Literature Learning Ladders (Geraldine)

Like a few of the posts before me, I found it particularly difficult to find websites about assessing Literature. However, I found this website, http://eduscapes.com/ladders/themes/interactive.htm, that had quite a few ideas on bolstering student-learning by equipping teachers with online resources.

On the main website, there's a side bar which gives you options to explore:

I found that the Interactive Projects and Lit WebQuests tabs were full of possibilities for engaging students and for assessing how much they have learnt in class while simultaneously having a creative outlet for ideas.

1. Online Magnet Poetry

Under the Interactive Projects tab, there was a suggestion under 'Teacher Tap' to use the concept of Fridge Magnet Poetry to teach and assess student learning of poetry in terms of form, rhyme, metre and so on. 

You can choose between 6 types of themes/genres/periods on the Fridge Magnet website and when you select one, you are brought to a page where there is a blank page, words on the side, and the option to create your own poem by dragging words from the pile on the right into the centre. I tried it out and it was quite hilarious.

Teachers can use this website to set tasks such as, create a Sonnet or Blank Verse, or to ask students to make a rhyming couplet to see if they know what these forms are. It also pushes them to use words creatively and to think about their own word choices:  'why x not y?'. Students can save their word and upload it up to a class forum or to submit their poems to their teacher for comments.

I think students will really enjoy Fridge Magnet Online because it generates interest in poetry and gives them ownership over generating their own content. Hopefully, we'll have a generation of poets yet!


2. Literature WebQuests

Aside from the appalling prevalence of comic sans, this is a pretty good website.

Under the Lit WebQuests tab, there are a host of websites dedicated to particular books or authors which you can use to gauge student learning. For example, this one is dedicated to Lord of the Flies by William Golding, fashioned as a CSI case to create a hypothesis about the events leading up to the ending.

There are a few tabs on the left side of the website that can guide students through their task systematically, keeping them focused and providing stop points for them to track their own steps throughout the task.

What I really like about this task is that it allows for self-directed learning as students can go at their own pace through the WebQuest. After they have created their timeline of events have have occurred in the book, they will go through the evaluation rubrics and judge their own work from that rubrics. It's a good way of helping students remember plot and key events of the book, which can sometimes be lost in the sea of skills, content and assignments.

Hope this has been helpful! :)