Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas: Humanizing Formative Assessment for Grades 6-12

Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas reimagines formative assessment by advocating for a dynamic, poetic approach that delves into students’ meaning-making processes. It is a guide for teachers seeking innovative approaches to formative assessment, promoting a holistic, creative, reflective, and collaborative learning environment. It challenges the limitations of traditional worksheets and quizzes, urging educators to move beyond seeking restrictive answers and embrace students’ texts as pathways to understanding. The authors put forward poetry as a vigorous tool and writing poetry as an act to foster deep learning across content areas. Practical examples of acrostic poems, haiku, and pantoum demonstrate the adaptability of poetic forms to diverse subjects. Through adaptable lesson plans that can be used across history, math, world languages, ELA, and science, the book encourages intentional poetic writing-to-learn activities and explores how poetry might present itself as a short, creative assessment tool that helps teachers see what their students know and can do while also offering them the space to make new meaning in their original poetry. This book is a key resource for in-service educators teaching grades 6-12.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 : Humanizing Assessments Foundations and Framework Sarah J. Donovan Chapter 2 : Using Visuals and Poetry Writing to Illuminate Student Learning Anna J. Small Roseboro Chapter 3 : Poetic Pathways to Comprehension Sarah J. Donovan Chapter 4 : Creative Inquiry: The Heart of Learning Barbara Edler Chapter 5 : Unlocking Language: Poetry as a Tool for Vocabulary Study Gayle Sands Chapter 6 : Summative Assessment: Demonstrating Learning as a Poetry Expo Kim Johnson Chapter 7 : Reflecting Back and Moving Forward Ana J. Small Roseboro and Sarah J. Donovan

About the Author :
Sarah J. Donovan has over 20 years of teaching experience in grades 6-20 and is an Associate Professor of Secondary Education English at Oklahoma State University. She teaches pre-service and in-service teacher courses and leads professional development across the country in humanizing English language arts pedagogy. Her research focuses on the lifespan of teachers. Kim Johnson has taught for over three decades in public and private schools at all grades from preschool through secondary grades and currently serves as the District Literacy Specialist for Pike County School System in Zebulon, Georgia. Anna J. Small Roseboro is a National Board Certified Teacher and National Writing Project Fellow with 40 years of experience, living and working in five states, teaching English Language Arts and Public Speaking to middle school, high school and college students in public and private schools. Barbara Edler is a Composition Instructor and Writer and taught high school English, Speech and Drama, and Talented and Gifted students for over 42 years. Gayle Sands is currently a Professional Development School Liaison at McDaniel College. She previously served 27 years as a Middle School ELA teacher and Reading Specialist in Carroll County, MD.

Review :
'Each subject in school is built upon words that bring forth meaning to students and our communities. At the center is vocabulary – language used to make communication possible. Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas promotes the power of language in poetic forms to formatively and summatively assess content knowledge within the classroom. Through mentor texts and models across a variety of poetic genres (acrostics, pantoums, free-verse, sevenlings, hy(na)kus, etc.), Donovan and her team demonstrate that poetry encourages young people to think, to rationalize, and to reason. Each chapter honors student voice, creativity, and agency, while showcasing the ways poetry can be used to enhance discourse communities. The authors provide pathways for bridging interdisciplinary and content-focused possibilities through questions, inquiry, content-specific vocabulary, and critical thinking. I can’t wait to bring these humanizing practices to the teacher institutes I lead, the courses I teach, and the youth programs I host.' - Bryan Ripley Crandall, Director of the Connecticut Writing Project and Professor of English Education at Fairfield University 'Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas not only provides a plethora of lessons and assessment guides (which can be modified) for all secondary content areas, the authors, all veteran teachers from a variety of disciplines, share real experiences of transitioning to humanized assessment practices - yes, even in math! Acknowledging that teachers are in fact content area experts and the most significant determinant of learning in the classroom, the authors provide ways to bring the joy of learning into content assessment for both teachers and students. Additionally, this text offers a means to push back against the ever-growing GAI movement by engaging students through authentic reading, writing, and thinking processes that build needed skills and background knowledge all while retaining their voice. I highly encourage teachers and teacher educators to play with the assessment practices in this book. I know I will be using it in my pre-service teaching courses.' - Michele McConnell, Ph.D., 17-year veteran high school teacher and Assistant Professor of English Studies at CSU Fresno. 'There are so many critical elements to assessment and teaching in the content areas that the authors of Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas: Humanizing Formative Assessment for Grades 6-12 include in their text. I greatly appreciate the re-calibration on how formative assessment should be viewed and can be utilized in secondary classrooms. Using poetry as a means of formative assessment and to promote engagement is powerful, for both striving and advanced readers. Using poetry and encouraging writing across the content areas promotes deep learning and culturally responsive teaching. As an instructor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels of content area literacy courses, I value the different lenses through which each of the chapter authors discuss writing, content area learning, and formative assessment to provide a fit for classrooms 6-12 across a wealth of subjects. The sample poems and suggestions for what and how to write poetry are helpful, as is the wealth of poetry included throughout the text. This is a resource that teachers can take into their classroom tomorrow to start teaching authentically and critically, to prepare students for successful thinking and composition at any academic level.' - Aileen Hower, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Literacy Content Area Literacy Instructor, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Co-Author, Centering ELLs in the Science of Reading (Quick Reference Guide), ASCD 'This book takes an asset-based and humanizing approach to assessment. The authors consider the aim of assessment to determine what students know and can do and also as a tool for teachers to determine next instructional steps. In an age where data-informed decisions are highly valued, the approach in this book helps readers broaden their understanding of what counts as data and of how students can demonstrate learning in creative and culturally sustaining ways. Specifically, the authors showcase field-tested lessons using poetry for formative and summative assessment in their secondary content area classrooms. This book is a great resource for content teachers looking to support their students’ critical and creative thinking through writing and looking for ways to enhance their use of assessment to inform instruction.' - Shea Kerkhoff, Associate Professor of Literacy and Secondary Education, University of Missouri-St. Louis