Book Review

Dimensions of Change

Lenore Balliro
Adult Literacy Resource Institute (ALRI)
Boston, MA

Dimensions of Change:
An Authentic Assessment Guidebook
Melody Schneider and Mallory Clarke
1993 ABLE (Adult Basic and Literacy Educators); Available from: ABLE, 1701 Broadway, Seattle, Washington (206) 587-3880

The new ABLE publication, Dimensions of Change: An Authen-
tic Assessment Guidebook, has much to recommend it. As the final documentation of a special project entitled “Integrated Assessment: Being Accountable to Teachers and Students,” there’s an integrity and authenticity to this resource. Reading Dimensions of Change made me nostalgic for the days when Massachusetts had discretionary federal “353” funds that went out to practitioners, which is how Melody Schneider and Mallory Clarke got money to do such in-depth work.* Though the authors never specify who they mean by the “diverse adult education programs” — 14 teachers and 70 students in Washington State — they worked with, it appears that the guidebook is intended for ABE, not ESL programs, since oral language assessment per se is excluded from the contents. However, a great deal of the book—from theory to practice—can certainly be adapted to ESL literacy.

As a “guidebook,” the text fits into the genre of teacher resources I like best. It combines theory and practice; it pays attention to process and product; it invites flexible use; it tells stories to illustrate things; it has lots of white space, and it has a spiral binding that allows you to lay it flat on the copy machine to reproduce the clearly-formatted plethora of usable “tools” at the end. As such, Dimensions of Change can serve as an excellent staff development guide for programs interested in re-examining their current assessment practices and trying out some new things. I liked, too, that the authors chose to define their focus as “authentic assessment” rather than “alternative assessment” , a term that has become less useful as “alternative” approaches enter more mainstream practices. They define authentic as “teachers and students working together to find multiple ways to understand their progress and problems in attaining educational goals.”

Two main tenets drive the work: participatory education and whole language practice. The authors are clear and straightforward in the presentation of their view of literacy; this is not an “anything goes” compilation of assessment protocols. Chapter 1, What is authentic assessment, establishes principles of authentic assessment and elaborates on each of them. Again, there is nothing new here, but it’s nicely presented, and consistent with current thinking in the field of literacy studies. They remind us that authentic assessment is learner centered. It’s an integrated part of teaching and learning. It reflects the complexity of learning; it guides teachers in daily instruction. It involves real, purposeful activities. And it uses a variety of methods. It’s refreshing that they locate their focus clearly on teachers and learners and do not attempt to muddy the process by dealing with the demands of funders and other stakeholders. That dialogue is a separate one, with different issues and challenges. This resource focuses on the teaching /learning process.( I was surprised, though, that Susan Lytle’s work wasn’t cited in this chapter, since she was an important forerunner of much of this content, and influenced many people currently doing assessment in adult ed.

Chapter 1 reminds me again of the importance of starting with an understanding of what we mean by literacy—and by extension, how we should be teaching reading and writing—before we jump into adopting the newest assessment approaches. Unless teachers clarify the theoretical base of whole language and the political and practical considerations of participatory education, the niftiest handouts in the world aren’t going to be very useful.

The authors validate teachers’ experiences by reminding them that “you already do authentic assessment,” a perspective I have been sharing with teachers in my staff development work over the last several years. They note that “authentic assessment provides a way for teachers who are assessing internally to document their observations and analyses, making them usable.” This is a pivotal issue in the area of assessment. It’s not that teachers aren’t doing the assessment, it’s that they are not documenting it in ways that help them, and others, see how students are progressing. Even though teachers are the best suited to make evaluations of students’ progress, their analyses are often dismissed by funders and by teachers themselves as “too subjective,” and thus not valid. By analyzing and documenting their observations by using a common language and agreed upon criteria, teachers can indeed present valid assessments of students’ work to themselves (for planning and instructing), to students (to see their own progress and set goals) and to other stakeholders in literacy programs. In the long run, such systematic documentation might better persuade funders to accept approaches like portfolios instead of ineffectual standardized tests. But that’s another story...

With refreshing candor, the authors share their own “adventures in assessment” in Chapter 2. Here, we get to see some of the stuff that didn’t work and what they learned from it. This realistic glimpse into process is another example of how the book is linked to real classrooms.

If programs are interested in going through a process of their own in order to develop better assessment practices, Chapter 3 will be especially valuable. Specific tasks guide the reader through a process in developing an authentic assessment system. Two things stood out for me in this section. First, the authors realize that student participation takes some time to cultivate, encourage, and promote. Second, they recognize that a project like this demands time and money and suggest ways to fund it.

One program’s path through the process of developing authentic assessment is illustrated in Chapter 4. This case study makes things really concrete, and includes teachers’ journal excerpts, transcriptions of discussions, and reflection pieces. Teachers will recognize questions and concerns that mirror their own. For example, a discussion about the use of checklists:

Ellen: I like the class to move more organically and I’m concerned about the time it takes to do assessment
Shash: It takes several minutes to fill out the lists and I’d rather use the time elsewhere. I have to learn how to get people into it. .....
Ellen: We haven’t set up things to make the self assessment work. We have to do it regularly. Students need to be able to be really reflective.

Finally, the appendix. This satisfyingly thick section of tools is organized well —first by categories of tools and then cross-referenced by placement in the class cycle (beginning, on-going, final). There are short explanations and commentaries about the different categories of tools, too. I’ve seen many of these protocols in similar formats floating around in a variety of sources, but it’s nice to have them compiled in an organized format.

An annotated list of articles and books that the authors used when researching their project is located at the end of the guidebook. The authors claim: “We offer short comments from our personal perspective as readers and teachers. We make no claims that you will agree with us. That’s the way it goes with reading.”

Those sympathetic to reader-response theory (myself included) will agree. But I was bothered by the unnecessarily glib and dismissive manner in which some of the resources were treated. It seemed uncharacteristic of the rest of the book that extended respect to teachers struggling with this new process of authentic assessment. It felt like I was reading over the shoulder of the authors as they wrote to each other here without a wider audience considered. Future editions of the text might warrant a rethinking of this section.

* Note: “353” money, federal adult education funding earmarked for staff development and special projects, has been pooled in Massachusetts to fund the SABES system as a whole. SABES does, of course, offer mini-grants for special projects. Schneider and Clarke were able to get a grant of $20,000 to fund their work. I think it’s important to note that work of this nature does require substantial funding.

This article was published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 7 (December 1994), SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1994.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.