ABSTRACT
Overview is chapter outlines the various issues involved with assessing students in the Language Arts classroom. It highlights the dierences between symbolic assessment, or grading, and another more thorough and comprehensive type of assessment called “authentic assessment,” which seeks to assist students in improving their learning through specic types of feedback (Zessoules & Gardner, 1991). Authentic assessment even encompasses the possibility of students assessing themselves through portfolios and self-assessments. is chapter explains that grades are, of necessity, a limited means of assessment and evaluation, and that judging students by grades is not the same as understanding them. Labeling students does not necessarily provide them with the means to improve. To eect true student assessment and preparation for assessment on tests, this chapter advocates techniques of assessment from mastery learning, as well as dening testbased standards, objective or rubrics in light of best practices in reading and writing instruction.
