# Teaching > General Teaching >  Assessment in Literature

## Anthony Furze

Whats the best way to assess literaure?

essay
multiple choice
reference to context
open book
unseen poems

These are just a selection.

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## chasestalling

i'm no teacher but i'm curious to know how a teacher would assess literature vis a vis unseen poems.

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## Redzeppelin

> Whats the best way to assess literaure?
> 
> essay
> multiple choice
> reference to context
> open book
> unseen poems
> 
> These are just a selection.



Depends on what you wish to know that the students know. If you're interested in comprehension of basic elements of literature (plot, characterization, etc) then multiple choice works fine. If you're interested in having the students do analysis, synthesis and evaluation (the three highest levels of Bloom's taxonomy) then essays are valuable. Open book tests are for having the student defend an opinion about the text. What's an "unseen poem"?

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## genoveva

> Whats the best way to assess literaure?
> 
> essay
> multiple choice
> reference to context
> open book
> unseen poems
> 
> These are just a selection.


Assessment is tricky. I don't like multiple choice at all. Why not a combination of essay, "reference to context" (er, whatever that means...) and open book? Perhaps none of these are the "best way" to assess. Can you think of some unique, creative ways to assess?

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## jon1jt

> Whats the best way to assess literaure?
> 
> essay
> multiple choice
> reference to context
> open book
> unseen poems
> 
> These are just a selection.


let the students answer one question along the lines of, "discuss what you learned in my course. refer to readings, class discussions/trips, etc." then i recommend that you, as teacher, write an essay that considers whether the way you taught the course was the "best."  :Biggrin:

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## chunwing

I think it depends on what you want to test.

If you want to test how many "literary genes" a student has, give him an unseen text and tell him to write an essay to discuss the themes, techniques, effect etc. Personally I think this should be a test you give your students RIGHT AT THE START OF THE COURSE because it then tells you who's strong and who's weak at literature as well as writing, such that you can do something about it during your teaching. There is no point giving one of these tests at the end because you'd be penalising the "dumb kids" for being dumb, but not because they didn't try hard to learn what you have taught them.

Frankly I don't think MC is applicable for a test on literature. It is useful, again, to test a student's "depth" and literary techniques (eg test on vocab, grammar, spelling), but not about their understanding of literature.

For an end of course test, definitely essay is the way to go. That way you give students an opportunity to study up. It means you're just giving high marks to the smart kids and low marks to the dumb kids; you're also rewarding people for putting in the effort.

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## Tuesday

I'd advise you to avoid multiple choice tests. Even if you ask a really simple question that can be answered in one sentence or one word, give your students the chance to express themselves.

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## erato

As a student, i agree with Tuesday, and think multiple choice is definetally not the best way of finding out what a student knows... That's, if you want to know how they themselves, view and analze the piece of literature..  :Biggrin:

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## bluelightstar

Depending on the work and what I want to see, I will vary the type of test I give the students. For example, Waiting for Godot was not the type of play that I wanted students to answer multiple choice questions, so I had them write an essay using some previous AP Exam Open-Ended Questions. However, with The Inferno, I thought it would make more sense to have a more traditional assessment. After they completed their Inferno Project, we took a test with short answer questions.

In the middle of the two extremes is the type of test I gave on Crime and Punishment. There were a few multiple choice and matching questions, followed by some short response questions where students were required to know something about the text and to synthesize the information to answer questions. Near the end of that test were more analytical questions, requiring students to not only have read the novel, but also to be able to tell me thematically and symbolically what was occurring in Dostoyevsky's work.

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## Zelly

What is the best way? One on one talking with your students. But that really isn't available in a mainstream public school. In that case, I think essay is most valuable, but needs to be used with something else, for those who aren't good writers, but still learn. People who have dysgraphia come to mind, often their true knowledge cannot be determined because of the frustration that writing/spelling has. My two best friends are dysgraphic, and much more gifted than me, but in an essay test, it would appear as if I had a better grasp of the text. They would have to work much harder on their writing to achieve that level, not because they can't, but because it's harder for them. So, back to the issues of assessment... Essay, and open book would be my preferences in a normal classroom, because of the time restrictions that make it impossible to do one on one discussions.

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