How an Extended Response Item Can Enhance Learning

How an Extended Response Item Can Enhance Learning Extended response items have traditionally been called essay questions. An extended response item is an open-ended question that begins with some type of prompt. These questions allow students to write a response that arrives at a conclusion based on their specific knowledge of the topic. An extended response item takes considerable time and thought. It requires students not only to give an answer but also to explain the answer with as much in-depth detail as possible. In some cases, students not only have to give an answer and explain the answer, but they also have to show how they arrived at that answer. Teachers love extended response items because they require students to construct an in-depth response that proves mastery or lack thereof. Teachers can then utilize this information to reteach gap concepts or build upon individual student strengths. Extended response items require students to demonstrate a higher depth of knowledge than they would need on a multiple choice item. Guessing is almost completely eliminated with an extended response item.  A student either knows the information well enough to write about it or they do not. Extended response items also are a great way to assess and teach students grammar and writing. Students must be strong writers as an extended response item also tests a students ability to write coherently and grammatically correct. Extended response items require essential critical thinking skills. An essay, in a sense, is a riddle that students can solve using prior knowledge, making connections, and drawing conclusions.  This is an invaluable skill for any student to have. Those who can master it have a better chance of being successful academically.  Any student who can successfully solve problems and craft well-written explanations of their solutions will be at the top of their class.   Extended response items do have their shortcomings. They are not teacher friendly in that they are difficult to construct and score.  Extended response items take a lot of valuable time to develop and grade.  Additionally, they are difficult to score accurately.  It can become difficult for teachers to remain objective when scoring an extended response item. Each student has a completely different response, and teachers must read the entire response looking for evidence that proves mastery. For this reason, teachers must develop an accurate rubric and follow it when scoring any extended response item. An extended response assessment takes more time for students to complete than a multiple choice assessment.  Students must first organize the information and construct a plan before they can actually begin responding to the item.  This time-consuming process can take multiple class periods to complete depending on the specific nature of the item itself. Extended response items can be constructed in more than one way. It can be passage-based, meaning that students are provided with one or more passages on a specific topic. This information can help them formulate a more thoughtful response. The student must utilize evidence from the passages to formulate and validate their response on the extended response item.  The more traditional method is a straightforward, open-ended question on a topic or unit that has been covered in class.  Students are not given a passage to assist them in constructing a response but instead must draw from memory their direct knowledge on the topic. Teachers must remember that formulating a well written extended response is a skill in itself.  Though they can be a great assessment tool, teachers must be prepared to spend the time to teach students how to write a formidable essay.  This is not a skill that comes without hard work.  Teachers must provide students with the multiple skills that are required to write successfully including sentence and paragraph structure, using proper grammar, pre-writing activities, editing, and revising.  Teaching these skills must become part of the expected classroom routine for students to become proficient writers.

Study for a Literature Final Using a Concept Map

Study for a Literature Final Using a Concept Map When you study for a big exam in literature class, youll soon find its easy to become overwhelmed as you review all the works that youve covered during the semester or the year. You must come up with a way to remember which authors, characters, and plots go with each piece of work. One good memory tool to consider is a color-coded concept map. Using a Concept Map to Study for Your Final As you create the memory tool, you should keep a few things in mind to assure the best study results: 1). Read the material. Don’t try to rely on study guides such as Cliff’s Notes to prepare for a literature exam. Most literature exams will reflect the specific discussions you had in class about the works that you covered. For instance, a piece of literature may have several themes, but your teacher may not have focused on the themes covered in a study guide. Use your own notesnot Cliffs Notesto create a color-coded mind map of each piece of literature you read during your exam period. 2). Connect authors with stories. One of the big mistakes that students make when studying for a literature exam is forgetting which author goes with each piece of work. It’s an easy mistake to make. Use a mind map and be sure to include the author as a major element of your map. 3.) Connect characters with stories. You might think that you’ll remember which character goes with each story, but long lists of characters can be easy to confuse. Your teacher might decide to focus on a minor character. Again, a color-coded mind map can provide a visual tool to help you memorize characters. 4.) Know antagonists and protagonists. The main character of a story is called the protagonist. This character may be a hero, a person coming of age, a character involved in a journey of some sort, or a person seeking love or fame. Typically, the protagonist will face a challenge in the form of an antagonist. The antagonist will be the person or thing that acts as a force against the protagonist. The antagonist exists to prevent the main character from achieving his/her goal or dream. Some stories can have more than one antagonist, and some people disagree on the character who fills the role of antagonist. For example, in Moby Dick, some people view the whale as the non-human antagonist for Ahab, the main character. Others believe that Starbuck is the main antagonist in the story. The point is that Ahab faces challenges to overcome, no matter which challenge is perceived by the reader to be the true antagonist. 5). Know the theme of each book. You probably discussed a major theme in class for each story, so be sure to remember what theme goes with what piece of literature. 6). Know the setting, conflict, and the climax for each work that you have covered. The setting can be a physical location, but it can also include the mood that the location evokes. Make note of a setting that makes the story more foreboding, tense, or cheerful. Most plots center around a conflict. Keep in mind that conflict can take place externally (man against man or thing against man) or internally (emotional conflict within one character). The conflict exists in literature to add excitement to the story. The conflict works like a pressure cooker, building up steam until it results in a big event, like an explosion of emotion. This is the climax of the story.