Reading Quizzes & Exams

Reading quizzes serve many purposes - but chief among them are: 1) Get students to do the reading (students are faced every day with many choices of what to do and not do - if they are not quizzed - the majority (by these upper grade levels) will not do the reading  2)Identify students who ARE doing the reading but not comprehending (and so intervention and a plan to improve that situation can occur)   3) Give students credit for the work (the reading) that they've done.

My reading quizzes do not require thinking - just did you do the reading.  This was really difficult with some readings (especially Literary Criticism)

Exams  : My exams are designed to see if students havebeen paying attention during discussions, group works, assignments, essays, etc.  How are they putting together everything that we've done in class.

Another good reason to give students an exam on the Unit is to  help them prepare for college (98% of my students went on to college).  Most colleges give (or used to give) multiple choice exams.  They will also be seeing multiple choice on the ACT & the SAT exams.  The more comfortable students are with those type of exams, the better.

It is more than possible to write a good, thinking exam that accurately reflects the thought that's been happening in the class.  It does take time.  I don't believe in "trick questions or answers" -- though I'm not exactly sure what those are (sometimes a student will say there is a trick answer, and I'm like "no, that's the wrong answer - and it's not close to the right answer and it's not meant to fool the the test taker."