Other Assessments: Retellings

Another assessment is retellings. It is a written or spoken recall of what a student remembers after reading or hearing a piece of text. It is a type of performance assessment which requires the student to construct a response, engage in higher order thinking, and use the four domains of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. A retelling is also considered an authentic assessment because it parallels a real-life activity that someone may be expected to do outside of school. (O’Malley and Valdez Pierce, 1996).

Retellings are useful tools for teachers and for students. They can indicate to a teacher what a student:

Ø  remembers;

Ø  thinks is important to remember and include;

Ø  can infer from the text; and

Ø  connects from the text to his/her own experiences.

A retelling also indicates how a student:

Ø  uses language;

Ø  constructs meaning;

Ø  sequences and organizes information; and

Ø  processes and connects large pieces of text.

A retelling can indicate a student’s ease of expression either orally or in writing. It can also document a student’s present level of competence and, with repeated opportunities to do retellings, document improvement over time. A retelling is excellent instructional tool. The use of retellings over time helps students develop comprehension and improve their concept of a story (setting, plot, and resolution), vocabulary, ease of oral expression, and correct use of written language.

A retelling is a quick and highly flexible assessment tool. You can ask a student to do a retelling of a story or expository text taken from a textbook. You can ask the student to do this in English or in his/her primary language. A retelling done in the primary language can give you a general idea of the student’s comprehension and oral or written fluency. If the student reads then writes the retelling, this can be useful in determining a student’s literacy level in the primary language, indicating what resources the student can draw on in becoming literate in English. The student can read the text or listen to someone else reading and then do the retelling orally or in written form. Finally, a retelling can be done with a teacher, classroom assistant, a fellow student, or a crossage helper. Given the ease of doing retelling and all the benefits of having your students do repeated retellings, you can see the advantage of using them for assessment purposes as well as an ongoing part of your instruction.

We’ve developed a retelling rubric that you can use just as you see it here or that you can modify to suit your own purposes. This rubric is called the Retelling Profile, just leave comment to get it. I’ll send you directly by e-mail.