Authentic and Equitable Literacy Assessments With and for Diverse Youth

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Learning From and With Our Students: Adolescent Identity and Agency in Secondary Classroom Research (Table 15)

Abstract

Motivated by the desire to understand a site that has been striving to promote humanizing literacy experiences, a site where the authors had been 6-12th grade teachers and friends for decades, the authors conducted a collaborative inquiry to ask, What practices emerge from one school’s teacher-developed authentic literacy assessments? How do students respond to these efforts to bridge their lives to their in-school learning? Data analysis revealed these tasks contextualized literacy in real-world dilemmas, thereby affirming students’ identities, cultivating their ability to interrogate society, and maintaining high standards for their academic success. Their inquiry also shows how students engaged in humanizing discourse about race, gender, and sexuality—guided by the school’s vision to grapple with sociopolitical issues to augment students’ literacy.

Authors

• Jen McLaughlin Cahill, University of Pennsylvania

• Chantal Francois, Towson University