections gives learners opportunities to examine historical, cultural, economic, political, and social issues related to the text, to make inferences about them, and to recognize the text's relevance to their own lives.
- Time Limit: Limit the length of the creative work to between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. This forces learners to consolidate what they have learned. Alternatively, if you prefer that learners produce a lengthier product, consider asking them to synthesize several different texts based on a key theme or cultural element embedded within the text.
- Exploration through Multiple Modalities: Suggest that learners transform the text into a different modality (e.g., a printed text into a video, or a video into a printed comic)
There are many ways to assess learners' comprehension of the texts they have read, listened to, or viewed. Typically, instructors ask students to "prove" that they have read a text through comprehension questions or reading quizzes. Such strategies are certainly options, but asking learners to focus on SHARING what they enjoyed or found interesting about the text with a new audience who has not yet read it (as opposed to "proving" to you that they have read it) can make the process more meaningful for all involved. Although alternative assessments such as creating a graphic organizer or a poster can make the process more fun, they still lack the motivating element of a public audience for the work. To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few possibilities of creative products that a worldwide audience might be more likely to consume for different purposes:
Author Biographies
Sandra Cisneros y La casa en Mango Street - A 9:59 min. student-created biography of Sandra Cisneros in Spanish that discusses the author's life and its relationship to the themes in the novel created by Heather Jinmaku
Book Summaries
El conde Lucanor - Cuento XXXV - A 1:53 min. illustrated summary of the story, narrated in Spanish by a female native speaker from Spain
Resumen Crónica de una muerte anunciada - 4:06 min. illustrated summary in Spanish done on Powtoon by Mariana Arguedas from Costa Rica
Summary of AN ANNOUNCED DEATH CHRONICLE - Draw My Life - 3:37 min. illustrated summary of the novel narrated in Spanish by a male native speaker
PEDRO PÁRAMO by Juan Rulfo (Summary) | Draw My Life - 14:01 min. illustrated summary of the novel narrated in Spanish by a native speaker
Pedro Páramo en 54 segundos - Animated summary of the novel in Spanish
Book Trailers
La casa en Mango Street - 1:47 min. YouTube book trailer in Spanish (no voice, just text, images, and music)
The House on Mango Street - Video Trailer - 2:07 min. trailer in English by Michelle Delgado that does a great job of focusing on some of the themes of the book
TRAILER crónica de una muerte anunciada FULL HD - 1:50 min. book trailer in Spanish by Pedro Leandro Lagardo
Booktrailer de LOS RECUERDOS DEL PORVENIR de Elena Garro - 1:09 min. professional book trailer in Spanish
Comic Adaptations
CRONICA DE UNA MUERTE ANUNCIADA (CÓMIC) - 5:31 min. YouTube video set to music that summarizes various chapters from the novel as comic book pages in Spanish
Lazarillo de Tormes - A 6:54 min. comic summary of the book in simple Spanish that highlights targeted grammatical structures
Dramatizations
El coloquio de los perros by Miguel de Cervantes - A 3:01 min. theatrical dramatization in Spanish that summarizes the short story
Lazarillo de Tormes - El ciego y las uvas - A 2:13 min. recap of the main events from the scene that includes illustrations from the novel integrated with dramatizations by two high school students and a "narrator" in Spanish
Literary Analyses
LAZARILLO DE TORMES - DATOS, ANÁLISIS Y CURIOSIDADES - A 3:01 min. "explainer" video in very fast Spanish by a male native speaker that provides useful facts, literary analysis, and obscure facts about the work
Multimedia Interpretations
EN LA MEMORIA Poema de Elena Garro - 1:12 min. illustrated read-aloud of the poem in Spanish
Music Videos
SAUROM - El Lazarillo de Tormes - A 3:51 min. music video illustrated like an animated comic that also summarizes main events and themes of the story (See lyrics in Spanish here)