Is Test Prep Good Reading Instruction?

Our Test Prep Unit is quickly approaching. In the past I’ve struggled with this unit because it is dissimilar from a typical ELA unit of study in a number of respects. First, the culminating assessment is the New York State ELA test. Second, this unit is based on texts that many students find boring. Third, the unit falls at a tough time of year with a long break splitting it in half. The test prep unit remains a planning paradox for me because I don’t want to teach a new literacy skill each day. I’d much prefer to use quick daily assessments to gauge student strengths and drive future lessons.

This year I plan on trying something new. Instead of literacy skill based aims, I’m going to use test strategy aims. Also, I plan on walking my students through each part of the test. I want them to get practice with each of the multiple-choice questions they might see in January. To make the unit more engaging, I plan to put each lesson in the context of a Unit-long contest. Students will be divided into test-prep teams. The teams can earn points throughout the lesson based on the quality of their work.

I still have a number of lingering questions regarding test prep. First, is a stand-alone 4-week test prep unit necessary if good ELA instruction is happening throughout the rest of the year? What does effective test prep look like? How can we make test prep engaging?

Setting...then everything else.

In preparing for the 7th Grade ELA team's first session examining centers and differentiation, we tried to come up with a student-friendly reading aim that would be, at the same time, accessible enough to apply to a middle school classroom and rigorous enough to challenge adults to think critically and hold their engagement. What we settled on was looking at setting and its influence-- "How does a text's environment shape its characters?"

Once I started thinking about the implications of this question, I realized that there was probably no more important element of a story than the setting. All of the ways that the setting-- either the time, the place, or context of a story-- impacts the actual story are countless. (This also happens to be a GREAT way for readers to connect to what they're reading; by thinking about stories as life.

Even watching the news at night, a viewer (who is just a reader without a text!) is hard-pressed to get through one feature or news item without seeing setting's influence at work. When a group of auto workers lose their jobs in Michigan, it foreshadows the end of an era for American automakers. When terrorists attack a large Indian city, the world blames the regional religious conflict. The tie that binds these examples together? They would not make sense in other parts of the world, during other eras, or under different circumstances. It is their SETTING that not only allows them to happend, but almost makes them inevitable. Even our largest news story of the past couple of months, if not the past couple of years, the election of our nation's first African-American president, happens at a time when economic, societal, and political issues are all in perfect alignment for change.

So it is setting, then, and not plot, theme, character, mood, or any other element that really drives a story. The action, characters, message, and feeling a story engenders in a reader are all secondary to the overwhelming importance of where a story takes place, when it transpires, and the social elements that pave the way for it to be reality.

That is, at least, my opinion. What do you think?