Abstract

Current literacy assessments are focused on a single mode of meaning-making (reading and writing, whether oral or written) and assume that literacy and language are ‘fixed systems’– comprised of discrete skills that can be taught and measured in isolation. This validation and privileging of a single mode of assessment are most culpable in children labeled ‘At-risk’, falling significantly behind those without this label. Many informal, multimodal assessments endeavor to give a more complete picture of children as literate beings. This study investigates what a teacher can learn from a diverse range of assessment forms and modes. In a fourth-grade self-contained classroom, students engaged in multimodal assessments and created multimodal portfolios. Four students labeled ‘At-risk’ were chosen for a deeper analysis. Students’ artifacts, interviews, and observations served as the main data sources. Both narrative analysis and analysis of narrative were utilized to generate a more complete narrative of the four students as meaning makers and communicators. The general findings suggest that these children labeled ‘At-risk’ were, in fact, able to engage in multimodal thinking and communication from a critical stance.

摘要

当前的素养评估集中于单一的意义表达方式（读写，无论口头还是书面），并假设识字和语言是“固定系统”，由可以单独教授和衡量的离散技能组成。标记为“有风险”的儿童最容易受到这种验证和特权的单一评估方式的影响，明显落后于没有此标记的儿童。许多非正式的，多式联运的评估努力使儿童更全面地了解识字的儿童。这项研究调查了教师可以从各种各样的评估形式和模式中学到什么。在四年级自成一体的教室中，学生从事多式联运评估并创建了多式联运作品集。选择了四个标有“有风险”的学生进行更深入的分析。学生的文物，访谈，观测资料是主要数据来源。叙事分析和叙事分析都被用来对作为意义创造者和传播者的四个学生进行更完整的叙事。总体发现表明，这些被标记为“处于危险中”的孩子实际上能够从批判性立场上进行多式联运的思维和交流。