Assessment: You Can't Have Authentic Assessment without Authentic ContentAuthor(s): Sheila W. Valencia and Charles W. PetersSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 44, No. 8, Organizing for Instruction (Apr., 1991), pp. 590-591Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20200740 .

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ASSESSMENT

You can't have authentic assessment

without authentic content Sheila W. Valencia, University of Washington _

Guest author: Charles W. Peters, Oakland Schools, Waterford, Michigan

As our conceptualization of reading has changed, so have our views on as

sessment. In the last several years, we

have seen major reform in statewide and national assessment programs in the United States, the emergence of

performance-based assessment, and

rising interest in portfolio assessment, all of which are attempts to achieve

greater authenticity in assessment.

However, one potential problem for all these new assessment strategies is the limited way these approaches view content as it relates to both instruction and assessment.

If we want to assess outcomes that are purposeful, meaningful, genera

tive, and challenging, we need to pay more attention to the type and nature of

the content assessed. Authentic assess

ment cannot be achieved without au

thentic content.

What is authentic content?

For too long we have relegated con tent to a secondary level of impor tance. The oversight, while not

intentional, is an outgrowth of how

reading is conceptualized. Typically, reading is described as an interactive

process that is either independent of or

only tangentially related to domains or

content knowledge. When one views

reading through this prism, the learn

ing of specific skills or strategies and the generic use of these skills and strat

egies become the focus of instruc tion and assessment. What is missing is the link to content?the ability to use

skills and strategies to learn important content.

Researchers have found that when

the appropriateness of content is not at

tended to, comprehension is impeded, strategies cannot be used effectively,

learning is fragmented, and transfer of content knowledge to new learning sit

uations is impaired. Therefore, it is not enough to use trade books, text

books, and children's magazines. Au

thentic content must be reflective of

subjects that make up the elementary curriculum-material that goes to the

heart of a discipline and material that

allows for personal application of ideas

that go beyond school-related activi

ties.

I am certain these pleas for more at

tention to content will not mollify those who argue that content has not

been neglected. To make their point, they will cite the inclusion of exposi tory materials as part of their new as

sessments. But this type of argument only obfuscates the point by focusing attention in the wrong direction. The issue is not whether authentic assess

ments should or should not include ex

pository material; of course they should. Rather, the issue is that au

thentic assessment materials ought to foster the learning of important ideas that help students build the type of

knowledge structures that allow them to be successful and strategic learners in many other contexts.

This issue of appropriateness of con

tent knowledge is also of increasing importance to those outside reading.

Curricular areas such as science and social studies have addressed this issue

by identifying broad themes that help students connect ideas. For example, in social studies the goal is not to learn

fragmented bits of information but to use a variety of themes such as conflict and cooperation or human interaction

with environment so that students achieve a more integrated and in-depth understanding of important topics such as understanding how cities grow and

change. Therefore, the goal is not for

students to remember specific facts about one city (e.g., its size, its popu lation, or its specific resources ?

typical questions asked in assessment) but rather to help students make con

nections across a number of topics that have cities as their focus. When this

approach is used, not just any piece of social studies material will do. The criteria for selecting material change.

Guidelines for selecting authentic content

The following guidelines are de

signed to help teachers select material that will contain important content, the heart of authentic assessment.

1. Material should reflect impor tant themes and ideas. Themes and

important ideas are essential because

they guide the integration of facts, con

cepts, generalizations, and theories.

Recently a number of professional or

ganizations have published reports that outline guidelines that can be used to

select content (e.g., Charting a New

Course: Social Studies for the 21st

Century; Building a History Curricu lum: Guidelines for Teaching History in Schools; Elementary and Secondary

Guidelines for Geographic Education; Science for All Americans; Mathemat ics: A Report of the Project 2061

Phase 1 Mathematics Panel).

590 The Reading Teacher Vol. 44, No. 8 April 1991

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Each of these documents contains themes and topics that are pivotal for

learning important content in each of these areas. They should be consulted

when making decisions about reading assessment materials. For example,

the geography document lists five

themes - location, place, relations

within places, region, and movement. The following questions will help you

identify appropriate materials that con

tain themes: (a) Does the selection contain important content that is re

lated to one or more of these themes?

(b) Can I ask questions about the ma

terial in the selection that help expli cate these themes as well as the

important content? (c) Can I ask ques tions that are truly important to under

standing the discipline? When

questions such as these are asked, it

sends a clear message to students ?

what you ask me in reading is mean

ingful and purposeful beyond the

scope of this one piece of material. When students recognize this, reading

is no longer perceived as a contentless

activity without purpose beyond the

immediacy of the selection. Instead, the material is perceived as connected to other important information in the student's life.

2. Materials should be consistent with the goals of the subject area

curriculum in your district. If we

want students to transfer what they are

learning to new situations, then it is

important that what they read is explic itly related to what they are learning in

other content areas. If students are

studying the origin of dinosaurs in sci

ence, then a selection that expands or

reinforces these ideas or concepts would be extremely useful. When this

type of linkage occurs, a variety of me

tacognitive questions (e.g., knowledge about text structure and strategy usage) can be asked, such as: How are mate

rials I read in science similar to or

different from the organizational struc ture of what I am reading now? Do the selections have a perspective and how

did I figure it out? If I had to summa

rize each selection, would the strate

gies be similar or different and why? In addition, since students would be

starting with a knowledge base, they could be asked to compare content. For example, what new information

have I learned from this selection? How is the information the same or

different than other information I've read?

3. Material should be rooted in real-world experiences and have ap

plication to the world both inside and outside school. It should reflect activities that students engage in, both in and outside of school. In other

words, the information and concepts learned through reading should be transferable to new situations. For ex

ample, if students are studying cities,

reading selections might describe fac tors that help influence growth and de

velopment within their own city, within a manufacturing area of their

city, or within a transportation system in their city. For younger children, we

might identify symbols and logos that

give information about the environ ment in their community.

4. Materials should be sensitive to

the developmental progression of students. It is important to keep in

mind that expertise in any skill is char acterized by a high degree of concep tual and procedural knowledge. If students are to transfer skills and

knowledge to new learning situations, then the conceptual appropriateness of

materials must be considered. Here

again the reports from the various pro fessional organizations can be useful because they often recommend a se

quence in which these concepts are

generally taught. However, although many of the

more abstract concepts may not be di

rectly mentioned in the materials se

lected for instruction and assessment, it is essential to determine whether stu

dents possess this knowledge. There

fore, as comprehension questions are

developed, we must be aware of how

background concepts may influence students' performance. For example, if students were reading a selection on

various views of why dinosaurs disap peared, the passage may not explain what a theory or evidence is. In a situ ation like this, students should be asked if they know what a theory is, what evidence is, and how theory and evidence are linked together. If stu dents don't understand these concepts,

they will most likely have difficulties

answering questions about the most

convincing theory or the best explana tion for the extinction of dinosaurs. If teachers are not aware of students'

knowledge of these background con

cepts, they cannot make accurate judg ments about students' comprehension.

5. Materials should allow stu dents to engage in higher order

thinking. This means the material se

lected must contain content that en

courages questions requiring more than a reproduction of knowledge

more than merely answering textually explicit or implicit questions. The

questions must require students to in

terpret, analyze, or manipulate infor mation that cannot be resolved through the routine application of previously learned knowledge. For example, after

reading a passage about the problems of rebuilding an old city, students

might be asked to make judgments about the positive and negative conse

quences of alterations to their city's physical environment (e.g., buildings, parking lots, transportation facilities, sewage disposal). They might be

asked, Should the city permit the ex

pansion of a sewage treatment plant? Similarly, after reading a passage about discrimination in housing, stu dents might be asked, Should the school pass rules that discriminate on

the basis of grade level? These types of

questions require students to under stand important information and con

cepts from the passage (guideline 1),

apply it to a new situation (guideline 3), and then make a personal judgment about it (guideline 5).

Summary If authentic assessment is to con

tinue to make positive strides forward, we must be willing to think differently about the nature of the content we use for assessment. We can no longer af

ford to treat the content issue as a dis tinction between expository and narrative material. We need to under stand how content knowledge influ ences what is comprehended and learned and how that information is used in new situations. Through care ful content selection, we communicate our definitions and goals of reading and learning and ensure that assess

ment is authentic and meaningful.

ASSESSMENT 591

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