Using YA Pedagogy to Authentically Assess Student Learning by Dr. Amy Piotrowski, Hannah Barker, and Tiana Leakehe

Dr. Amy Piotrowski is an associate professor of English education at Utah State University.  She teaches undergraduate courses in English education and secondary education as well as graduate courses in literacy education.  Her research focuses on digital literacies and young adult literature.  Before going into teacher education, she taught middle school Language Arts, high school English, and college composition in Texas.  Her work has appeared in journals such as English Education, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, and Utah English Journal.

Hannah Barker is an English major with an emphasis in teaching  in her senior year at Utah State University. Before studying English teaching, she studied music composition and music teaching at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. She has a great passion for teaching the arts and enjoys studying and implementing creative and personalized teaching methods. 

Tiana Leakehe is an English major with an emphasis in teaching at Utah State University. She will be entering her senior year this coming fall. She is committed and excited to use YAL in her future classroom. As a Pacific Islander, she is passionate about making education multicultural and believes that YAL is a great tool to help to do so. 

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Using YA Pedagogy to Authentically Assess Student Learning by Dr. Amy Piotrowski, Hannah Barker, and Tiana Leakehe

Assessment. Just the word can evoke dread in both students and teachers. What are the possibilities when assessment is a creative way to show off what we know, rather than being the educational equivalent of a root canal? In my (Amy’s) Teaching Young Adult Literature course, we talk about assessment as activities that provide evidence to teachers about what students have learned and what students need further instruction on. Jennifer Buelher argues in her book Teaching Reading With YA Literature for more authentic and meaningful assessments. She calls for assessments that both draw on students’ aesthetic responses to the text and challenge students to critical analysis. In other words, assessment should include “both personal and analytical work” and get students to “engage in continued learning and meaning making”(Buelher, p. 113).

The final assignment I have my preservice teachers complete in Teaching Young Adult Literature is to design an activity to assess student learning about one of the novels we have read that semester. Drawing on Buelher’s book and its chapter on assessment, preservice teachers create the handout they would give students with instructions for the activity, how the final product their students create will be assessed, and a rationale for the activity they have designed. Two of my preservice teachers, Hannah and Tiana, share here what they designed for a culminating activity.  In Hannah's activity, students create book jackets about Lisa Klein’s Ophelia, while in Tiana’s activity, students create leaflets based on Kip Wilson’s White Rose. These are examples of activities that assess student learning that go beyond traditional assessments. Hannah and Tiana also share what they learned about assessment by designing these activities.

Book Jackets and Ophelia - by Hannah

Creativity is an essential part of learning. Throughout my time both as a student and as a teacher-in-training, I have come to realize that I learn much more when I am given some sort of choice in the learning, some way to be creative. For our YA Pedagogy class, I chose to create an assessment that incorporates inventiveness and personalization while also guiding all students towards the same learning goals.

This assessment was centered around the book Ophelia by Lisa Klein. The book is a retelling of the classic story of Hamlet from Ophelia’s perspective. It’s an enjoyable way for students to dive deeper into Shakespeare while also allowing them to immerse themselves in the best elements of YA fiction. The assessment itself is the creation of a book jacket. Each section of the book jacket calls for a different requirement: The front cover needs to be an artistic illustration, the student’s own interpretation of the front cover of the book. The front cover flap needs to contain two themes from the book, including two quotes to support those themes. The spine contains the title of the book, as well as a small image or symbol that the student decides represents the book well. The back cover contains a 500-word review of the student’s experience reading the book. They also have to answer at least one reflection question from a list provided for them on the handout. The back cover flap contains a 300-word analysis on a single character from the book using evidence from the text. The students may choose whether they would like to make it online or on paper. 

There is plenty of room for student choice and creativity in this assessment, as every part of the book jacket calls for the student to create their own individual answer or to choose how to do something from a list provided to them. It is an authentic way to assess student learning because I am able to see how well the students understood the book and its themes through their short responses- I can even see how well they understood based on the illustrations and creative symbols they choose! There is plenty of room for creativity and individuality in YA assessments.

White Rose Leaflets - by Tiana

Oftentimes, the most meaningful part of reading for students is the personal connections they make to a book. These personal connections become even easier to make with YAL because of its ability to speak to students' interests and questions. When it comes to assessment, this personal side to reading seems to get lost. Traditional multiple choice tests or papers typically just ask students to recall information or apply their knowledge analytically. Although these are important parts of assessment, they lack the personal qualities that engage students. Assessments should emphasize the importance of those connections that students make by asking them to expand upon them. Because reading is personal, assessments should be too (Buehler, p. 113).
 
I practiced making assessments personal by creating a project that goes along with a piece of YAL titled White Rose, by Kip Wilson. This book is a great resource for young readers to get an accurate account of the historical events that happened in Germany. It also allows students to empathize with real people from the past and includes themes of morality, identity, and bravery. Readers learn that Sophie and the other members of the resistance group created and handed out leaflets which included the truth about the Nazis. In this project, students will create their own leaflets, where they will tell the truth about the book by including important themes, characters, events, and personal connections they made. The White Rose group took an issue that included many details and condensed it into a leaflet that would get the most important parts of their message out to readers, students are able to empathize as they attempt to do the same thing. This project not only assesses students analytical skills, but also asks students to explain how they personally connected to the book.

References
Buehler, J. (2016). Teaching reading with YA literature: Complex texts, complex lives. National Council of Teachers of English.