Duman Cas

Tenix Caesar C.
Amar
Module in Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies
Module 1:Teaching Literature
Lesson 1: Key Concepts and the Ideal Literature Teacher
Who is the ideal literature teacher? The checklist below can help you assess your personal
and professional qualities expected or desired of the ideal literature teacher. Using a five-
point scale, tick the column which best fits or approximates such trait. The legend at the end
of the checklist
Personal and Professional Qualities 1 2 3 4 5

Has a pleasing personality
Humanistic, humble, confident
Has a well- modulated voice
Has sense of humor, approachable
Has mastery of subject matter
Has literary competence apart from reading skills
Has average intelligence to win students’ and peers’
respect
Open to suggestions- creative, flexible, not dogmatic
Can speak and write good, if not better English
Has deep insights into life
Can share his/ her know- how in literature with fellow
teachers
Can guide students in writing critical essays in literature,
term paper or in creative writing( simple, lyric, haiku,
anecdote, etc.
Can rub on his/ her interest / enthusiasm to students for
them to love or enjoy literature( so as to read it
independently)
Assessment:
What are the qualities of an ideal teacher?
An ideal teacher usually possesses these characteristics: he has unassailable command on his
subjects. He knows fully the contents of the subjects which he has to teach. Truly exceptional
INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

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teachers are scholars and are constantly reading and upgrading themselves in their subject.
The tone of expression of the ideal teacher is not gruff, irksome and morose but is pleasant.
An ideal teacher has a good sense of humour/smiles. But this fun is not of impolite nature. An
ideal teacher has the highest degree of integrity. An ideal teacher is susceptible to adaptation
or modification.
Being flexible means that if students are not interested in learning a new or even a new good
lesson due to some reasons, then he is not recalcitrant regarding straightway teaching of the
lesson. Rather he talks about problems that have arisen in the classroom and eventually gets
back to the lesson.
An ideal teacher is concise and clear in both oral and written expression in the classroom. An
ideal teacher is patient. Being patient is often expressed as being diligent or persevering.
Learners are genius, gifted, mentally retarded, dyslexic, emotionally disturbed and some
patience is required for employing carefully individual teaching - learning technique for
individual learner. Only in this way, bits of progress can be observed day to day.
An ideal teacher is self-confident. The ideal teacher is a model of self-confidence. It is a

source of great pleasure and they show it in their facial expression and in their positive
attitude around the school. People always seem to have time to talk to a colleague or to do
something extra for the school or the staff. One key to be upbear is having a good self-
concept.
An ideal teacher is open. This trait is related with willingness of the teacher to share
happiness about his own life to illustrate a point or share how they feel about a given
situation. An ideal teacher is diversified with regard to his preparation. This means that the
teacher not only focuses on specific areas but has considerable command on the related
subjects. This diversification trait will enable him to elaborate and illustrate the subjects in
more persuasive manner.
The ideal teacher is an excellent role model. Being a good role model to all the children,
teacher whatsoever teaches is one of the greatest contributions he can make to society.
An ideal teacher is capable of relating theory with practice. In textbooks, there are
suggestions for doing things individually or as a group to enhance interest and motivation in
teaching. Learners can display these activities, if their teacher is capable of interrelating the
theory in practice.
An ideal teacher has good personal hygiene and is well groomed. He is always neat, clean,
and wears type of clothing that is acceptable in the school building in which he teaches.

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He helps students having difficulties. Furthermore, he or she is disciplined, cooperative,
friendly with his colleagues and obedient to the head of the institution.
In what way you can be called an ideal literature teacher?
Qualities of Literature Teacher Must Adopt.First and foremost, I should say, he must be a
lover of literature. The initial objection here may be that not everyone can love literature. This
I should immediately acknowledge, just as I would admit that not everyone can love cats,
accounting, or the binomial theorem; but that is just another way of saying that not everyone
should be given the privilege of teaching literature, and to me it is a great privilege. Within
limits, love of literature can be taught; at least students can be encouraged to develop it. Love
of literature usually grows from experience with literature, from understanding, and from
what we rather vaguely call appreciation. This is not easy to teach. Teaching students the
names of Shakespeare’s plays and the birth and death dates of the author is much easier for
both the teacher and the taught than teaching the subtlety and pervading tragedy of Hamlet
True love of literature, like true love of anything, can be taught only indirectly.
The direct approach, “Isn’t it beautiful?” is not more likely to inculcate love of literature than
the commensurate question, **Why don’t you be good?” is likely to instil moral virtue.
Fortunately, love of art and language is infectious. It can be taught, to those who are
teachable, if we keep firmly before us the conviction that we are teaching the love of
literature, not the secondary facts about literature. For example, if we are endeavoring to
teach love of liteiature, very wide reading in literature is likely to do more good than any
amount of reading about literature. Second, I should say that a good teacher of literature
must be able to read. Here I am thinking of several sorts of reading. Presumably a teacher of
literature should be able to read rapidly in order to read widely, but, even more important, he
must be able to read accurately, with perception and penetration. Many pro- fessed teachers
of literature cannot read at all in this sense; they cannot penetrate to what an adult writer is
saying overtly, not to mention sensing what a poet endeavors to reveal.
A teacher of literature should be able to read orally, and the younger the students the more
important oral reading is. Most students at any level can sense literature only if it is read well
to them, and this is true particularly of poetry and drama; but it is also true, although to a
lesser degree, of truly great passages of prose, either fiction or nonfiction. Of course a
teacher can get some help here; we now have many records of modern poets reading their
own ,works and of skilled interpreters reading the classics. We can scarcely expect that all
English teachers will be able to read Chaucer with ease and comfort, but if they cannot they
had best play records. Chaucer wrote mellif- luous poetry, and to read him as though he was
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a labor, even a labor of love, is scarcely a service to anyone. Teachers can profit from better
readers than they and from readers who have special qualifications for certain sorts of
reading, the reading of plays for example through a number of voices, but all the audio de-
vices in the world will not make a good teacher of literature.
The good teacher of literature should have had experience with his subject as a creator. That
is, he should have tried to write, and the more different sorts of writing re has tried the
better. I am not here saying that a good teacher of literature must be a good novelist or poet
or playwright. No doubt that would help, but there are many good teachers who could never
be good practicing literary artists and many good writers who would be bad teachers. But to
understand the written word the teacher must understand writing, and to understand
writing he must have faced blank paper and have wrestled with it. Pretty obviously, having
children helps women to become good mothers, and every teacher knows that no number of
courses in pedagogy can entirely replace classroom experience. To know writing one must try
to write, however bad the result; every teacher of literature needs it for his own well-rounded
approach to his job.
He needs it, also, because students should attempt creative writing, however mept the
products, and at a minimum a teacher should have seriously tried what he endeavors to
teach. A good teacher of literature has other skills and virtues, but partly in the interests of
space I shall mention only the most important of these, and relatively lightly. A good teacher
should be able to explicate; he should be literate enough so that he can help students
formulate their own thoughts by joining the students in the process of clarifying emergent
ideas. Thus training in the principles and practice of criticism is important for teachers of
literature, particularly if, in learning to explicate, the teacher learns to restrain his practice of
it.

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Lesson 2: Methods and Approaches in Teaching Literature
Activity : Critical Thinking
1.What is your stand on the place of literature in the curriculum?
READING AND WRITING, THE BASIC PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE STUDY OF ENGLISH,
SERVE AS THE GATEWAY TO A DEEPER LEVEL OF THOUGHT. AFTER MASTERING THESE
ELEMENTARY SKILLS, COMPREHENSION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION ARE LEARNED
AND USED TO BETTER EDUCATE ONES SELF. STUDYING LITERATURE AND OBSERVING
PERSONAL REACTIONS TO THE LITERATURE CAN MAKE ONE MORE AWARE OF HIS OR HER
OWN VALUES. ENGLISH SKILLS ARE HELPFUL IN EVERY AREA OF LIFE. READING, WRITING,
COMPREHENSION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION INCREASE EFFICIENCY IN MULTIPLE
WAYS INCLUDING COMMUNICATION, DOCUMENTATION IN OTHER AREAS OF STUDY, AND
REFLECTION OF PERSONAL VALUES. I BELIEVE THERE IS NO AREA OF STUDY THAT ENGLISH
AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS DO NOT INFLUENCE. THAT IS WHY IT IS ESSENTIAL TO
STUDY LITERATURE.
2.Explain the arguments arising from the reader- response theory.
Whereas many discuss literary works objectively, absolutely and with respect to how the
author developed the ideas on the page, reader response criticism focuses on the reader and
how she or he receives the literary work. In a sense, this moves the text from existing on its
own — on, for example, the physical pages of a book — and instead assumes that the text
exists only when it is read. This theory makes literary works more like performance art where
the reader's act of reading and interpreting the text is the performance. Critical theorists
continue to develop this approach, considering the nature of the reader and what he or she
brings to the text, along with the different "lenses" through which the text can be viewed.
In reader response criticism, the act of reading is like a dialogue between the reader and the
text that has meaning only when the two are joined in conversation. It redefines the role of
the text from an independent object into something that can only exist when it is read and
interacts with the mind of the reader. In this way, the reader is not a passive recipient of what
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the text says, but rather takes an active role. The text then serves as a catalyst to spur
memories and thoughts within the reader allowing him or her to link the text to personal
experiences and thereby fill in the spaces left by the text. This allows theorists to explain why
people can have different responses to and interpretations of the same text.
This form of criticism even goes so far as to examine the role that individual words and
phrases in the text play when interacting with the reader. The sounds and shapes that words
make or even how they are pronounced or spoken by the reader can essentially alter the
meaning of the text, it is suggested. Some reader response critics go so far as to analyze a
text phrase by phrase in order to determine how much of the experience of reading it is
predetermined and then analyze how each reader's experience changes that initial meaning.
3. Why teaching literature is a challenging task for a teacher?
Teachers of English throughout the Philippines have long been confronted with a lot of
problems regarding the teaching of literature in the high school. These problems are most
difficult in the first year where it is quite a task to bridge the gap between the six-year
elementary course and the high school. It has become increasingly clear in the minds of those
who face the practical problems of improving the reading instruction, that the textbook
usually determines the success or failure of any method or technique. Since most of the
problems in the teaching of English literature are related to the reading materials, especially
the textbook, it was decided to limit this study to the evaluation of the basic text, in order to
find out how it can be made more readable and interesting to the first year students today.
With the years, it has become increasingly difficult for the teachers to render comprehensible
the materials in the literature text which was written more than two decades ago for first year
students who had had seven years of elementary schooling, without the necessity for
adjustment to the new educational trends is the Philippine public school system and with a
wealth of other reading materials provided for them.
Many educators believe that in the field of Phillippine education today mass promotion, the
elimination of the seventh grade, the double-single session plan, and, in some instances, the
inferior methods used due to the dearth of teaching materials have brought to the high
schools a mass of inadequately prepared students lacking proficiency in the tools of learning,
and in the basic skills needed to cope with the more advanced end more complicated high
school work.
These pedagogically unsound practices introduced by the government to implement its

austerity program are detrimental to the education of the elementary school children. Such
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practices have resulted in a group of unskilled learners who are still unable to recognize
words when they see them, are unable to comprehend them when they do recognize them,
and worse still, cannot with fluency give oral or written interpretation of what they have read.
As the students attempt to read selections which are neither readable nor understandable to
them, it is not surprising, therefore, to find them developing a distaste for and a lack of
interest in their literature or reading textbook.
Many of the English teachers believe that the selections included in the basic reader for the
first year possess vocabulary quite difficult for students with such inadequate background for
reading. Others are of the idea that the selections are either too mature or too outdated for
our students today. Some believe that the physical makeup of the book itself does not make
it suitable or attractive to our present-day first year students who are about the same age as
the seventh grade pupils before the six-year elementary course was introduced. Quite a
number of teachers suggest the reorganizing and rewriting of the selections in these readers
either to bring them up-to-date or, as Dr. Antonio Isidro advocates, to simplify them so that
“the substance and con tent are better understood by the learners even if much of the
elegance and beauty of the language of the classic authors way disappear.” There are even
some radically inclined teachers who recommend the changing of these texts for more recent
editions.
4.How can new technology become an essential part of today’s teaching? Show some
examples of these technology.
Technology ushers in fundamental structural changes that can be integral to achieving

significant improvements in productivity. Used to support both teaching and learning,
technology infuses classrooms with digital learning tools, such as computers and hand held
devices; expands course offerings, experiences, and learning materials; supports learning 24
hours a day, 7 days a week; builds 21st century skills; increases student engagement and
motivation; and accelerates learning. Technology also has the power to transform teaching by
ushering in a new model of connected teaching. This model links teachers to their students
and to professional content, resources, and systems to help them improve their own
instruction and personalize learning.
Online learning opportunities and the use of open educational resources and other
technologies can increase educational productivity by accelerating the rate of learning;
reducing costs associated with instructional materials or program delivery; and better
utilizing teacher time.
1. Digital readers and tablets

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Increasingly, schools are looking to replace the bulkier hard-copy textbooks with digital ones
that are accessible via a tablet.
2. 3D printing
3D printing has already seen an impressive application in the world at large. 3D printers have
been able to create anything from car parts to artificial organs. In the classroom setting, 3D
printing can create hands-on models that students can investigate and interact with. For
example, students could learn about the geography of an area by observing a 3D map of it.
3. Virtual reality
Technology for virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality is rapidly developing. One
of the primary uses for this technology in the classroom is to take students on virtual field
trips to places otherwise inaccessible. For example, a student could take a virtual field trip to
ancient Egypt or to the bottom of the ocean.
4. Gamification
Students learn better when they’re having fun. The use of gaming in the classroom applies
this concept by tying together the fun part of play with the content and concepts that
students must learn.
5. Cloud technology
The cloud hosts apps and services on the internet instead of being on a user’s computer. It
enables information to be stored, shared, and accessed on any device that’s connected to the
internet. In education, the cloud is used to store and share digital textbooks, lesson plans,
videos, and assignments. It’s also used to give students the opportunity to chat live with their
instructors and other classmates. In a related vein, cloud technology is enabling a new
educational model known as ‘flipped classrooms’ in which students can watch a lecture
before class and spend the class time engaged in discussion, group work, and analytical
activities.
6. Artificial intelligence
AI is making its way into the educational sphere by means of automating grading and
feedback and providing personalized learning opportunities.
7. Mobile technology
Rather than banning cell phones and other mobile devices from use during class, some
schools are incorporating this technology into the learning process through educational apps.

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Assessment:
1. What are the more pressing issues or trends in teaching literature?
Teaching is a dynamic profession. It changes year to year depending on the classes we teach
and the students we have. However, the world of education has remained largely the same
for the last one hundred years. Our classrooms are still teacher-centered. In the teacher-
centered classroom, the role of the teacher is to deliver information to students and test the
students on their ability to remember and understand that information. The students are
passive learners who understand and remember information, but do not analyze, apply,
evaluate, or create information.
Many educators are beginning to argue that this approach to teaching is now outdated. They
argue schools need to change to meet the increasingly technology-based and globalized
world in which our students will live and work in the future. This globalized world requires
students do more than understand and remember facts. It requires them to apply, analyze,
evaluate, and create new ideas and products.
Some educators argue that our current classroom approach only serves the most basic
learning: understanding and remembering.
Add the fact that we are still in the middle of pandemic. Everything becomes a struggle.
2. In what way can preparation makes our teaching effective? Provide examples.
Six Ways Proper Preparation and Planning Will Pay Off
Make you a better teacher: A significant part of planning and preparation is conducting
research. Studying educational theory and examining best practices helps define and shape
your own teaching philosophy. Studying the content that you teach in depth will also help you
grow and improve.
Boost student performance and achievement: As a teacher, you should have the content
that you teach mastered. You should understand what you are teaching, why you are
teaching it, and you should create a plan for how to present it to your students every single
day. This ultimately benefits your students. It is your job as a teacher to not only present the
information but to present in a way that resonates with the students and makes it important
enough for them to want to learn it. This comes through planning, preparation, and
experience.
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Make the day go by faster: Downtime is a teacher’s worst enemy. Many teachers use the
term “free time”. This is simple code for I did not take the time to plan enough. Teachers
should prepare and plan enough material to last the entire class period or school day. Every
second of every day should matter. When you plan enough students remain engaged, the day
goes by quicker, and ultimately student learning is maximized.
Minimize classroom discipline issues: Boredom is the number one cause of acting out.
Teachers who develop and present engaging lessons on a daily basis rarely have classroom
discipline issues. Students enjoy going to these classes because learning is fun. These types of
lessons do not just happen. Instead, they are created through careful planning and
preparation.
Make you confident in what you do: Confidence is an important characteristic for a teacher
to possess. If for nothing else, portraying confidence will help your students buy what you are
selling. As a teacher, you never want to ask yourself if you could have done more to reach a
student or group of students. You might not like how a particular lesson goes, but you should
take pride in knowing that it was not because you lacked in preparation and planning.
Help earn the respect of your peers and administrators: Teachers know which teachers
are putting in the necessary time to be an effective teacher and which teachers are not.
Investing extra time in your classroom will not go unnoticed by those around you. They may
not always agree with how you run your classroom, but they will have a natural respect for
you when they see how hard you work at your craft.
Strategies for More Efficient Planning
The first three years of teaching are the most difficult. Spend lots of extra time planning and
preparing during those first few years as you are learning the nuances of teaching and
sequential years will become easier.
Keep all lesson plans, activities, tests, quizzes, worksheets, etc. in a binder. Make notes
throughout the binder according to what worked, what did not, and how you might want to
change things.
Every idea does not have to be original. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The Internet
is the greatest teaching resource ever made. There are lots of excellent ideas from other
teachers floating around that you can steal and utilize in your classroom.
Work in a distraction-free environment. You will get a lot more accomplished when there are
no other teachers, students, or family members around to distract you.

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Read the chapters, complete homework/practice problems, take tests/quizzes before
assigning them to students. It will take some time to do this upfront, but reviewing and
experiencing the material before your students do will ultimately protect your credibility.
When conducting an activity, have all the materials laid out before the students arrive.
Practice the activity to ensure that each works correctly. Establish specific procedures and
guidelines for students to follow.
Plan days to weeks in advance if possible. Do not wait until the last minute to try to throw
something together. Doing so limits your effectiveness.
3. Can literature be taught in a vacuum? Explain your answer.
No. The fact is that you cannot exist in a vacuum and rely only on the information in your
head to write a book or any piece of fiction. Writers need to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell
the world around them to be able to convey the same sense of realness into their work. They
also need to be exposed to the writing of others to be able to compare and contrast different
ideas. Part of refining writing includes learning what things you like or dislike in the work of
others and then applying it to your own writing.
There are limitless resources to use to improve their work and learn literature, here are a
few:
Read fiction. That’s right, pick up a book and read. Choose both books in your preferred
genre and also a selection of other literary works. Pay attention to elements that appeal to
you and think of ways that you can incorporate them into your work.
Read books on the craft of writing. There are many wonderful books written by successful
author’s that teach about their unique approach to the craft. These can be most helpful if you
are stuck in a rut or uninspired.
Watch TV and movies. Really, I mean it. Although it’s not the written word, there can be a
lot learned from visual media. Everything from story construction to realistic dialogue can be
found to one extent or another – and it’s faster than reading a book. That said, it can’t be lazy
TV watching. It has to be edge of seat, notebook in hand, watching and critiquing the
different elements.
Take a class. Being surrounded by other writers and having the chance to participate is a
wonderful way to expand a writer’s horizons. It is also great motivation to spend more time
writing when there are assignments to complete.

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Attend a conference. There are literally hundreds if not more writing conferences every
year. There are opportunities without number to attend classes, workshops, rub elbows with
people in the publishing industry, and meet other writers.
Utilize the web. There are also countless ways to expand your craft online. Some of my
favorites include blogging, podcasts, and online literary magazines.
4.What is your stand regarding the literature teaching in the Philippines? Cite some
situations to justify your answer.
The teaching of literature seeks to hone the students' lifelong learning skills such as
critical thinking and creativity. We develop different activities from literary materials to
achieve such learning goals which are either mandated by our institutions o r government
agencies. Teaching through literature has been an integral part of developing students’
capacity to become literate citizens. It polishes the skills of our students from reading,
writing, listening, and speaking. In the Philippines with differ ent approaches and
designs for English classes whether by literary competence, reading competence, or
language arts competence focused curriculum, the teaching of literature helps students
to practice these macro skills and to refine their critical thinkin g and creativity.
Teachers deliver literary texts and other multimodal texts in the classrooms to meet
their learning objectives. These texts often open discussions about genre, form, and
social issues. The Department of Education mandates teachers to teac h different
genres and forms of literature from fiction, poetry, and drama across the English
language curriculum for elementary to senior high school. These classes are also
expected to analyze different social issues embedded in literary text from class
oppression, desires, to gender. However, though the Department of Education also
encourages teachers to be creative with their classes, there is no mention of discussing
health, illness, and disability about teaching literature for English classes. With th is kind
of premise, we have lost many chances to see how we can also train our students’
critical thinking skills, creativity, and even the practice of empathy through literature
that discusses illness as a condition in literary texts.
5.Create a classroom-based activity of your chosen method in teaching literature. State the
procedures in performing the said activity.
Strategies for Teaching Literature: Poem
In this section, I have chosen a poem entitled ‘The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, to
become an example of teaching poem. If you want to teach poems to your students, here are
some strategies that can be conformed. They are:
a. Pre-reading
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Ask the students about the poem (you have read the poem by your own already, but not your
students). Your students must be ever in confused condition. Ask them these questions: “how
is their feeling? what do they have to do? Do they ever get back to the first thinking or not?,
which will lead them to tell their ideas.
Pay attention to the title. Ask the students whether they can get the whole meaning of the
poem before reading it or not (only by looking at the title). Based on the title “The Road Not
Taken”, ask the implicit or maybe the explicit meaning that the students got at the glance
when they look at the title. You will hear many different ideas from your students.
b. listening
Ask them to listen to your poem reading. This activity can prepare them to read by
themselves and discuss it. And then you can start reading it with good rhythm. The good
rhythm shows the abstract feeling from the poem.
Read the poem aloud; pause where the punctuation marks appear, not where the line ends.
Because, stopping at appropriate spots helps the students to clarify the meaning and get the
feeling.
Pay attention to sound devices. A good poem uses sound devices for a reason, usually to
draw attention to major points.
c. Becoming familiar with the poem.

Hand out the copy of the poem to the students, or just write it down on the white board. But
if you have the copy, it is much better than write on the board.
d. Discussion Questions.
Remind the students that the questions about poem do not always have “right or correct”
answers. So students can answer it freely based on their ideas, experiences and maybe their
imaginations. Ask the students such questions like these:
What does the title “The Road Not Taken” mean to you?
What is the connection between the title and the content?
How do you interpret the first and the second line in the third stanza?
Do you ever have the same experience just like this poem? What it is?
You can ask them to sit in pairs or group, so they can share the idea, but ask them to work on
questions individually.
e. Reading
Ask the students to read the poem by themselves, not only once but several times. So that
they can deeply get into the poem and hopefully get into the point that the author purposed
to be understood. The point from this poem is that the confused condition when someone
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makes the chosen to be taken as the path that she or he will pass in your life. And she should
think carefully which one she should take as her path. And she should realize that she will
never come back to the other path when she has chosen another one. This point should be
the same as what your students have got, but they are free to say the different thing, because
everyone has different point of view on looking at some things.
Determine the rhythm as you read and the rhyme scheme.
f. Writing practice.
After they have discussed and read the poem several times, now ask them to make
connection between the title and the content, also and their experiences.
Summarize the poem’s meaning.
Ask them to imagine that they are the one in the poem. Then ask them “what can you see?,
how do you feel?”. Write a paragraph describing the scene. Use their own words, but feel free
to borrow some sights, words and phrase from the poem.
Lesson 3: Models of Teaching Literature
Activity : Critical Thinking
1. Why is it that literature teaching remains a hindrance for teachers and
students?
These difficulties include three types: First, those related to the students such as using
a content-based approach to teaching literature and students' overall lack of
competency in English. Second, those difficulties related to the textbook such as the
abundance of farfetched ideas in literary texts Third, those difficulties related to
teachers such as the lack of the visual aids employed by teachers. Because literature
has an emotive and figurative use of language and because there is a cultural gap and
a lack of comprehending a discourse that is totally unfamiliar to the students' socio-
cultural background, the teacher has to excite the imagination of students to make his
or her teaching effective and refreshing.

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2. Which among the models of teaching literature is most likely be applicable
in our present teaching situation?
In a country like the Philippines where access to technology is gradually taking off, the
use of technology has been seen as a possible way of enhancing learning. Specifically for a
literature class on modern short stories in a small university in the Philippines, blended
learning was used to facilitate interaction between teacher and students. Many components
of a traditional classroom were migrated online. Syllabus, homework, and announcements
were migrated online. Homework was submitted through a web forum. Student journals
were likewise posted in the web forum. Submission of papers was done through email. By
moving most of the requirements online, classroom time was devoted to more intensive one-
on-one interaction between teacher-student and student-student. Learning outside the
classroom enabled self-learning while in-class interaction facilitated personal dealings with
students. The flipped classroom experience showed that by transferring classroom
components online, students take control of learning. Better class interaction meanwhile
allowed the teacher to better guide student learning. The study assumed that all students
had access to the internet but still, there were a handful of students who had difficulties in
regularly going online. Nevertheless, just because of more classroom time devoted to student
interaction, the value of migrating many classroom components online is seen as
advantageous.
1.In what way the models of teaching literature contribute to the growth and
development of teaching. Be as creative as you can through a drawing.

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2. What are the outcomes of teaching literature in today’s generation?
Literature Impacts Living
Some of the great literary works like the Bible and Indian epics like Ramayana and
Mahabharata, among others, provide society with the guiding principles of life. Works by
poets like Homer, Plato, Sappho, Horace and Virgil, Shakespeare’s sonnets and notable poetry
by W.B. Yeats, John Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and William Blake, among others, are
timeless. They have always amused their readers and shall continue to. The Lord of the Rings,
The Godfather, A Tale of Two Cities, and James Bond Series are some of the best-selling
books of all time that have entertained several generations. While some literary and poetry
works carry life’s lessons, many others make us think. Some works are known for the sheer
entertainment they provide, while others intrigue. Many works in literature establish a strong
connect with their audience through the stories they narrate or the message the carry.
Readers tend to associate themselves with the emotions portrayed in these works and
become emotionally involved in them. Literature thus has a deep impact on the readers’
minds and in turn, their lives.
Children’s Literature
The Adventures of Pinocchio, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Winnie-the-Pooh, as also

the relatively recent Harry Potter Series are some of the greatest works in children’s
literature. Due to a whole new world they create through words, or due to their characters
that the readers can relate to, these books attract children. Amused by the stories they tell,
kids associate themselves with these books’ characters and idealize some of them. Moral
stories are an aid for parents and teachers to let the kids learn important lessons in life.
Aesop, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, and Mark Twain, among many others are some of the most
widely popular children’s authors. They have enriched the childhoods of so many. Their
works have amused millions of children the world over.
Literature Helps Understand Life
It is through reading great literary and poetic works, that one understands life. They help a
person take a closer look at the different facets of living. In many ways, literature, in its
different forms, can change one’s perspective towards living. Biographies of great people,
real-life stories of courage, sacrifice and other good values never fail to inspire readers. Such
works give the masses an insight into the lives of eminent people, and also serve as a bible of
ideals.
It Provides Information

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Literature serves as an enormous information base. Research works by famous inventors and
literary works by notable scientists often narrate stories of their groundbreaking discoveries
and inferences. Ongoing developments in the fields of science and technology are
documented so that the world can know about them. Several ancient scriptures relating
stories of human evolution and narratives of human life in those times, have been of
tremendous help to mankind. Thus, literature has always served as an authentic source of
information.
Scope of Literature
True, languages are the building blocks of literature. But the study of literature cannot be
restricted to only studying languages. In fact, literature cannot be confined to an educational
curriculum. A degree in language and literature is perhaps not able to provide one with
everything that literature can offer. Its scope is so deep and wide that even a lifetime may not
be enough to really ‘study’ literature.
Literature is Important
For the breadth of knowledge is gives, the moral values it carries, and the enjoyment it
provides, literature is important. An exposure to good literary works is essential at every
phase of life as it enriches us in more ways than one. Literature is definitely much more than
its literary meaning, which defines it as ‘an acquaintance to letters’. In fact, it lays the
foundation of a fulfilling life. It adds ‘life’ to ‘living’.
Lesson 4:Literary Devices
Activity :Critical Thinking
What are the 5 general classification of figures of speech? Name two (2 ) figures of speech
that are classified under each.
Resemblance
Simile: implied comparison
Metaphor: direct comparison
Personification: giving human quality to inanimate object

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Apostrophe: address to an absent person as though he were present, a dead person as
though alive, an abstract idea as though concrete
Allusion: reference to any scientific, historical, literary, mythological, biblical , political, etc.
event or personage
Emphasis
.Hyperbole: exaggeration for effect
.Meiosis: positive understatement to enhance impression or minimize the importance of

reality ( The opposite of hyperbole)
Litotese: negative understatement to suggest a strong affirmative
Repetition: repeating words , phrases to intensify emotions or meanings
Rhetorical question: asked, but unanswerable
Parallelism
Balance: parallelism in sentence elements or similar ideas
Anti- thesis: juxtaposition or contrasting ideas
Chiasmus: parallelism in inverted order
Paradox: contradictory, but true statement
Oxymoron: paired or mutually contradicting words to realize two ideas
Irony: could be verbal, situational, attitudinal , dramatic
Arrangement
Climax: arrangement of ideas according to degree of importance
Anti- climax: opposite of climax, hence, the most important idea comes first
Transferred epithet: transferring an adjective from the noun to which it properly belongs to
another in the same group
Sound Effects
Alliteration: repetition of the same initial consonant sounds
Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds ( initial, internal or end}
Onomatopeia : imitation of sounds to produce effect

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Construct samples of figures of speech
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of the beginning sounds of neighboring words.
Examples include:
She sells seashells.
Walter wondered where Winnie was.
Blue baby bonnets bobbed through the bayou.
Nick needed new notebooks.
Fred fried frogs' legs on Friday.
Anaphora
Anaphora is a technique where several phrases or verses begin with the same word or words.
Examples include:
I came, I saw, I conquered. - Julius Caesar
Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition! - King John II, William Shakespeare
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness. - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right. - Abraham Lincoln
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end... we shall never surrender. - Winston
Churchill
Assonance
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds (not just letters) in words that are close together.
The sounds don't have to be at the beginning of the word.
Examples include:
A - For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore. (Poe)
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E - Therefore, all seasons shall be sweet to thee. (Coleridge)
I - From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. (Frost)
O - Oh hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. (Wordsworth)
U - Uncertain rustling of each purple curtain (Poe)
Euphemism
Euphemism is a mild, indirect, or vague term that often substitutes a harsh, blunt, or
offensive term.
Examples include:
'A little thin on top' instead of 'going bald.'
'Fell of the back of a truck' instead of 'stolen.'
'Letting you go' instead of 'firing you.'
'Passed away' instead of 'died.'
'Economical with the truth' instead of 'liar.'
Hyperbole
Hyperbole uses exaggeration for emphasis or effect.
Examples include:
I've told you to stop a thousand times.
That must have cost a billion dollars.
I could do this forever.
She's older than dirt.
Everybody knows that.
Irony
Irony occurs when there's a marked contrast between what is said and what is meant, or
between appearance and reality.
Examples include:

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"How nice!" she said, when I told her I had to work all weekend. (Verbal irony)
A traffic cop gets suspended for not paying his parking tickets. (Situational irony)
The Titanic was said to be unsinkable but sank on its first voyage. (Situational irony)
Naming a tiny Chihuahua Brutus. (Verbal irony)
When the audience knows the killer is hiding in a closet in a scary movie, but the actors do
not.
Metaphor
A metaphor makes a comparison between two unlike things or ideas.
Examples include:
Heart of stone
Time is money
The world is a stage
She's a night owl
He's an ogre
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the term for a word that sounds like what it is describing.
Examples include:
Whoosh
Splat
Buzz
Click
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is two contradictory terms used together.
Examples include:
Peace force
Kosher ham

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Jumbo shrimp
Sweet sorrow
Free market
Personification
Personification gives human qualities to non-living things or ideas.
Examples include:
The flowers nodded.
The snowflakes danced.
The thunder grumbled.
The fog crept in.
The wind howled.
Simile
A simile is a comparison between two unlike things using the words "like" or "as."
Examples include:
As slippery as an eel
Like peas in a pod
As blind as a bat
Eats like a pig
As wise as an owl
Synecdoche
Synecdoche occurs when a part is represented by the whole or, conversely, the whole is
represented by the part.
Examples include:
Wheels - a car
The police - one policeman
Plastic - credit cards

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Coke - any cola drink
Understatement
An understatement occurs when something is said to make something appear less important

or less serious.
Examples include:
It's just a scratch - referring to a large dent.
It's a litttle dry and sandy - referring to the driest desert in the world.
The weather is cooler today - referring to sub-zero temperatures.
It was interesting - referring to a bad or difficult experience.
It stings a bit - referring to a serious wound or injury.
3. A. Identify these allusions:
1.Her boyfriend Don Juan.
2.This is a herculean tasks.
3.,Will you do a Clinton?
4. The Land of the Rising Sun.
5.That milk has yet to be pasteurized.
6. She will always be a Ruth to her husband .
4. How does an oxymoron differ from a paradox and antithesis?
Although both a paradox and an oxymoron involve contradictions, they have an important

difference. A paradox is a rhetorical device or a self-contradictory statement that can actually
be true. While an oxymoron is a figure of speech that pairs two opposing words.
The key to easily spotting the difference is to focus on the meanings of the words themselves.
In an oxymoron, the words themselves have a shade of contradiction in their definitions.
For example: Billy hushed the other students and told them to act naturally before the teacher
walked in. In this case, act naturally is an oxymoron that combines two contradictory words.

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But if Billy decided to deliver some harsh truth to a fellow classmate in order to help her, he’s
going by the paradox that sometimes you have to be cruel in order to be kind. This sentiment is
a paradox and not an oxymoron because it is a statement that seems contradictory at first
(being mean in order to be kind), but there’s actually some truth to it.
Other examples of oxymorons:
During the coronavirus pandemic, many feel alone together as everyone engages in social-
distancing and takes comfort in this oxymoron.
Mary must be clearly confused because when I asked if she wanted to go out tonight, her
answer was, “definitely maybe.”
5.Draw 5 symbols including what the symbols represent.
rainbow–symbolizes hope and promise.
red rose–symbolizes love and romance.
four-leaf clover–symbolizes good luck or fortune.
wedding ring–symbolizes commitment and matrimony.
red, white, blue–symbolizes American patriotism.
Assessment:
Identify the figure of speech exemplified by the given statements .
Variety is the spice of life. - Metaphor
“ Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks.! - King Lear - Apostrophe
“ Never give in, Never give in. Never, never, never ,never , never, yield to force.” – Repetition
She is good in chemistry, but the chemistry of her body is poor. - Irony
He was slow in anger, in pardon quick. - Antithesis
Thank you for reading my very private diary. - Satire
“We’ll hear him, we’ll follow him, we’ll die for him”.- Julius Caesar - Climax
“Parting is such sweet sorrow”.- Romeo & Juliet - Oxymoron
Oh my love is like a red, red rose. - Simile

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Her words are daggers. - Hyperbole
The bamboo leaves dance with the gentle breeze. - Personification
The moon was a silver ship sailing through the sea. - Metaphor
The rain kissed my cheeks as it fell. - Personification
Bertha Bartholomew bites big bubbles. - Alliteration
He was so tired that he could have slept for a month. - Hyperbole
Module 2: Teaching Prose and Poetry
Lesson 1: Teaching Prose
Activity:
1. Name the focus of questions related to the study of drama, short story, poetry.
Drama
What dramatic conventions are used in this play? Cite examples
Explain the importance of each setting to the development of the play.
What political / historical/ biblical/ mythological event or personage is the play based upon>
How is it reinterpreted in the play?
Select and quote a key line or two that best characterize each of the main characters in the
play.
Make sketches of each of the sets, or ach of the costumes for the play.
What does this name suggest about the character.
What incidents in the play delineate sharply the difference between the characters?
How is the tragic tension in the play relieved? In what part?
Who is the unseen character in the story? How does his absences affect the characters? The
flow of events in the story?
What characteristics of the tragic hero/ heroine cause him.her downfall?

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Explain the title? Is there a more suitable one?
What speech acts would these passages reveal or suggest of the characters:
“ No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied!”
“ No, get out. Get out! I hate you! But ,don’t go! Oh, if you only knew how furious I am!
( Throws revolver on the table).
“ How could I bear to see
When all my sights was horror everywhere! “. Oedipus
What are the ethical and moral concerns of this play?
If you were to perform in the play, be able to explain your first, second and third choices of
parts.
Classify this play. Give evidences to support your claim.
Short Story
Cite details which contribute to the verisimilitude of the story.
How is the ending foreshadowed in the story?
What is the satirical intent of the story”
What is the dramatic irony of the story?
From what point of view is the story told?
Characterize the main personages in the story in terms of
( a.) physical look (b.) social status ( c) emotional range
( d) ethical values (e) dialogue
What is the main focus of the story? Does it center on character, action, setting, atmosphere,
etc.? Illustrate your points.
What social problem does the story include?
Indicate the function of these phrases/ sentences in the development of the story:
The beginning sentence in Hemingway’s story, “Hills Like White Elephants”

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“ The hills across the valley of the ebro were long and white. On the other side was shade
and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun.”
The ending sentence in Arguila’s story: “ How my Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife”
“ Then I went out. And in the darkened hall the fragrance of her was like a morning when
papayas are in bloom!:”
What are the related themes of the story? What ethical insight does it give?
How was the conflict resolved in the story?
What is ironical about the ending?
Poetry
List down the figures of speech used in the poem. How do they help bring out the theme?
Characterize the persona in the poem. To whom is he addressing the poem?
Explain the title of the poem. Is it misleading? Why or why not?
Point out the messages used in the poem? Explain their users.
What is the tone expressed in the first two stanzas? How do they differ in the succeeding
ones?
What lines of the poet directly state the theme?
What is the symbolic significance of the scene?
. State the fundamental irony of the poem.
. Paraphrase stanza two, three, etc.
. Why is no punctuation used in the poem?
What is the general mood of the poem? How is this created?
2. Read the given texts. Then construct questions that can serve as springboards for
discussion.
The Road Not Taken
1. The poet stood at the intersection of?

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2. The poet felt sorry because...
3. The poet took the road...
4. The poet depicts...
5. The entire poem is considered as what kind of part of speech?
6. This poem is written by...
7. What does the author mean by "a wood?"
8. What did the poet see in the Yellow Wood?
9. How was one path different from the other?
10. Which path had been walked on that morning before the poet traveled on one?
11. When the poet chose one of the paths, what did he hope to do?
12. In the line "Oh I kept the first for another day!", "the first" refers to_____.
13. Frost uses the image of two diverging roads to symbolize...
14. According to the poet, the second road has "the better claim" because it...
15. This poem might have special relevance for you if you are...
16. What does the narrator decide to do?
17.Which of the following statements is the closest interpretation of the line "yet knowing
how way leads on to way?"
18. According to the narrator, the two roads looked?
19. Looking back on his decision, the narrator feels...
20. The narrator envisions that in later years he will...
Assessment:
1. What is your opinion in analyzing fictions in the form of essay?
The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes

evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. As with any
analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts.
Examining the different elements of a piece of literature is not an end in itself but
rather a process to help you better appreciate and understand the work of literature
as a whole. For instance, an analysis of a poem might deal with the different types
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of images in a poem or with the relationship between the form and content of the
work. If you were to analyze (discuss and explain) a play, you might analyze the
relationship between a subplot and the main plot, or you might analyze the character
flaw of the tragic hero by tracing how it is revealed through the acts of the play.
Analyzing a short story might include identifying a particular theme (like the difficulty
of making the transition from adolescence to adulthood) and showing how the writer
suggests that theme through the point of view from which the story is told; or you
might also explain how the main character‟s attitude toward women is revealed through
his dialogue and/or actions.
2. Write a short story in which this sentence plays an important part – Nothing is
impossible.’
Gaza was a swindler and a scammer. A lot of people have reported him to the police and he
was finally nabbed at a checkpoint going to downtown. He was then stripped of all his bank
accounts and properties. During his years of stay in prison, he was locked in with 6 inmates.
All of them shared their stories and promised to do good once they get out.
Among all of them, Armando has the lightest criminal case and has a penalty of only 5 years
in prison but has no money to pay for bail. The other 5 inmates shared all the money they
have to get Armando out of prison and they told him live a good life.
Once Armando got out, he looked for opportunities to succeed in life and pay back his
friends. He worked tirelessly in a factory and after a few years he went on to become a
supervisor and then a manager. Once he had enough money, he bailed one of his 5 friends in
prison and immediately employed him as one of his workers. Then both of them would save
enough money to get another one of their friends out of prison.
This went on until they paid for the last one left in the prison and the biggest bail, Gaza. Once
he got out, he used all of his marketing intelligence and business strategies to make the
factory the biggest in the city. When all of them saved enough, Gaza told them to invest in
him and make their own company.
Now, they are all stakeholders for a huge company that deals with bitcoins and digital
properties.
3. Give some Tips for Teaching Short Stories

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eachers often hesitate to use literature in the classroom. That’s a pity since short stories
are perfect for teaching language and critical thinking skills. Good stories engage both
teachers and students. Best of all, they can be used to enrich all language skills in imaginative
and unexpected ways. The ten tips below are designed to help teachers create and
implement an exciting, relevant short-story course.
1. Enthusiasm is contagious.
When you believe in literature as a meaningful and fun way to build language skills, you can
persuade even skeptical students to take it seriously. I’ve had students begin the semester
thinking literature might be an inefficient use of their time, but in 40 years of teaching I’ve
almost never seen one who felt that way after a few weeks of class.
2. Encourage personal discovery.

Literature isn’t just about close reading and careful inference. Over the years, my students
have related in intense and unexpected ways to the characters, themes, and conflicts
presented in short stories. They have laughed, cried, and opened their hearts. Reading and
discussing stories in English can free students to reveal parts of themselves that they were
reluctant to explore when operating in their native language.
3. Think carefully about your material.

Choosing stories can be difficult and time-consuming. It’s not enough to love a story; it needs
to have the right length, layering, and subject matter. Stories that initially appeal to me often
don’t have enough complexity for intensive analysis and discussion. I might read as many as
50-100 stories before finding one that I’m excited to use in class. When I wrote the first
edition of A World of Fiction twenty years ago, I hoped that a collection of teachable, richly-
layered stories and exercises would be helpful to teachers wanting to bring literature into the
ESL classroom. In A World of Fiction 1 and A World of Fiction 2,the goal has been to offer stories
with the variety to engage students’ diverse interests and the depth to stimulate meaningful
critical analysis.
4. Read each story more than once.

Good short stories are sometimes deceptively simple. A quick reading may give the
impression that a story is about one thing, but after a second or third reading it becomes
clear that something entirely different is taking place beneath the surface. I read each new
story between three to five times before teaching it, and I tell my students that it is crucial for
them to read a story twice: the first time for plot and vocabulary, the second time for themes
and style. A World of Fiction 1 and 2 are both explicitly designed with this two-reading system
in mind.
5. Embrace opportunities for cross-cultural discussion.

In a multicultural classroom, students invariably enjoy learning about the cultures and
perspectives of their classmates. But even in a homogeneous class, there is always an
opportunity to compare and contrast a common cultural perspective with the one expressed
in the story. I don’t shy away from controversial subjects: almost any topic can be approached

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in a sensitive and nonjudgmental way. As a teacher, what’s important is to create a tolerant
environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves.
6. Conduct a debate on a central theme.

Every story has themes that can be converted into a topic for debate. Debates can be
conducted in pairs, small groups, or as an entire class. Students enjoy the give and take of
defending or rebutting a position. Debating is a natural opportunity to practice oral skills, and
it is a good way to draw out the shyer students in a class.
7. Enhance critical thinking skills through literary analysis.

As students systematically work their way through a story’s plot, themes, and style, they
naturally hone their critical thinking skills. Literary analysis requires students to make
inferences, to compare and contrast, and to put themselves in the position of characters who
face complex situations and tough choices.
8. Make vocabulary stick.

New vocabulary is retained better when it is learned and practiced in a memorable context.
Students often tell me how much they appreciate learning vocabulary in this organic way.
9. Demonstrate the authentic use of grammar.

Stories show how particular rules of grammar are applied (or broken) by experienced writers.
For example, a story set in the past will tend to offer many natural opportunities for clarifying
the different uses of the simple past, the past progressive, and the past perfect. Students are
intrigued to see grammar brought alive in this way. When writers break the rules, it can be
helpful to point out their signature use of language and to explore the reasons for their
stylistic choices.
10. Assign writing activities that stretch students’ limits.

Stories offer a jumping-off point for expository and creative writing. For example, I might ask
students to write a formal essay in which they consider the pros and cons of a topic; write
journal entries about their reactions to a story; conduct interviews about issues raised in the
story; use a story’s imagery as a model for observation and description; or contrast one story
with another. I am often delighted and genuinely impressed by the sophistication of their
responses.
4. What are the techniques of teaching short story?
Adaptations: A useful way to get students to think about genre specifics is to ask them to
adapt a short story into a short play. Divide them into groups and assign them either a short
section of the work or the entire thing itself (if you think they’re up to it). Once they’ve written
a short script, ask them to act out their scene for the class. How does the loss of descriptions
change their interpretation of the dialogue? What editorial decisions (omission of dialogue,
addition of action, etc.) did they have to make and why where they necessary? This activity
can be time consuming, but it’s also a good way to draw out quiet students and visually
engage the students’ interest in an active way. It’s also easy to expand this adaptation
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exercise by asking them to consider what a film adaptation of the short story would be like:
Who would you cast in the roles? Would we see the characters in close-up, medium, or long
shots? What colors would you want to present on camera? How long would the scene be?
Bringing in real theater terms (like “blocking” and “beats”) for either version of the activity can
give students some ideas of how to proceed with the task in a thoughtful way.
Alternative Ending: Have students write an alternate ending to the story and explain the
critical difference between their endings and the author’s.
Back to the Future: Many short stories may seem “old” to the students, and they will often
preface their interpretative comments with the phrase “back then”—or, worse, “back in the
olden days.” While it is obviously important to address the historical issues and contexts (and
clarify which “olden days” we’re talking about), an interesting challenge for the students is to
ask them to modernize the story to make it seem relevant to them today. Their changes can
include updating the setting or the use of language, increasing the severity of the
transgression or crisis so the impact is consistent with what they think it would have been at
the story’s original publication. Their changes can be quite innovative, and even radical, but
theymust maintain the overall theme and effect of the story as it is written. For this reason, it
is important to lay very specific boundaries for your students when doing this activity:
requiring that they not only update the story but set it in the neighborhood they grew up in
can be useful.
Class Consciousness: Have students find examples of a character’s class as compared to the
other characters. Then discuss how these details affect your reading of the story. (Adapted
from LeDon Sweeney)
Close Reading Passages: Below are some worksheets that might be assigned to students for
homework or as in-class group work. One is text-specific but could easily be adapted for a
different text.
Highlighting Character: Short stories use different techniques to set up character than
novels or drama (which have the advantage of development over a longer stretch of time).
Short stories have to establish character quickly, often in just a few words or sentences. Ask
students to choose a character from the story and describe him or her in detail. Then ask
them to identify passages from the text that support/flesh out their descriptions. What are
the author’s physical descriptions of the character? What do we know about their
demographic factors (age, gender, race, class, etc.)? You can divide your students into
different groups for multiple characters and have them compare and contrast their
descriptions. You might even want to put a focus on secondary characters: what is their
purpose, especially in relation to the central characters?
Highlighting Plot: Plot is also condensed in short stories and, because of its small scope, it is
often easier for students to see and understand how plot is working in a short story than in a
longer work. One way to help them focus on plot specifically is to have them list characters’
actions and reactions. Which actions/reactions are the most important? What about
reactions that aren’t fully explored in the text but may occur as a result of actions in the text?
(This is also a useful way to demonstrate the unity of plot and character.) Another way to
focus on plot is to ask your students to write a timeline of the events in the story. This is
especially useful for stories that have nonlinear plots, or when there are significant flashbacks
(as with Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.”) It’s also a useful way to discuss the unity of plot and
point of view: Is the author recounting the story while it is happening or after the fact?
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Writing a narrative timeline allows students to explore the author’s purpose in telling the
story as well as confirm actions of the plot.
How Would This Be Different If…?: Students struggle to remember that every word in a
story is a choice; they often talk about literature as if it were fact or if it emerged complete,
Athena-like, from the author’s head. A great way to counteract this impulse is to ask them to
consider how the story would be transformed by changing small things (specific words of
descriptions, minor details) and large things (point of view, important facts about the
characters, etc.). If the ending of the story is unsatisfactory to your students or surprising to
them in some way, asking them to rewrite the ending is a particularly effective way to make
them think about authorial decisions. (Students also tend to think that short stories are
always depressing. Giving them the opportunity to give a sad story a happy ending can be
really cathartic—and educational.)
Liking a Character: In something of a reader-response method, you can ask your students if
the author wants them to like or dislike a particular character. Then encourage students to
provide textual evidence for what makes the character likable or unlikable. (Adapted
from LeDon Sweeney)
Make a List: Listing out material objects in the text is a great way to get your students to pay
attention to detail in the text. Give them a category of material objects that are significant to
the text and ask them to go through the story and list all of those objects. (Think of the
personal contents of the GI’s packs in O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” or the groceries in
Updike’s “A & P.”) Why are these objects described in detail? How do the material items focus
your attention on immaterial things, like character’s emotions? How do they convey
important information about character and setting by signaling personality,
historical/geographical location, and class status*? * Sometimes this requires helping your
students make contemporary comparisons to understand the significance of these items
(Herring snacks=caviar).
Map it Out: Anything you can to do help your students visualize the story more vividly is
good. Asking them do visualize it literally, by making a map, is really good, because it helps
them order things like plot events and identify the significance of settings in a really concrete
way. You can map settings or you can map out characters movements over the course of a
scene/story. If you story takes place in a real location, you might make use of Google
Maps/Google Earth to show various locations relationships to one another.
Model Paragraph Assignment: Have students produce a substantial paragraph interpreting
an element of a short story. The purpose of this paragraph is to highlight an implicit critique
in the story and to use evidence to show how the text makes this critique clear.
The Nuts and Bolts of Literature: For all that students use them every day, they are often
unaccustomed to thinking about the formal elements of literature when they read. Instruct
them to read a story while paying particular attention to sentence and paragraph length.
Why are some sentences/paragraphs longer than others, or even run-on sentences? Why are
some short and choppy? Often it’s the case that descriptive sentences are really long,
sustained by endless commas, while dialogue is fragmentary. Students will tell you that this
is because that’s how people really talk. Encourage them to think about whether or not that’s
actually true, and also what the difference tells us about descriptive writing. What would it be
like if you reversed this? Getting them to pay attention to literature’s most basic elements
(punctuation, sentences) not only gives them something concrete to begin with in their
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analysis, but gets them to start paying attention to grammar more generally—which,
hopefully, will bleed into their own writing.
Perform the Story: For stories that rely almost entirely on the dialogue and actions of the
characters to convey meaning, rather than exposition, you might have your students perform
the literature. It is an effective way for them to figure out what is going on and to pick up on
things like sarcasm because it forces them to contemplate how each character delivers the
lines, the mood, and what lies beneath seemingly mundane phrases. You might break up the
class into groups of four and assign a director, an assistant director, and lead actors. Each
group performs a section of the story. They spend some time rehearsing, and the director
and assistant director help with directing the actors, which is where the real learning takes
place, as they puzzle it out.
Repeated Readings: Have students read a story four times at home and chart their
understanding and enjoyment of the text with each reading. Then, during class time,
ask them meet in four small groups and give short presentations about their experiences
with each reading and then to summarize their discussions to the larger group.
Repetition, Repetition: Another way to reinforce authorial choice and to teach students to
be aware of how an author might be focusing their attention in very specific ways, is to attend
to repetitions in a short story. Ask you students to track repeated words, phrases, or images
in a story. Why are they there? What are they supposed to communicate to you? Students
are occasionally resistant to this idea, but a good way to affirm that these repetitions are not
simply an accident made by an inattentive author is to have your students remove them from
the text and replace them with variations. What is lost in the communication and content of
the story if you remove the repetition(s)?
Round Table Reading: For short stories, you might have students read the story aloud and
ask them to comment on the variations. They have never failed to make excellent
observations, which, of course, gives me an opportunity to applaud their ability to read and
encourage them that they can do this with everything they read. This is also a nice way of
getting students to discuss what they like in a good story—not just plot, but how the story is
told. (Adapted from LeDon Sweeney)
Significant Quotes: Ask students to bring in passages or quotes that deserve attention in
discussion. They should have reasons why the quote is important and what it might signify.
Often several students bring in the same quote and this is a great opportunity for discussing
notions of individual reader responses vs. inherently poignant moments in the text. This is a
great activity to do since it 1) requires very little time of the students, but also guides their
reading of the text; 2) provides you with 20 launches for discussion if you need them; 3) can
be used as proof that your students are doing your homework (you can collect them, or
randomly call on people to present them, or have them share in groups); and 4) close reading
is one of the best tools they can cultivate as they improve their interpretative reading skills
and prepare to write persuasive essays. This activity can also be easily adapted: consider
asking them to bring in single words they find significant or quotations they believe to be
controversial.
Surprise! Epiphany: Short stories often contain some kind of revelation or significant
turning point in a character’s thought and/or action. This moment of realization is a major,
defining attribute of the short story genre. Although students will be familiar with the idea,
they may be unfamiliar with the term, so take some time to define what an epiphany is and
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how it works in literature. Then ask them to look for the epiphanic moment in a particular
text. When and why does it occur? What changes because of it? It’s often useful to ask
students to select the specific sentence where they believe the epiphany occurs. Make the
students support their choice with argument: How does their sentence show change? Is it
internal, external, or both? What kind of change is it? Ultimately, the most important
question is not “Which sentence is the exact epiphany?” (although that does trick them into
close reading), but rather why does it occur and what is its result? This is a nice lead-in for
discussing the conclusion of a story.
Teaching Interpretation through a Parable: This lesson plan introduces the concept of
“interpretation.” It is a very short reading of “the parable of the elephant and the blind men,”
which is well-known in several Eastern religions. (From Kelly Budruweit)
Tone: As with poetry, tone is a particularly tricky element of literature for our students to
understand. To help students arrive at a definitions of a story’s tone more organically that
just asking what mood the story creates or what emotions it draws out, as them to come up
with a list of things they might associate with a short story, however vaguely. These things
could be songs, other stories they’ve read, characters from TV or movies, people they know,
etc. (I find this activity works particularly well if you narrow their associations to songs.) For
each item they list, they should identify what motivates the association in their minds and
what feeling or quality each represents. Through these comparisons, students should
become better at assessing tone more directly.
5. How do you teach a story to students?

1. Arouse interests and curiosity.
2. Activate prior knowledge.
3. Make predictions.
4. Understand the story using visual and verbal cues.
5. Retell the story.
6. Analyse and evaluate.
7. Create, internalize and extend.
Lesson 2.Teaching Poetry
Activity Critical Thinking
1. Enumerate at least five structural features used in poetry. Give examples to illustrate
each.
Substitution – is characterized by the replacing of a word for another wordphrase or clause in

context. It occurs in sequencesentences and within a sentence unit. Normally, the substitute
is found in a sequence sentence succeeding that which contains its referent.
Example: I went to see the doctor
He told me to rest
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When the blazing sun is gone,
And he has nothing shines upon
Parallelism - is achieved in different ways; but collectively, this feature clearly distinguishes
poetic from non- poetic literature. In its broadest sense, parallelism can be achieved by the
repetition of similar phonological. Structural or lexical units.
 he that will cheat at play, will cheat you any way

 stupid is as stupid does
 cousins by chance; friends by choice
 luck is the idol of the idle
 no pain, no gain
Phonological parallelism --- this is the recurrence of certain sounds and sound blends in
order to produce a harmonious, musical effect. This is achieved through alliteration,
assonance and rhyme.
Alliteration - repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or

syllables.
 rocky road
 big business
 kissing cousins
 jumping jacks
 no nonsense
 tough talk
Example: Falling to fetch me at first

Song of Myself ( Whitman)
Assonance -- repetition of neighboring vowels without the repetition of consonants.
Example: Over the rolling waters go
 Son of a gun
 The cat is out of the bag
 Dumb luck
 After awhile, crocodile
 Chips and dip
 Cock of the walk

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Rhyme - the corresponding in terminal sounds of two or more lines of verbs. Usually, most
poems have a rhyme scheme , which is the pattern or arrangement or rhymes in a stanza or
poem.
 Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet

 Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock
 Little Jack Horner sat in a corner
 Sugar and spice and everything nice
 Jack Sprat could eat no fat
2. How does shifting differ from inversion?
Shifting- is characterized by a change in normal word order.

Examples: A lonely task it is to plow
Under the chestnut tree, the village smoothly stands
Inversion- is a type of shifting wherein the verb comes before the subject:
Example: And when kindly falls the night’
In all the town no spark of light
3. Develop a lesson plan for teaching following the poem “The road not taken”
OBJECTIVES
 By the end of this lesson, students will be able to define pre-selected tier-two and tier-three
vocabulary terms and demonstrate understanding of the poem’s overall meaning with 70% or
higher accuracy as shown on the summative assessment.
 By the end of this lesson, students will be able to identify and explain the use of setting and
symbolism in “The Road Not Taken” with 70% or higher accuracy as shown on the summative
assessment.
 By the end of this lesson, students will be able to apply the meaning of “The Road Not Taken”
to their own lives by writing an organized paragraph that scores a three or higher on the
writing rubric.
MATERIALS
 Copy of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”

 Materials required for the additional lesson components will vary based on your needs. You
can create your own worksheets or have students write on their own paper. *Optional: Click
here to download the printable and digital “The Road Not Taken” teaching materials that
correspond with this lesson from Literacy in Focus on TpT.
ANTICIPATORY SET
 Discuss with students the meaning of “coming to a fork in the road”.

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 Read through “The Road Not Taken” together as a class.
GUIDED PRACTICE
 Vocabulary Development: Identify 1 or 2 tier-two and tier-three words (click here to read

more about vocabulary tiers) in each stanza that your students will identify using context
clues. Ideally, the words you choose will assist students in determining the poem’s meaning. I
use the following words: stanza 1: diverged, undergrowth; stanza 2: fair, claim; stanza 3:
trodden, doubted; stanza 4: hence
 Text-Based Questioning: Extrapolate meaning from each stanza of the poem by guiding
students through a series of text-based questions. I use the following questions:
Stanza 1: What decision is the speaker trying to make?

Stanza 2: How does the speaker feel about each road?
Stanza 3: Does the speaker think he will be able to travel both roads? Why or why not?
Stanza 4: Which road does the speaker choose to take?
INDEPENDENT PRACTICE OR COLLABORATION
 Depending on the skill level of your students, the literary analysis portion of the lesson can be
conducted independently or in small groups/pairs.
 Literary Analysis: Students dive deeper into “The Road Not Taken” by analyzing Frost’s use of
setting and symbolism. Each step is explained below.
Students define each literary device (setting and symbolism).

Students describe (in their own words) Frost’s use of each device in the poem.
Students provide textual evidence that supports their description of each literary device.
ASSESSMENT
 For the assessment to align with the lesson objectives, it will need to assess students on their
mastery of the pre-selected vocabulary terms, overall poem meaning, and use of setting and
symbolism.
 The structure of the assessment is up to you! I use a matching activity for vocabulary and
multiple choice questions for deeper meaning and literary devices.
APPLICATION
 Students write an organized paragraph describing a major decision they have made in the
past and how that decision affected their life. The use of a 4-point grading rubric will give
students a clear understanding of the paragraph expectations and ensure that they have
met the lesson objective. I use the following criteria in my grading rubric:
The decision is clearly stated.

A reason for making the decision is included.
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The impact of the decision is explained.
Paragraph is organized and logical.
Grammar and spelling are used correctly.
4. What is the aim of prose?
The aim of teaching English prose is for language development

and literary development both. But at the Junior Level, the chief aim is language
development. This means that emphasis should be given on the development of four
basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Thompson & Wyatt said,
‘To aim at literature is to miss the way to language. Aim at language is to pave
the way to literature.’
The aims of teaching prose may be divided into two:
(1) General Aims
1. To enable
the students to read
aloud prose lessons
with correct pronunciation stress, intonation and pause.
2. To enable the students to comprehend the thought

and idea contained in the passage.
3. To enrich their active and passive vocabulary.
4. To enable the students to express the ideas contained

in the passage orally and in writing.
5. To develop their interest for reading.
6. To enable them to write correctly.
7. To build their character and prepare for world citizenship.
(2) Specific Aims
The specific aims vary according to the subject matter of the prose lessons. The specific aims
of different types of prose lessons are:

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(a) Descriptive:
(i) To develop the student’s imagination and love for natural objects.
(ii) To acquaint the students with the writer’s style.
(b) Story
(i) To give certain facts and lessons through the story.

(ii) To shape the student’s character.
(iii) To develop interest for story reading.
(c) Essay
(i)To acquaint them with the style of essay writing.

(ii)To enable them to arrange the ideas in a systematic way.
(d) Play
(i) To make them speak conversational English.

(ii) To encourage the students to play different roles.,
(iii) To build their character.
(e) Biography
(i) To get students acquainted with the life and deeds of great men.
(ii) To inculcate in them desirable sentiments and ambitions.
(iii) To show them the path of character building.
Assessment:
Point out the appositions in this poem:
There are so many poems in my head

All wanting to be seen
And some are bright in silver lace,

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And some are plumed with green.
The gay and lovely ones pirouette

Like dancers in my mind
And others, frail and wistful nuns
Tread somberly behived.
Point out the structural features used

Still sits the school house by the road
And ragged beggar sleeping
Reject me not into the world again
With you alone is excellence and peace

Lead, kindly light amid the encircling gloom
Lead thou me on.
Module 3: Testing Literature
Lesson 1:Rationale of Literature Testing
1. How should the results of literature test be evaluated?
When interpreting results examine descriptive information such as tallies or counts;

percentages or frequencies of students receiving a given score or achieving a particular level;
mean or median scores on exams or signature assignments; and summaries of scores on
work products or performances. Examine comparative information such as external peer
norms or institutional norms; comparisons to previous findings; comparisons within or
between divisions; and comparisons among subgroups (i.e. year in program, student
demographics, academic concentration). Look for patterns; identify areas of strength;
identify areas of weakness. Consider changes or innovations that the program has
implemented recently and how these might affect results. Consider demographic or other
characteristics of the student group and how these might affect results. Look
at differences between groups, over time, with peers.

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2. What is the importance of testing literature?
General literature tests assess students’ knowledge on particular pieces of literature which
they are assigned for class. Such textual materials may include prose and/or poetry, and
teachers may ask students to focus on an individual work or multiple pieces simultaneously.
Tests like these are given to measure the progress and aptitude of students taking literature
classes.
Lesson 2:
Types of Literature Test
Activity :
Choose a reading passage from books or magazines and use it as a springboard for
literature tests. Prepare a set of tests for each level of questions in the Cognitive taxonomy
using the reading passage.
Erosion of America's farmland by wind and water has been a problem since settlers first put
the prairies and grasslands under the plow in the nineteenth century. By the 1930s, more
than 282 million acres of farmland were damaged by erosion. After 40 years of conservation
efforts, soil erosion has accelerated due to new demands placed on the land by heavy crop
production. In the years ahead, soil erosion and the pollution problems it causes are likely to
replace petroleum scarcity as the nation's most critical natural resource problem.
Knowledge
 "What is the problem stated in the passage?"
 "How would you describe the rate of damage over the years?"
 "Why did soil erosion accelerate?
 "Can you name the country affected in the passage?"
Comprehension
 "What facts or ideas show are presented to show that erosion is a big problem?"
 "How would you compare erosion effects from 10 years ago to today?"

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 "What or who is the main reason of the problem?
 "Can you explain what is happening in the passage?"
Application
 "What would result if we don’t prevent more erosions?"
 "What facts would you select to show that the problem is serious?"
 "What approach would you use to minimize or prevent erosion?"
 "How would you use social media to spread awareness of this issue?"
Analysis
 "What inference can you make with this passage?"
 "What is the relationship between the people and rate of erosion?"
 "What evidence can you find to see what causes erosion?"
 "What must the people of the world do to stop effects of erosion?"
Synthesis
 "What could be changed to improve the situation in America?"
 "How would you test if your approaches to erosion would be effective?"
 "What way would you do to convince other people to do the same?"
 "What outcome would you predict if everybody contributes?"
Evaluation
 "Can you defend your position on stopping erosion?"
 "How could you prove that your goal is for the better?"
 "What changes would you make to current solutions?"
 "Do you believe that your goal is feasible?”

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1. What is the role of literature in language testing?
It is clearly known that an ideal literary text with good quality can stimulate the
language learning among the readers and it can elicit a wide range of responses from
the learners which are facilitating for language learning. It can stimulate imagination
of the learners, make them use new beautiful words in their conversation .It helps
them to involve in various fruitful discussions. It creates personal involvement in the
learning process and brings out clear picture about different cultures and nationalities
by making them familiar with the norms and behaviors of the people and helps in
cultural enrichment.
2. What are the different types of literature tests?
1. Testing Literal Comprehension is a recall of details, main ideas, sequences, comparison,

cause and effect relationship, and character traits.
Objective Type
Recall of details: Identify the characters who said the lines in the specific story.
Sequence: Rearrange the order of events below as they happened in the story.
Essay Type
Comparisons: As described by the author, enumerate the contrasting characteristics of the

protagonist and the antagonist.
Character traits: Cite incidents in the story that show the strained relationship between the
couple.
2. Testing Reorganization – entails classifying, outlining, summarizing, and synthesizing ideas.
Objective Type
Classifying: Select the item that does not belong to the group.
Synthesizing: From the choices given, select the statement that expresses each of the
following selections' theme.
Essay Type
Outlining: Construct a topic outline of the essay providing at least three main heads and
several sub-heads.
Summarizing: Write a one-paragraph summary of the plot of the story.

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3. Testing Inference – inferential tests require students to use information explicitly stated in
the text along with personal experience and knowledge to conjecture and to form a
hypothesis
Test Include:
 Inferring supporting details  Character traits

 Main idea  Author’s organization
 Sequence  Predicting outcomes
 Comparisons  Interpreting figurative language
 Cause and effect relationship
Objective Type
Interpreting figurative language: Choose the best interpretation of the following symbolic
lines within the poem's context.
Inferring character traits: Math the adjectives that best describe the character's qualities, as
shown by his/her actions.
Essay Type
Predicting outcomes: What do you think is in store for Lumnay as the symbols at the end of
the story portend?
Inferring author’s organization: Why did Nick Joaquin use three generations in his story?
4. Testing Evaluation – tests require students to compare information and ideas in a text with
the instructor or other authorities' material and with the student's knowledge and experience
to form various kinds of judgments.
Tests include the judgment of:
 Reality and fantasy

 Fact or opinion
 Adequacy and validity
 Appropriateness
 Worth
 Desirability
 Acceptability
Objective Type
Judgment of fact or opinion:

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Essay Type
The judgment of fantasy and reality: Do the events in the story depict real-life situations, or
are they just products of the author's imagination? Explain.
The judgment of acceptability: Are the actions of the hero acceptable from the moral point of
view? Why or why not?

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Republic of the Philippines
Iloilo State College of Fisheries
DUMANGAS CAMPUS
Dumangas, Iloilo Registration No. 78Q13035
5. Testing Appreciation – requires students to articulate emotional and aesthetic responses to the
text based on personal and professional standards of literary forms, styles, genres, theories,
critical approaches.
Test Includes:
 Giving emotional response to the text

 Identifying with character or incidents
 Reacting to the author's or speaker's connotative and denotative use of language
 Reacting to imagery
Objective Type
 The author's connotative use of language: Select the underlined word's meaning in each
statement lifted from the story.
Essay Type
 Identifying with character or incidents: Which character in the story can you identify similarities?
Example: Are you responding emotionally to the text: How do you feel
towardsHamlet? Do you sympathize with him? Why or
why not?
6. Testing Appreciation – requires students to articulate emotional and aesthetic responses to the
text based on personal and professional standards of literary forms, styles, genres, theories,
critical approaches.
Test Includes:
 Giving emotional response to the text

 Identifying with character or incidents
 Reacting to the author's or speaker's connotative and denotative use of language
 Reacting to imagery
Objective Type
 The author's connotative use of language: Select the underlined word's meaning in each
statement lifted from the story.
Essay Type
 Identifying with character or incidents: Which character in the story can you identify similarities?
Example: Are you responding emotionally to the text: How do you feel
towards Hamlet? Do you sympathize with him? Why or why
not?

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3. How should the results of literature tests be evaluated?
 Literary analysis questions may call on a student’s ability to interpret a particular passage or
segment of a piece. Such questions may involve recognizing references and allusions, tone and
meaning, identifying genres and conventions, grammatical structures and rhetorical strategies.
 Identification questions may require a student’s recognition of author and publishing date, as
well as recalling content material such as particular elements of plot.
 Cultural and historical context questions may ask a student to identify and further explicate the
specific literary, cultural, and intellectual history of a work. Such questions may also require a
student to provide biographical information about the author or give important background
details regarding the piece’s setting. For instance, a student may have to classify what features
define a piece that belongs to the Victorian Era or Medieval Period, or establish whether a piece
is of British or American origin.
 History and theory of literary criticism questions may include identification and analysis of the
methods and characteristics of different theoretical and critical approaches.
 Compare and contrast questions will ask students to examine two or more texts simultaneously,
pointing to the similarities and differences of such elements as style, language, theme, or
content.
4. What are the disadvantages of essay test?
Essays are (very) time-consuming to grade. To garner the full benefits of including essays on
your tests, you must allot sufficient time to read and comment on the students' responses.
Simply scanning a response and assigning it a numerical grade will not close the learning cycle.
Students quickly learn how to study for your exams! If they perceive that you fail to grade their
responses adequately (as indicated by your written comments and suggestions), students will
not bother to study at a higher level for the next test, but will instead return to memorizing facts.
Sometimes an essay question is not representative of the content covered. An example: In an
introductory course in human physiology, which has just covered blood, the circulatory system,
and the immune system, seven of the ten essay questions are about the circulatory system.
If you use essays, you must use course objectives to determine the content of the questions. By
referring to objectives, you will not make the mistake of focusing too narrowly on one aspect of
content.
The essay exam often has grading reliability problems. Unlike the multiple-choice format, the
essay is a subjective form of evaluation. And teachers often introduce biases into their grading. If
you know whose paper is being evaluated, the grade may reflect personal feelings for that
student, or may reflect influence from past grades. For example, if the student received an A on
a past exam, you may tend to give a higher grade than is actually deserved on this exam (and
vice versa if a student had received an F). Also, grades given on first papers may differ
significantly from those that are graded later. Other influences include your general mood and
stress level at the time of grading, the time of day, and your feelings about the subject of the
essay.
Lesson 3: Format of Literature Test
Activity .

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1. Construct 5 multiple choices, matching type, and true or false test on any literary text.
The Road Not Taken
Multiple Choice
What is the setting for the poem?
a. A Winter Day
b. An Autumn Day
At the beginning of "The Road Not Taken," what decision does the speaker face?
a) which road to take

b) where to eat lunch
c) whether to go forward or turn back
d) whether to keep walking or stop and rest
What do the following lines from "The Road Not Taken" mean?
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler,
a) The speaker thinks both paths are equally good.

b) The speaker is only one person and cannot go down two roads at the same time.
c) The speaker would rather travel with someone, so they could each explore a path.
d) The speaker regrets not taking the other road at the start.
What is the difference between the two roads in "The Road Not Taken"?
a) one road is a bit wider

b) one road has a better view
c) one road is slightly less traveled
d) one road is slightly less shady
What does the speaker mean in these lines?

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
a) After choosing the first road, the speaker will return and go down the other road.
b) The speaker does not like to travel in the same part of the woods more than once.
c) The speaker likes to walk in the woods alone and knows the way very well.
d) After choosing the first road, the speaker will not return to go down the other road.
Matching Type
Directions: Match the vocabulary word and its definition. Write the letter of the correct
answer on the line provided.

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_____ 1. from this time a. claim
_____ 2. Walked on b. diverged
_____ 3. promising; favorable c. fair
_____ 4. Branched off; moved in different directions d. hence
_____ 5. Demand or right d. trodden
_____ 6. Small trees and plants growing beneath larger trees e. undergrowth
True or False
1. Robert George is the author of The Road not Taken

2. The poem is a story about a whale
3. The character in the poem must choose between three roads
4. The character chose the road not taken
5. Our choices will have an effect on our lives
1. Give at least three strengths of matching type format .
2. Best “the amount of course material covered to the amount of time spent to construct the
questions” ratio.
3. Allow for great flexibility and accuracy in counting the learners’ scores.
4. Give an objective assessment of the learners’ knowledge.
5. At their most useful when used in areas mostly dealing with facts.
6. Least chance of guessing the correct answer compared to other question types.
2. What are the two types of testing?

Oral literature test- challenge the speaking and listening skills of the students.
Written literature test – demands skills in reading and writing.
3. Give the three formats of Literature test and briefly discuss each.
Multiple Choice
A multiple-choice question (MCQ) is composed of two parts: a stem that identifies the question
or problem, and a set of alternatives or possible answers that contain a key that is the best
answer to the question, and a number of distractors that are plausible but incorrect answers to
the question. Students respond to MCQs by indicating the alternative that they believe best
answers or completes the stem. There are many advantages to using MCQs for assessment. One
key advantage is that the questions are easy to mark and can even be scored by a computer,
which makes them an attractive assessment approach for large classes. Well designed MCQs
allow testing for a wide breadth of content and objectives and provide an objective
measurement of student ability.

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Matching Type
Matching test questions measure the student’s ability to connect words, complete sentences, or
pair words with their definition. The matching test format consists of two columns, including one
with a definition or phrase, and another with a word, number, or symbol. Teachers refer to each
item in the first column as the premises, or the questions involved in the matching tests.
Likewise, instructors refer to the answers in the second column as responses in the matching
tests. Teachers everywhere agree that learners should select the correct response in the second
column to its corresponding premises in the first. Conventional matching tests usually have
items in the first column numbered and items in the second column labeled with alphabetical
letters.
True or False
In a traditional true/false question, students are asked to judge whether a factual statement is
either true or false. True/false questions are best suited to assessing surface level knowledge,
but can be crafted to assess higher order thinking. Like multiple choice, students can process
and respond to true/false quickly, allowing the test designer to assess more content areas in an
exam. They are also easy and quick to mark. However, traditional multiple choice is thought to
be superior to true/false for several reasons, including:
 Students have a higher probability of guessing the right answer in True/False responses
 True/false questions offer little insight into why students may answer incorrectly
 True/false questions are necessarily absolute; it can be difficult to write questions that are
unambiguously true or false.
Lesson 4.The Use of Rubrics in Testing
Activity.
Create a rubrics for a stage play, do a 5 criteria 3 level one.

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Assessment:
1. What are the steps in creating a rubrics? Discuss each step.
Step 1: Define Your Goal
Before you can create a rubric, you need to decide the type of rubric you'd like to use, and that
will largely be determined by your goals for the assessment.
Ask yourself the following questions:
1. How detailed do I want my feedback to be?

2. How will I break down my expectations for this project?
3. Are all of the tasks equally important?
4. How do I want to assess performance?
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5. What standards must the students hit in order to achieve acceptable or exceptional
performance?
6. Do I want to give one final grade on the project or a cluster of smaller grades based on several
criteria?
7. Am I grading based on the work or on participation? Am I grading on both?
Once you've figured out how detailed you'd like the rubric to be and the goals you are trying to
reach, you can choose a type of rubric.
Step 2: Choose a Rubric Type

Although there are many variations of rubrics, it can be helpful to at least have a standard set to
help you decide where to start.
1. Analytic Rubric: This is the standard grid rubric that many teachers routinely use to assess
students' work. This is the optimal rubric for providing clear, detailed feedback. With an analytic
rubric, criteria for the students' work is listed in the left column and performance levels are
listed across the top. The squares inside the grid will typically contain the specs for each level. A
rubric for an essay, for example, might contain criteria like "Organization, Support, and Focus,"
and may contain performance levels like "(4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, (2) Developing, and (1)
Unsatisfactory." The performance levels are typically given percentage points or letter grades
and a final grade is typically calculated at the end. The scoring rubrics for the ACT and SAT are
designed this way, although when students take them, they will receive a holistic score.
2. Holistic Rubric: This is the type of rubric that is much easier to create, but much more difficult
to use accurately. Typically, a teacher provides a series of letter grades or a range of numbers (1-
4 or 1-6, for example) and then assigns expectations for each of those scores. When grading, the
teacher matches the student work in its entirety to a single description on the scale. This is
useful for grading multiple essays, but it does not leave room for detailed feedback on student
work.
Step 3: Determine Your Criteria
This is where the learning objectives for your unit or course come into play. Here, you'll need to
brainstorm a list of knowledge and skills you would like to assess for the project. Group them
according to similarities and get rid of anything that is not absolutely critical. A rubric with too
much criteria is difficult to use! Try to stick with 4-7 specific subjects for which you'll be able to
create unambiguous, measurable expectations in the performance levels. You'll want to be able
to spot the criteria quickly while grading and be able to explain them quickly when instructing
your students. In an analytic rubric, the criteria are typically listed along the left column.
Step 4: Create Your Performance Levels
Once you have determined the broad levels you would like students to demonstrate mastery of,
you will need to figure out what type of scores you will assign based on each level of mastery.
Most ratings scales include between three and five levels. Some teachers use a combination of
numbers and descriptive labels like "(4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, etc." while other teachers
simply assign numbers, percentages, letter grades or any combination of the three for each
level. You can arrange them from highest to lowest or lowest to highest as long as your levels
are organized and easy to understand.
Step 5: Write Descriptors for Each Level of Your Rubric
This is probably your most difficult step in creating a rubric.Here, you will need to write short
statements of your expectations underneath each performance level for every single criteria.
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The descriptions should be specific and measurable. The language should be parallel to help
with student comprehension and the degree to which the standards are met should be
explained.
Again, to use an analytic essay rubric as an example, if your criteria was "Organization" and you
used the (4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, (2) Developing, and (1) Unsatisfactory scale, you would
need to write the specific content a student would need to produce to meet each level. It could
look something like this:
4 3 2 1 Unsatisfactory
Exceptional Satisfactory Developing
OrganizationOrganization is Organization is Organization is Organization is

coherent, coherent and unified coherent in confused and
unified, and in support of the support of the fragmented. It does
effective in paper’s purpose and essay’s purpose, not support the
support of the usually demonstrates but is ineffective at essay’s purpose and
paper’s purpose effective and times and may demonstrates a
and appropriate demonstrate lack of structure or
consistently transitions between abrupt or weak coherence that
demonstrates ideas and paragraphs. transitions between negatively
effective and ideas or affects readability.
appropriate paragraphs.
transitions
between ideas
and paragraphs.
A holistic rubric would not break down the essay's grading criteria with such precision. The top
two tiers of a holistic essay rubric would look more like this:
 6 = Essay demonstrates excellent composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking

thesis, appropriate and effective organization, lively and convincing supporting materials,
effective diction and sentence skills, and perfect or near perfect mechanics including spelling
and punctuation. The writing perfectly accomplishes the objectives of the assignment.
 5 = Essay contains strong composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking thesis, but
development, diction, and sentence style may suffer minor flaws. The essay shows careful and
acceptable use of mechanics. The writing effectively accomplishes the goals of the assignment.
Step 6: Revise Your Rubric

After creating the descriptive language for all of the levels (making sure it is parallel, specific and
measurable), you need to go back through and limit your rubric to a single page. Too many
parameters will be difficult to assess at once, and may be an ineffective way to assess students'
mastery of a specific standard. Consider the effectiveness of the rubric, asking for student
understanding and co-teacher feedback before moving forward. Do not be afraid to revise as
necessary. It may even be helpful to grade a sample project in order to gauge the effectiveness
of your rubric. You can always adjust the rubric if need be before handing it out, but once it's
distributed, it will be difficult to retract.
2. How do you score an essay test?

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Scoring the Essay Item
One of the downfalls of essay tests is that they lack in reliability. Even when teachers grade
essays with a well-constructed rubric, subjective decisions are made. Therefore, it is important to
try and be as reliable as possible when scoring your essay items. Here are a few tips to help
improve reliability in grading:
1. Determine whether you will use a holistic or analytic scoring system before you write
your rubric. With the holistic grading system, you evaluate the answer as a whole, rating papers
against each other. With the analytic system, you list specific pieces of information and award
points for their inclusion.
2. Prepare the essay rubric in advance. Determine what you are looking for and how many points
you will be assigning for each aspect of the question.
3. Avoid looking at names. Some teachers have students put numbers on their essays to try and
help with this.
4. Score one item at a time. This helps ensure that you use the same thinking and standards for all
students.
5. Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question. Again, consistency will be increased if you
grade the same item on all the papers in one sitting.
6. If an important decision like an award or scholarship is based on the score for the essay, obtain
two or more independent readers.
7. Beware of negative influences that can affect essay scoring. These include handwriting and
writing style bias, the length of the response, and the inclusion of irrelevant material.
8. Review papers that are on the borderline a second time before assigning a final grade.
3. What is the purpose and use of rubrics in evaluating authentic assessments?
Rubrics are multidimensional sets of scoring guidelines that can be used to provide consistency
in evaluating student work. They spell out scoring criteria so that multiple teachers, using the
same rubric for a student's essay, for example, would arrive at the same score or grade.
Rubrics are used from the initiation to the completion of a student project. They provide a
measurement system for specific tasks and are tailored to each project, so as the projects
become more complex, so do the rubrics.
Rubrics are great for students: they let students know what is expected of them, and demystify
grades by clearly stating, in age-appropriate vocabulary, the expectations for a project. They also
help students see that learning is about gaining specific skills (both in academic subjects and in
problem-solving and life skills), and they give students the opportunity to do self-assessment to
reflect on the learning process.
Rubrics also help teachers authentically monitor a student's learning process and develop and
revise a lesson plan. They provide a way for a student and a teacher to measure the quality of a
body of work. When a student's assessment of his or her work and a teacher's assessment don't
agree, they can schedule a conference to let the student explain his or her understanding of the
content and justify the method of presentation.
4. The Role of Rubrics in Testing and Teaching

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The Role of Rubrics in Testing and Teaching booklet turns rubrics inside out and reveals them as
an incredibly helpful tool in the effort to teach students of all ages in a variety of subjects and
assess their learning, progress, and performance.
Lesson 5: MI Approach for Testing Literature
1. Why multiple intelligence test is important?
The multiple intelligence theory can draw students back into learning. Using the different
intelligences to teach a concept allows each of your diverse learners a chance to succeed at
learning. The learner with strength in the visual-spatial intelligence will do well with drawing
and puzzles. Students with strength in the linguistic intelligence would do well with a written
report over a reading assignment, while those dominant in interpersonal intelligence excel at
classroom discussions of what was read. As students feel success in learning, problem
behavior decreases. Teaching to a student's strength helps increase learning success.
By using a variety of teaching strategies across the multiple intelligences, the teacher can
assess or measure student learning. The assessment could be a written or oral test, original
artwork by the student, a building task or some other activity which gives the teacher an idea
of how well the student learned the new concept. For instance, after successfully assembling a
small engine, students in a technical college could be assessed by developing a how-to manual
complete with verbal instructions and diagrams. In this example, students learn by building the
engine tapping into the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, while the assessment of a written
manual with diagrams draws on linguistic and visual-spatial intelligences. The teacher can then
measure how well students mastered the concept by the completeness and accuracy of the
written manual while students tapped into three intelligences to learn and master the concept.
2. How do the multiple intelligences affect the assessment practice?
Assessing multiple intelligences should be as diverse as the learning styles themselves. Teachers
should be aware that testing in one way, such as an essay, will naturally play to the strength of
some learners, such as linguistics, and weakness of others, such as spatial learners. Consider
eliminating traditional methods of testing when determining multiple intelligences of your
students, and instead supplement with authentic assessments.
Keep the following in mind when considering assessments:
 Variety - Because your learners are unique, their response to testing will be also. Use different
tools, procedures, and instruments to assess.
 Give it time - Look at this process as a gathering of evidence, not a one-and-done assessment.
 You're never finished - Think you've figured out which learning style a student is? Chances are,
he or she has characteristics of many and will show those strengths during differing tasks.
 Build a team - Having a team of professionals who are part of the process gives opportunities for
many objective eyes to determine strengths and weaknesses.

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To use the theory of multiple intelligences successfully, teachers must first understand what
type of intelligence students are. Each domain has particular characteristics teachers can use to
determine how to best instruct students.
Assessment:
1. How can multiple intelligences benefit learners?
The MI theory is a vital one when it comes to equipping students with a better understanding of
how they learn. In a typical classroom environment, a single learning style is usually
encouraged — one that suits primarily learners with a high verbal-linguistic (reading and writing)
intelligence. But by helping learners identify which type of intelligence suits them, they can adapt
the content to their learning style to help them grasp the material, even if it’s taught in a
different way. For example, learners with a high musical intelligence can put together a rhyme to
help them learn, or students with a high visual-spatial intelligence could create drawings of
concepts to help.
This can also help students overcome learning difficulties with specific subjects that they may
traditionally consider themselves weak at. By helping them overcome these hurdles, students
may find themselves motivated and enthusiastic about subjects that they previously struggled
with.
2. How do MI influence teaching and learning?
What makes the Multiple Intelligences Theory strong and useful in a classroom is the fact that it
can be used for any subject and at any level. Each student comes to a classroom as an individual
who has developed a different type of intelligence. This means that each student has their own
intelligence superiorities and weaknesses. Called a learning style, these intelligence domains
determine how easily or difficultly a student can learn through a specific teaching method.
There can be more than one learning style present in a classroom. To balance learning styles
and subject matter, a teacher should show students how to understand a subject which
addresses one of their weak intelligence domains by applying their most developed intelligence
domain. For instance, a student who has highly-developed musical intelligence can be asked to
learn about a war and what happened during that war by making up a song about it (Temur,
2007).
Moreover, students who apply their strong fields of intelligences in learning activities can learn a
subject that they used to hate with joy and without pressure. As another example, mathematics
is considered to be a tough subject for many students due to the abstract concepts they have to
learn. However, when such concepts are explained through a learning activity that implements
students’ intelligences, students will find it more interesting and more fun because it is given as
something they love to do. Students can learn mathematics by drawing, dancing, blogging, and
much more. A whole curriculum can be created with activities based on multiple intelligences in
a way that develops different fields of intelligences for each student; such curriculum will be
more student-centered. Students will then discover the best ways by which they’re able to
receive information.

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Module 4: Test Construction
Lesson 1: Preparing Table of Specification
1. How important is the table of specification in writing a test?
The table of specifications (TOS) is a tool used to ensure that a test or assessment measures the
content and thinking skills that the test intends to measure. Thus, when used appropriately, it
can provide response content and construct (i.e., response process) validity evidence. A TOS may
be used for large-scale test construction, classroom-level assessments by teachers, and
psychometric scale development. It is a foundational tool in designing tests or measures for
research and educational purposes.
The primary purpose of a TOS is to ensure alignment between the items or elements of an
assessment and the content, skills, or constructs that the assessment intends to assess.
2. Develop a 20- item test on literary skills on the passage “ The Road Not taken”.
1. Why does the poet say he shall tell people "this with a sigh"? Why do you think the final stanza
starts with a sigh?
2. Bring out the symbolism in the poem "The Road Not Taken"
3. The road is used as a metaphor for life in this poem. Can you think of another metaphor and
explain why that has been used to describe life.
4. What does the narrator mean by "a yellow wood"?
5. What choice did the narrator have to make?
6. What does the narrator regret?
7. What did the narrator see in the wood?
8. In this poem, Robert Frost is comparing a path through the woods to what?
9. What does trodden mean here: "And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had
trodden black?
10.The poet says, "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." Have you
ever taken a road "less traveled"? If so, did it make a difference to you? How?
11.Give ONE reason why it was hard for the speaker to decide which road to take.
12."Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back." Explain this
quote in your own words. Do you agree with the speaker? Explain why or why not.
13.The poem ends: "And that has made all of the difference." This quote describes how the
speaker will relate to his decision later on in life. How does he think he will feel about his
decision?
14.The last stanza begins: "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages
hence:" a. Why do you think the speaker will be "telling this with a sigh"?
15.What connection can we make between this quote and the title of the poem?
16."Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one who
is willing to do and dare. The 'sure thing' boat never gets far from shore." - Dale Carnegie,
American writer Make a connection between the above quote and the poem. Give information
from the poem to support your answer.
17."In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves... And the choices we
make are ultimately our own responsibility." – Eleanor Roosevelt Make a connection

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between the above quote and the poem. Give information from the poem to support
your answer.
18.Robert Frost said that "The Road Not Taken" was written about a friend of his who,
whatever road he went on, was sorry that he hadn't chosen another. How does this quote
help you understand the poem?
19."Frost uses nature as a background. He usually begins a poem with an observation of
something in nature and then moves toward a connection to some human situation." – The
Pastoral Art of Robert Frost by John F. Lynen Explain how the above quote adds to your
understanding of the poem.
20.. Some people say the poem is about regret. Why do you think they say that? Support your
answer with information from the poem.
1. Explain why is it necessary to create table of specification (TOS) in preparing and creating
exams?
The purpose of a Table of Specifications is to identify the achievement domains being

measured and to ensure that a fair and representative sample of questions appear on the
test. Teachers cannot measure every topic or objective and cannot ask every question
they might wish to ask. A Table of Specifications allows the teacher to construct a test
which focuses on the key areas and weights those different areas based on their
importance. A Table of Specifications provides the teacher with evidence that a test
has content validity, that it covers what should be covered.
2. How important is the table of specification in writing a test?
Tables of Specifications can help students at all ability levels learn better. By providing
the table to students during instruction, students can recognize the main ideas, key skills,
and the relationships among concepts more easily. The Table of Specifications can act in
the same way as a concept map to analyze content areas. Teachers can even collaborate
with students on the construction of the Table of Specifications- what are the main ideas
and topics, what emphasis should be placed on each topic, what should be on the test?
Open discussion and negotiation of these issues can encourage higher levels of
understanding while also modeling good learning and study skills.
Lesson 2: Test Construction
Assessment:
1. How do you write a test essay?
 Begin with the lesson objectives in mind. Make sure to know what you wish the student to show
by answering the essay question.
 Decide if your goal requires a restricted or extended response. In general, if you wish to see if
the student can synthesize and organize the information that they learned, then restricted
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response is the way to go. However, if you wish them to judge or evaluate something using the
information taught during class, then you will want to use the extended response.
 If you are including more than one essay, be cognizant of time constraints. You do not want to
punish students because they ran out of time on the test.
 Write the question in a novel or interesting manner to help motivate the student.
 State the number of points that the essay is worth. You can also provide them with a time
guideline to help them as they work through the exam.
 If your essay item is part of a larger objective test, make sure that it is the last item on the exam.
2. How do you write test questions?
Choosing a Test Format

Before you begin to write test questions, you need to determine which type of test format
you are going to utilize. The most common test formats include multiple choice questions,
true or false questions, fill in the blank questions and open-ended questions. Choose the
format that best measures the student's cognitive ability in the given subject matter.
For example, if you want the student to compare and contrast an issue taught during a
history lesson, open ended questions may be the best option to evaluate the student's
understanding of the subject matter. If you are seeking to measure the student's
reasoning skills, analysis skills or general comprehension of a subject matter, consider
selecting primarily multiple choice test questions. Or, for a varied approach, utilize a
combination of all available test question types so that you can appeal to the learning
strengths of any student on an exam.
Another factor to consider when selecting a test format is how much time the students
will have available to take the test and then also how long you will have to score them. For
larger classrooms, essay format or open ended question format test questions will be
more difficult to manage both the student's time and your own as you grade them. So,
take into consideration both the objectives of the test and the overall time available for
taking and scoring your tests when selecting the best format. Once you have selected the
test format, you will need to write good test questions to utilize within the test structure.
Multiple Choice Questions
Multiple choice questions offer the most flexibility to the teacher as they can formulate a
variety of test question structures. Multiple choice questions are a great way to test a
student's comprehension level of a particular subject matter. But, they can often be the
most difficult and time consuming for the teacher to construct. They comprise of a test
question stem and several available options for the student to select from as their
answer.
Here are some ideas to utilize when constructing multiple choice test questions:
 Don't use excessive wording when creating the test question stem. Be clear and concise in your
word and phrase choices.
 Make sure that there is only one clearly correct answer from the options given to the student.
 Provide between 3-5 plausible choices for the student to select from as their answer
 Minimize the use of 'all of the above' or 'none of the above' question answers.
 Randomly distribute the correct answer options i.e. A, B, C, D etc so that there is not a clear
pattern that becomes obvious to the student
 Be sure to use test questions that test knowledge, application, comprehension, analysis and
evaluation throughout your test to get the best overall sense of the student's understanding
and mastery of a subject matter
True or False Questions
True and false questions are best used when you are looking to test a student's recall
ability of specific facts or knowledge. Keep the following tips in mind when creating true
or false test questions:

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 Make sure that the answer is clear and that it could not be either or
 Try not to use negative questions such as 'this novel was not written by...." but instead use 'this
novel was written by...."
 Use a random order of true and false responses with your test questions to avoid creating a
pattern
 Use more false questions than true questions as they have been proven to cater towards
higher cognitive level students
Fill-in-the-Blank Questions
Fill in the blank questions require the student to know the correct answer rather than
having the ability to guess from a list of possible answers. Here are some tips to consider
when writing good fill in the blank test questions:
 Ensure that there is only one possible correct answer to avoid confusion and difficulty grading
 Blanks should come at the end or as close to the end of the question or statement as possible
 Questions should recall important information taught within the lesson plans
Open-Ended Questions
Open ended or essay format questions are excellent for measuring higher level cognitive
learning and overall comprehension of a subject. They allow the student to select content
for their response, to organize their thoughts in a logical manner and to present their
ideas on a given subject matter. Overall, these types of test questions allow the teacher to
test the student's broader understanding of a subject matter. And, these types of
questions are often more applicable to real life situations that the student may be
presented with in the future.
When writing good open-ended questions, keep the following tips in mind:
 Be sure that the test question clearly states the answer that you are seeking from the student.
For example, 'discuss the recent election outcome' is a poor test question. But, worded as
'describe the potential positive and negative impacts that Barack Obama's recent election win
for president could have on the US's economy' is a better test question as it clearly gives the
student something to compare and contrast within a focused area, the US economy.
 If you are requiring the student to prepare a longer essay (2-3 pages), include several questions
that are intended to be in addition to the primary question for the student to respond to rather
than only a single question to answer.
 If you are looking to test comprehension, a good opening line for the test question is, 'Explain
the following..."
 If you are seeking to test the student's ability to analyze a concept, a good opening phrase for
your test question is, 'compare and contrast....."
 Don't give students the option to pick 2 or 3 questions from among 5. This can add confusion
for the students and complexity for the teacher when grading for a classroom. How can you
accurately compare students to each other when they have answered different test questions?
When creating good test questions, first be sure that you have selected the best format
for what skills or concepts you are seeking to test for. Then, take your time to construct
the best possible test questions using the tips mentioned above.
3. What are the purposes of test construction?
Test development or test construction refers to the science and art of planning, preparing,
administering, scoring, statistically analyzing, and reporting results of tests. This article
emphasizes a systematic process used to develop tests in order to maximize validity evidence
for scores resulting from those tests.
Lesson 3: Test Administration

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1. How do you analyze a test question?
1. Read the whole question twice
2. Look for topic words
Topic words are easy to locate. They tell you what you have to write about. But be careful as you
may only have to write about some aspect of this topic. Never stop here! Go to the next step
(restricting words).
3. Look for any words that may restrict the topic in any way
Restricting words are words or phrases that narrow the topic and make it more specific, i.e. this
is the part of the broad topic that the lecturer wants you to investigate—you will only be given
marks on subject matter that is restricted to the aspect of the topic.
4. Look for instruction words
Instruction words are words that tell you what to do. Be careful with these. If the lecturer wants
you to describe, your answer will not be the same as when you are asked to critically assess. The
ASO factsheet: Analyzing the question gives you a number of common instruction words and
shows you what they mean. Be careful:
Words such as what, how and why can also be used, and you will have to interpret the specific
meaning behind the question
Two or more instruction words in a question means that you will have to answer each part of the
question.
5. Rewrite the question in your own words.
Rewriting the question in your own words is a good way of making sure that you have
understood the question, BUT you must stay close to the original question. Then, you need to
match your version to the original—if you have any doubts about your interpretation, check with
your lecturer.
2. What are the steps in test administration?
Once the items, directions, and answer key have been written, the teacher should consider the
manner in which the test will be presented in advance. Factors such as duplication, visual aids,
and use of the blackboard should be considered in advance to insure clarity in presentation as
well as to avoid technical difficulties.
Establish Classroom Policy
Because discipline is a major factor in test administration, the teacher must establish a
classroom policy concerning such matters as tardiness, absences, make-ups, leaving the room,
and cheating (see Classroom Management). The teacher must also advise students of
procedural rules such as:
° What to do if they have any questions.
° What to do when they are finished taking the test.
° What to do if they run out of paper, need a new pen, etc.

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° What to do if they run out of time.

The teacher should always be aware of the effect of testing conditions on testing outcomes.
Physical shortcomings should be alleviated wherever possible. If some students cannot see the
blackboard, they should be allowed to move to a better location. If students are cramped into
benches, more benches should be brought in and students should be spread out. If this is not
possible, two separate tests can be written and distributed to students on an alternating basis.
Similarly, psychological conditions can inhibit optimal performance. Such factors as motivation,
test anxiety, temporary states (everyone has a bad day once in a while), and long-term changes
can profoundly effect the test-taker and therefore his/her performance on the test. It is
therefore the teacher's responsibility to establish an official, yet not oppressive, atmosphere in
the testing room to maximize student performance.
Assessment:
1. How do you evaluate learners' performance?
Though students will work on different activities and demonstrate their knowledge through a
variety of products, teachers can accurately evaluate student performance using one of several
recommended methods:
 Rubrics: A rubric is an objective set of guidelines that defines the criteria used to score or grade
an assignment. It describes the requirements of the assignment and clearly outlines the points
the student will receive based on the quality of his or her work. Teachers can give students the
rubric in advance to help them understand the requirements and expectations for the
assignment. Even if the students are completing a variety of products to demonstrate their
knowledge of the same content or skill, teachers can use the same rubric for grading all of the
students’ products.
 Portfolios: A portfolio is a collection of artifacts, or individual work samples, that represent a
student’s performance over a period of time. In general, this type of assessment allows teachers
to more accurately evaluate a student’s mastery of content or a skill than a single assessment
such as a test that captures one moment in time. A portfolio also allows a student to reflect on
his or her performance over time and to perhaps establish future goals.
 Self-assessment: Student self-assessment is the process of students using specific criteria to
evaluate and reflect on their own work. In doing so, students become more responsible for their
own learning and may be more prepared to work with the teacher to develop individual learning
goals. For students to effectively evaluate their own work, teachers should provide them criteria
to evaluate themselves against.
2. Are exams the best way to evaluate students? Prove your answer.
As a college student, tests can dominate your entire education experience. They probably should,
considering the fact that they can sometimes account for half of your entire grade. Since we spend
all of this time studying for, stressing about and taking tests, I think we should ask ourselves the
question: Are tests actually a good way to measure a student’s knowledge?
Personally, I think that they are a great way to measure a student’s knowledge, but only at the time
when the test is taken. Think about it: how often do you have cram-sessions in hopes of memorizing
all of the necessary material in the days leading up to a test, only to “brain dump” all of the things
that you learned the second after you turn in the exam?
If you’re anything like me, you probably do it pretty often. That’s a great strategy if you want nothing
more than a solid test grade, but it is not a great way to ensure that you retain the information that
you’ve spent hours studying. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but we should care about the knowledge
we obtain more than we care about our grade, not the other way around.
As much as you can blame the student for having their priorities twisted, you also have to blame the
practice of giving tests itself. When taking a test, a student has no incentive to do anything outside of
what is necessary to ensure that their desired grade is made. With that in mind, shouldn’t instructors

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be encouraged to use practices to measure students’ knowledge that makes them want to learn the
information in such a way that they will actually retain it?
I think that should be the case, and there are virtually an endless amount of ways that you can
measure a student’s knowledge.
One of the more popular ways to do this is by assigning essays. I know, most of us let out a massive
groan every time that we hear that we have been assigned an essay. However, I think that this is a
great way to measure what a student knows while ensuring that they actually become relatively
knowledgeable in the topic at hand. On top of being a surefire way to make sure that students retain
a large amount of what they’ve learned, it is also very efficient. When you write an essay, you’re not
spending hours upon hours pouring over a textbook like you would before a test. Instead you’re
spending maybe an hour or two gathering the information necessary to write the essay before
expanding on that information using your own original thoughts. What better way to make a concept
stick with a student than making them think and write about those concepts critically?
Another tried and true way to evaluate student’s knowledge in this way is with a presentation. When
you hear presentation, your mind probably jumps to the boring PowerPoint presentations that you
had to sit through during your ninth grade world history class. While this certainly is one mode of
presentation, there are a variety of other ways you can have students present information, such as
video presentations or speeches. These are not only ways that allow students to use their creative
side to absorb and display information, but the change of pace that comes from hearing information
coming from one of your peers can also do wonders for the audience when done properly.
Now, those are only a couple of different ways that you can evaluate a student’s knowledge without
testing, but I think that they sufficiently got my point across. Everyone has their own unique set of
talents and weaknesses, and students are no different. It is time that we start treating them as such.
Lesson 4: Scoring
Activity:
1. What are the disadvantages of test?
Standardized testing can be predictable.

Students who are aware of patterns can determine what the answers to a standardized test
could be by only knowing a handful of answers with certainty. This predictability reflects the
natural human bias that occurs in every action or reaction we have in any endeavor. It also
means test scores can be high without reflecting student understanding. Brookings found that
up to 80% of test score improvements in test scores can have nothing to do with long-term
learning changes.
They assume that all students start from the same point of understanding.
Standardized tests may allow for a direct comparison of data, but they do not account for
differences in the students who are taking the tests. In the US, standardized tests could be
considered discriminatory in some regions because they assume that the student is a first-
language English speaker. Students who have special needs, learning disabilities, or have other
challenges which are addressed by an Individualized Education Plan may also be at a
disadvantage when taking a standardized test compared to those who do not have those
concerns.
Standardized tests only look at raw comprehension data.
Students learn in a variety of ways. People have many different strengths that may not be
reflected in the context of a standardized test. Traits like creativity, enthusiasm, empathy,
curiosity, or resourcefulness cannot be tracked by these tests, even though they are highly
desirable traits in modern careers. A standardized test could determine the knowledge a student
has about musical theory, but it cannot judge the quality of a composition that a student might
create.
Teacher evaluations have been tied to standardized test results.
Many teachers are being evaluated on the work that their students do on a standardized test.
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Based on the classroom grades achieved, a teacher might receive a raise or be fired from their
job. This creates a host of learning problems. For starters, only the students who are performing
poorly on testing simulations receive a majority of the attention from the teacher, leaving good
students to fend for themselves. Teachers then begin to “teach to the test” instead of teaching
subject materials to obtain needed results. This creates a reduction of higher-order thinking,
reduces complex assignments, and prevents cognitive understanding.
Standardized tests narrow the curriculum.
According to the Center on Education Policy, from 2001-2007, school districts in the United
States reduced the amount of time spent on social studies, creative subjects, and science by
over 40%. This results in the average student losing more than 2 hours of instruction time in
these areas so that they can focus on subjects that are on standardized tests, such as reading
and math.
More time is spent on test preparation instead of actual learning.
Many school districts, especially those with lower test scores, spend more classroom time on
test preparation than learning the curriculum. In 2010, New York City took the extraordinary
measure of including 2.5-hour test preparation sessions on scheduled school vacation days.
The advantages and disadvantages of standardized testing show that it can be a useful tool for
student evaluation, but only when it is used correctly. Like any system, it can be abused by those
who are looking for shortcuts. That is why each key point must be carefully considered before
implementing or making changes to a plan of standardized testing.
2. Can essay test be scored reliably?
One of the downfalls of essay tests is that they lack in reliability. Even when teachers grade
essays with a well-constructed rubric, subjective decisions are made. Therefore, it is important to
try and be as reliable as possible when scoring your essay items. Here are a few tips to help
improve reliability in grading:
1. Determine whether you will use a holistic or analytic scoring system before you write
your rubric. With the holistic grading system, you evaluate the answer as a whole, rating papers
against each other. With the analytic system, you list specific pieces of information and award
points for their inclusion.
2. Prepare the essay rubric in advance. Determine what you are looking for and how many points
you will be assigning for each aspect of the question.
3. Avoid looking at names. Some teachers have students put numbers on their essays to try and
help with this.
4. Score one item at a time. This helps ensure that you use the same thinking and standards for all
students.
5. Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question. Again, consistency will be increased if you
grade the same item on all the papers in one sitting.
6. If an important decision like an award or scholarship is based on the score for the essay, obtain
two or more independent readers.
7. Beware of negative influences that can affect essay scoring. These include handwriting and
writing style bias, the length of the response, and the inclusion of irrelevant material.
8. Review papers that are on the borderline a second time before assigning a final grade.
Assessment:
1. How can a teacher ensure objectivity in the scoring of an essay test?

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The analytical approach for scoring essays allows an instructor to be fairly objective. It consists
of four steps: (a) specifying the features the answer must contain; (b) specifying the criteria for
judging the adequacy of each feature; (c) assigning point values to each of the criteria; and (d)
reading each student’s answer using the criteria to help determine the student’s score.
In spite of several problems the analytical approach may present, I prefer it because it is more
objective and thus enables instructors to score essays more accurately
2. Is essay test or objective test better? Prove your answer

More college teachers should make use of essay examinations in their courses. Well-constructed
essay questions test higher-level knowledge than most objective questions. They also furnish
students with valuable writing practice and provide the opportunity for mutual feedback
between teacher and student. Some disadvantages of essay exams include the amount of time
they take to grade and their inherent subjectivity. Teachers can increase their grading objectivity
by covering students' names, deciding in advance the key points each essay should cover, and
stopping the grading when they begin to feel tired.
3. How do you write a good test question?
 Consider your reasons for testing.

o Will this quiz monitor the students’ progress so that you can adjust the pace of the course?
o Will ongoing quizzes serve to motivate students?
o Will this final provide data for a grade at the end of the quarter?
o Will this mid-term challenge students to apply concepts learned so far?
The reason(s) for giving a test will help you determine features such as length, format, level of
detail required in answers, and the time frame for returning results to the students.
 Maintain consistency between goals for the course, methods of teaching, and the tests used to
measure achievement of goals. If, for example, class time emphasizes review and recall of
information, then so can the test; if class time emphasizes analysis and synthesis, then the test
can also be designed to demonstrate how well students have learned these things.
 Use testing methods that are appropriate to learning goals. For example, a multiple choice
test might be useful for demonstrating memory and recall, for example, but it may require an
essay or open-ended problem-solving for students to demonstrate more independent analysis
or synthesis.
 Help Students prepare. Most students will assume that the test is designed to measure what is
most important for them to learn in the course. You can help students prepare for the test by
clarifying course goals as well as reviewing material. This will allow the test to reinforce what you
most want students to learn and retain.
 Use consistent language (in stating goals, in talking in class, and in writing test questions) to
describe expected outcomes. If you want to use words like explain or discuss, be sure that you
use them consistently and that students know what you mean when you use them.
 Design test items that allow students to show a range of learning. That is, students who
have not fully mastered everything in the course should still be able to demonstrate how much
they have learned.
Lesson 5: Item Analysis
Activity:

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1. What are the requirements for analysis test items?
The Item Analysis output consists of four parts: A summary of test statistics, a test frequency
distribution, an item quintile table, and item statistics. This analysis can be processed for an
entire class. If it is of interest to compare the item analysis for different test forms, then the
analysis can be processed by test form.
2. What is the importance of item analysis in assessment?
Item analysis is the act of analyzing student responses to individual exam questions with the
intention of evaluating exam quality. It is an important tool to uphold test effectiveness and
fairness.
Item analysis is likely something educators do both consciously and unconsciously on a regular
basis. In fact, grading literally involves studying student responses and the pattern of student
errors, whether to a particular question or particular types of questions.
But when the process is formalized, item analysis becomes a scientific method through which
tests can be improved, and academic integrity upheld.
Assessment:
1 . What are the two kinds of item analysis?

Quantitative Item Analysis and Qualitative Item Analysis are measurements used for evaluation
the effectiveness of test structures, performance assessments, and essay questions, and they
judge the legitimacy of academic structures and comprehension expectations requirements to
the methods in which they are being tested. Through these types of analysis, it is determined
whether or not methods of tests and their results are meeting the requirements, and assures
the students are staying on the same page for the academic spreadsheets as a whole. With
either of these methods the qualities of test and measurements are evaluated, in regards to
how they engage the materials, and the scores that students achieve, to help to define changes
that are necessary within the methods The adjustments or changes are intended to better the
students experience and comprehension, and to fairly and adequately address the academics
being scored but observing the validity of the various methods.
2.What is the purpose of item analysis?
Item analysis is a process which examines student responses to individual test items (questions)
in order to assess the quality of those items and of the test as a whole. Item analysis is especially
valuable in improving items which will be used again in later tests, but it can also be used to
eliminate ambiguous or misleading items in a single test administration. In addition, item
analysis is valuable for increasing instructors’ skills in test construction, and identifying specific
areas of course content which need greater emphasis or clarity.
3. What is essay type test items?

An essay test is an assessment technique that requires students to thoroughly respond to a
question or prompt by developing, organizing, and writing an original composition. The purpose
of an essay test is to assess students abilities to construct a logical, cohesive and persuasive
writing piece.

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4. What are the major advantages and limitations of essay questions?
Advantages of the Essay Tests:
1. It is relatively easier to prepare and administer a six-question extended- response essay test
than to prepare and administer a comparable 60-item multiple-choice test items.
2. It is the only means that can assess an examinee’s ability to organise and present his ideas in
a logical and coherent fashion.
3. It can be successfully employed for practically all the school subjects.
4. Some of the objectives such as ability to organise idea effectively, ability to criticise or justify a
statement, ability to interpret, etc., can be best measured by this type of test.
5. Logical thinking and critical reasoning, systematic presentation, etc. can be
6. It helps to induce good study habits such as making outlines and summaries, organising the
arguments for and against, etc.
7. The students can show their initiative, the originality of their thought and the fertility of their
imagination as they are permitted freedom of response.
8. The responses of the students need not be completely right or wrong. All degrees of
comprehensiveness and accuracy are possible.
9. It largely eliminates guessing.
10. They are valuable in testing the functional knowledge and power of expression of the pupil.
Limitations of Essay Tests:
1. One of the serious limitations of the essay tests is that these tests do not give scope for larger
sampling of the content. You cannot sample the course content so well with six lengthy essay
questions as you can with 60 multiple-choice test items.
2. Such tests encourage selective reading and emphasise cramming.
3. Moreover, scoring may be affected by spelling, good handwriting, coloured ink, neatness,
grammar, length of the answer, etc.
4. The long-answer type questions are less valid and less reliable, and as such they have little
predictive value.
5. It requires an excessive time on the part of students to write; while assessing, reading essays
is very time-consuming and laborious.
6. It can be assessed only by a teacher or competent professionals.
7. Improper and ambiguous wording handicaps both the students and valuers.
8. Mood of the examiner affects the scoring of answer scripts.
9. There is halo effect-biased judgement by previous impressions.

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10. The scores may be affected by his personal bias or partiality for a particular point of view, his
way of understanding the question, his weightage to different aspect of the answer, favouritism
and nepotism, etc.

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Tenix Caesar C.

Module in Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies

Module 1:Teaching Literature

Lesson 1: Key Concepts and the Ideal Literature Teacher

Personal and Professional Qualities 1 2 3 4 5

What are the qualities of an ideal teacher?

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

An ideal teacher is self-confident. The ideal teacher is a model of self-confidence. It is a

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

In what way you can be called an ideal literature teacher?

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

Activity : Critical Thinking

1.What is your stand on the place of literature in the curriculum?

2.Explain the arguments arising from the reader- response theory.

3. Why teaching literature is a challenging task for a teacher?

These pedagogically unsound practices introduced by the government to implement its

Technology ushers in fundamental structural changes that can be integral to achieving

1. Digital readers and tablets

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

1. What are the more pressing issues or trends in teaching literature?

Six Ways Proper Preparation and Planning Will Pay Off

Strategies for More Efficient Planning

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

3. Can literature be taught in a vacuum? Explain your answer.

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

Strategies for Teaching Literature: Poem

c. Becoming familiar with the poem.

Determine the rhythm as you read and the rhyme scheme.

Summarize the poem’s meaning.

Lesson 3: Models of Teaching Literature

Activity : Critical Thinking

1. Why is it that literature teaching remains a hindrance for teachers and

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

in our present teaching situation?

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

Literature Impacts Living

The Adventures of Pinocchio, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Winnie-the-Pooh, as also

Literature Helps Understand Life

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

Lesson 4:Literary Devices

Activity :Critical Thinking

Simile: implied comparison

Metaphor: direct comparison

Personification: giving human quality to inanimate object

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

.Hyperbole: exaggeration for effect

.Meiosis: positive understatement to enhance impression or minimize the importance of

Litotese: negative understatement to suggest a strong affirmative

Repetition: repeating words , phrases to intensify emotions or meanings

Rhetorical question: asked, but unanswerable

Balance: parallelism in sentence elements or similar ideas

Anti- thesis: juxtaposition or contrasting ideas

Chiasmus: parallelism in inverted order

Paradox: contradictory, but true statement

Oxymoron: paired or mutually contradicting words to realize two ideas

Irony: could be verbal, situational, attitudinal , dramatic

Climax: arrangement of ideas according to degree of importance

Alliteration: repetition of the same initial consonant sounds

Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds ( initial, internal or end}

Onomatopeia : imitation of sounds to produce effect

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE STUDIES

Alliteration is the repetition of the beginning sounds of neighboring words.

She sells seashells.