The GACE English Test (Study Guide, Resources, & Suggestions)

During the spring, I took the GACE English test to add High School English to my teaching certification.  The English GACE test is like many state and national tests, it is a comprehension exam designed to test the individual on many English/Language Arts standards.  I was a little anxious going into the test, for many reasons.  One) The length, you have four hours to complete two tests, each containing 60 multiple choice questions and 2 short answer essays.  Two) The fee - I paid close to $200 to take this thing and I wanted to pass it the first time.  Three) The uncertainty surrounding the test.

I felt very comfortable with most of the grammar that might be on the test.  Additionally, I was very comfortable with the writing process, instructional strategies involving reading, writing, and any media literacy elements that might be on the test.  The only area I was really concerned with involved the literature. I read a lot, but I tend to read more obscure authors like Julio Cortazar or Harry Crews.  My reading does not fall within the traditional and well-studied ranges of English literature.  And even so, it seemed as if I'd have to know everything about literature, starting with Homer and ending with Amy Tan.  So, I was concerned and felt the need to study.  The problem I encountered was that there was very little information on the internet about the test.  The GACE website does a good job outlining the standards and element for the test, but that is it.  So, I decided after taking the test I would share the resources I spent countless hours gathering. I cannot tell you what was on the test but I can tell you what I used to study for the test.  Even though the test had some tough questions, I felt it was fairly easy and straight forward.  However, I feel the need to state that I felt very prepared for the test, probably because I spent a month or two studying. 

My best advice is to review the standards and focus on the areas you feel weak in. 

GACE English Test Resources
1. GACE Website.  Review the standards, elements, frameworks, and sample questions.  This is a great place to get started.
http://www.gace.nesinc.com/GA_PG_020021_opener.asp

2. XAM GACE English Study Guide.  I have read many bad reviews about this book but, honestly, it helped.  The sample tests were very helpful and identified some of my weaknesses.   The book isn't perfect (or cheap), so find it used or buy it new at Amazon (the cheapest place online).

3. This Guy's Study Guide.  This was the only place I found a short and sweet study guide from someone that took the test.  I often used this to review the concepts he had listed.  His blog also contains some good insight about the test.
http://gateacher.wordpress.com/2007/07/26/english-gace-test/ (blog entry)
(direct link to download study guide)

4a. Review the Georgia Performance Standards for English/Reading Grades 9-12.  You want to be a high school English teacher, right?  So, why not review what you'd have to teach?  In addition, the standards match up with the GACE test. There are a lot of great resources here: lists of terms, concepts, explanations, and tips.  There is a lot of information here, so make sure to focus on what you do not know.
https://www.georgiastandards.org/Standards/pages/BrowseStandards/ELAStandards9-12.aspx

4b. Review the Georgia Performance Frameworks.  Even more helpful than the GPS.
https://www.georgiastandards.org/Frameworks/pages/BrowseFrameworks/ela9-12.aspx

5. Georgia DOE Website.  Use the review resources for high school students.  Very helpful (and free).
A link to the content descriptions for high school English. 
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_testing.aspx?folderID=227&m=links&ft=Content%20Descriptions
A link to some online practice questions (for high school graduation), just follow the steps for a high school student. 
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_testing.aspx?PageReq=CI_TESTING_OAS

6. End of Course and High School Graduation Study Guides.  Again, the GADOE is here to help you.  These study guides are great and contain many practice questions.  In my opinion, many of the questions seemed a bit easier than the GACE, but it was the same subject matter and concepts. Also, it is great practice for reading passages and deciding on the best answer.
http://www.gadoe.org/ci_testing.aspx?folderID=14732&m=links&ft=EOCT%20Guides
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_testing.aspx?folderID=228&m=links&ft=Student%20Guides

7. Use the Internet.  Since literary movements were my greatest concern, I spent a lot of my time reviewing literary time periods and authors. Here are a few of them.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rickard/Timeline.html
http://www.socsdteachers.org/tzenglish/literature_timeline.htm
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/TABLE.HTML

8. Watch Movies.  Here is a great collection of PBS videos that review all of the major literary movements in America.  http://www.learner.org/resources/series164.html?pop=yes&pid=1747 Very well done and very interesting.  Also, I watched whatever movies I could find at the library (for example: the Harlem Renaissance and studying poetry).

9.  Read Some Classics.  I read (and listened to) books I hadn't thought about since high school like The Great Gatsby and Their Eyes Were Watching God (to name a couple).

10.  Take Notes and Apply Them in Some Way.  I made word clusters/maps.  I've scanned a few to show you.

By the end of my two month study window I felt very prepared for the English GACE and, in the end, I passed.  For the first time ever, I was not just trying to cram for a test, I was trying to self-educate.  I probably did not need to take every practice test twice, but I did. I surely did not need to read those handful of classics, but I did.  Regardless, everything I did helped shape my understanding of what I was studying and enriched my study sessions.  I hope my suggestions help future test takers out there, I would rather people spend more time studying than searching.

Motivation and Learning

Dan Pink shares some very interesting thoughts and research about motivation.  Even though he focuses his discussion on adult performance, there is plenty to think about in regards to teaching and working with children.

He disputes the idea that people are motivated through a system of rewards and punishments.  His research reveals that this approach does not work. He has found that the old system of rewarding to get more of the behavior you want and punishing to get less of it does not work.

After watching his speech (and cartoon), it made me reflect on how I motivate and manipulate my students.  Am I really getting the results I want?  I have seen children push themselves hard to receive a handful of Jolly Ranchers, but Dan Pink makes me wonder if these students were working to their full potential and gaining any long term learning or enduring understandings.

The animated speech by Dan Pink about motivation and drive (the hook, 10 minutes)



The complete speech by Dan Pink about motivation and drive (no animation, 41 minutes)



These videos tap into ideas about motivation, creativity, and the learning/working environment that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.  I’m working on a longer entry dealing with this topic (focusing on companies like Google and Pixar) - more on that later this summer.

Letting Go of Paper

aka Living Like There is No Tomorrow and Throwing Everything Away

Now that the 2009-2010 school is behind me, I have started to think and plan for next year.  For starters, I’ll be in a new room, actually a computer lab.  This is very exciting and a great opportunity to fully integrate technology into my teaching.  Regardless, the new location means I have to move out of the room I’d been working from for 5 years.  So, over the last week I took a stroll down memory lane as I went through cabinets and drawers overflowing with folders of work samples, outdated textbooks, various instructional books and resources (most of which I have never opened), and an endless collection of photocopied papers, assignments, rubrics, reading packets, enrichment activities, instructional strategies, test data, and so much more. 

Initially, my cleaning and packing involved separating everything into piles: garbage, “could be useful/might use some day”, useful, and very important stuff.  After a day of this method, I realized I have a lot of stuff to move.  So, I adjusted my approach, anything that did not make it in the “very important” pile was label trash/recycle.  Now, of course there were a few expectations to this rule, I kept many reading packets of various short stories (I do teach Language Arts after all) and a few random samples of student work.  Everything else, was sent to the trash or recycler (close to three car loads).  

The process was very freeing and allowed me to streamline my approach toward teaching and the utilization of my resources.  As I was cleaning, I found that over the years I’d tucked away many things with the idea that they might be helpful (if I ever taught that particular concept).  After close to 10 years of teaching, this collection of resources has became a lot of unused junk. I think when I started as a new teacher I was so eager to get whatever resources I could get my hands on.  My thinking was, the more “stuff” I acquired the easier teaching would become. Right?  Well, now a lot of those unused papers and posters have become outdated clutter.  

So, with my push for more meaningful inclusion of technology in my teaching, I figure the best place to start is with my own collection of resources.  If something is worth keeping, I should have a digital copy of it.  So, before throwing anything away, I made sure to scan a number of documents I either needed or thought would be helpful in the near future. 

I am not pushing for a paperless classroom.  I still have a fond spot for notebooks and work collected in portfolios or folders, as a way to track and showcase a student’s progress.  Also, I still have stacks of novels and such to lug over to my new room.  However, I feel in order to maximize the full potential of my resources, and to access them in an efficient manner, the filing cabinet needs to be abandoned and forgotten.  

As the world continues to shift toward a more digital dominant society, our classroom habits must keep up.  We no longer write letters, we send emails.  When on vocation, we do not send postcards, we send text messages.  We do not pay our “paperless” bills with checks, we pay them online.  We do not write down driving directions, we use our GPS units.  When was the last time you wrote someones phone number down in a phone book or wrote out a recipe?  As a society we are moving away from paper and have started storing all of these items on our digital devices.  I need to do the same with this my teaching resources.  It just makes everything easier.  When I have digital copies of everything, I can easily email parents, students, and other teachers whatever they might require.  I can post and share my ideas on blogs and our classroom wiki with ease.  Additionally, by maintaining a digital collection of my resources, I can access them anywhere.  I can teach from any location. I can easily update, modify, and improve any assignments very quickly.  I know, you get the idea.  All of these points are painfully obvious.  

Ultimately, my point is that by limiting the amount of things we hoard away in filing cabinets, folders, and binders the more efficiently we can access and take advantage of the resources we have collected over the years.  We must continually evaluate the thing we hang on to and implement a way to easily access this material.  So, one of my goals for the 2010-2011 year will be to hold on to a lot less and digitally store that which I choose to keep.  

Questions (and/or struggles) for the future: 1. How to deliver information and assignments to students and parents without using countless pieces of paper.  2. How to organize and manage my digital files so I do not clutter up my desktop.

Bloom's Taxonomy (For the Digital Age)

Below is an inspiring graphic I came across a few months ago. It is a great visual to get us thinking about how we can use the vast number of the Internet’s resources in our classrooms. Additionally, it reminds us of the limitations of some resources, as well as the need to employ many of the Internet’s various teaching/learning tools in our instruction. There are a lot of great resources included in this pyramid.  Now that I have started my summer break, I think I will make it a project of mine to update this wonderful pyramid and to make a high res version that would be great as a poster (wouldn’t this look good hanging on the wall of your classroom!).

image source: http://visualblooms.wikispaces.com/

In future posts I will be discussing some of these resources, but if you should start exploring now! The link below contains a table of 25 Internet tools for the classroom. The table includes links and a brief explanation of each resource.

Top 25 Tools of 2009
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/25Tools/index.html