| Body | By Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
As you integrate complexified literacy skills in your language classroom, it is essential to assess all aspects of the skills learners need. Using a rubric to keep consistent in your evaluation and examine multiple dimensions can be one helpful way to do this. Possible categories for assessment include:
- Genre: How well leaners are able to identify, replicate, and repurpose the genre. Specific dimensions should be laid out for learners and then included as part of the rubric. For example, in the reading and writing of a review, it would be fundamental to include the restaurant information, a description, and a star or number rating. Learners should be assessed on their ability to identify the piece as a review as well as their ability to recreate it.
- Organization and Formatting: As a fundamental piece of literacy, format and organization can also form a key piece of assessing learners’ skills. This can include their ability to analyze critical elements of the organization and their ability to reproduce it. For example, does the learner include a greeting, body, and leave taking in a formal letter?
- Audience: Does the language match the audience? Learners' language accuracy and tone should be evaluated not only on the forms they produce, but also the appropriateness for the genre. In other words, if the writing is an informal piece, they should be expected to produce colloquial language to match.
- Content: How learners interpret what they read and reflect meaningful content in their writing is fundamental to the success of their literacy practices. Content should be at the core.
- Structure and Vocabulary: What language learners produce and are able to understand is also a component of literacy not to be ignored. Combined with the other dimensions described above, it plays a critical role in learners’ ability to engage in literacy practices.
There are certainly other possibilities as well. Regardless of the dimensions that best fit your context, critical to a comprehensive view of literacy assessment is the consideration of multiple dimensions as part of assessment practices.
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