Page 12 - English OLC Literacy Course 12 (2003)

10
Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting
General and Specific Principles Guiding the Assessment of Student Achievement in the OSSLC
The general principles guiding the assessment of student work are outlined in the “Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting” section of the ministry document Program Planning and Assessment: The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 to 12, 2000. These principles apply to the assessment of stu- dent work in this course.
In addition, to promote the growth in reading and writing skills of students taking this course, teachers need to ensure that their assessment practices:
• provide opportunities for frequent diagnostic assessment before the introduction of new learning (e.g., review of the OSSLT Individual Student Report [ISR]; reading and writing interviews; observation of students at work);
• providevaried,frequent,targeted,andongoingfeedbackaboutstudents’work,including teacher-student conferences;
• providemultipleopportunitiesforstudentstopractiseskills,demonstrateachievement,and receive feedback before evaluation takes place;
• provide students with models of quality reading responses and writing pieces to guide them in improving their own work.
Overview of Assessment in the OSSLC
Assessment of student work in the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course differs from assessment for other courses in a number of key ways:
• Students who receive 50 per cent or higher in the course receive a credit for the course and also are deemed to have met the secondary school literacy requirement for graduation.
• Although this course is offered in Grade 12 and represents a credit awarded in Grade 12, the standard for a pass in the course is comparable to that established by the OSSLT, which represents achievement of Grade 9 literacy expectations.
• The course has an achievement chart that describes the levels of student achievement of literacy skills. However, as the chart on page 11 shows, the levels and their associated per- centage grade ranges differ from those in the achievement charts for other courses.
• This course differs from other courses in outlining specific requirements for evaluation in order to ensure alignment with the requirements of the OSSLT (see pp. 12–13).
The Literacy Portfolio
In this course, students will maintain and manage a literacy portfolio to demonstrate and help them assess their growth in reading and writing skills throughout the course. Students will use a variety of tools to record and track the range of texts they have read and the writing they have produced in the course. The portfolio will contain all works in progress and all works that have been evaluated, for both reading and writing tasks. The portfolio will also contain a