Citing the Text Evidence

This year is hard for teachers and students alike. And I’m noticing that my students are extra struggling to produce any kind of output on their own. I am a firm believer that this struggle isn’t anyone’s fault. OK, I take that back. It IS a residual of Covid-learning (or being so stressed that acquiring is super difficult. But again, NOT a teacher or student’s fault!). At any rate, language production is understandably difficult for some students.

We had just finished reading a short novel and I needed some kind of assessment. But what exactly? Especially given that production seemed more difficult than years past.

My testing instrument criteria:

1. Provide enough space for the most students to be successful.
2. Open enough to allow for myriad correct responses.
3. 20-25 minutes max to complete.
4. Relatively easy to grade.
5. Check overall comprehension of the novel.

Citing the Text Evidence

My instrument looked something like this:

• 1 statement,
• 1 opinion,
• 1 feeling/emotion, and
• 1 description.

For each of the above, students had to either confirm or refute by quoting (copying exactly) three pieces of evidence from three different chapters (citing the chapter and page number). This was super easy for my fast finishers and completely doable within the time limits for everyone else. It was also super easy for me to grade and most of my students did really well.

How this looked

Question 1:

In the novel the older generation didn’t trust each other. Find three pieces of evidence that support this claim. Write (copy) them on the lines below. Be sure to cite the chapter and page.

a. _____ capítulo _____ página

______________________________________________________________________

b. _____ capítulo _____ página

______________________________________________________________________

c. _____ capítulo _____ página

______________________________________________________________________

Question 2:

In your opinion, was el Rey Tomate honest? Why or why not? (En tu opinión, ¿el Rey Tomate era un rey honesto? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no?) Cite two pieces of evidence from the text to support your claim.

En mi opinión ______________________________________________________________.

a. _____ capítulo _____ página

_________________________________________________________________________

b. _____ capítulo _____ página

_________________________________________________________________________

And so on…

Is this perfect? Probably not. Did it meet all of my criteria and help ALL of my students to feel successful in Spanish? YES!! The production will come in its own due time. It won’t happen when I want it to, it will happen when it happens. Until then, this is a very good assessment for me!

(Side note – I did not give my fast finishers anything to do. I know how much I dislike being given extra work because I’m good at my job. It’s not fun. So, I allowed those kids to be on their phones and relax for a few minutes. The relaxing moments in school these days are few and far between. No need for me to make some kids do more work than others.)

In the past, I’ve used Cutting up the Text Evidence for this kind of assessment. But I want to save that for a longer novel that we are reading next month.

If you try Citing the Text Evidence, I’d love to hear how it goes!