Defining literacy - Lessons from high-stakes teacher testing

Teacher educators face a dilemma: How do we prepare preservice teachers to pass new high-stakes certification tests when these tests are often based on philosophical perspectives that run counter to our own beliefs about literacy, learning, and teaching. In this article, the authors offer an inquiry-oriented approach that uses the lens of the New Literacy Studies to help prospective teachers simultaneously prepare for and critique high-stakes standardized tests such as the Communication and Literacy Skills (CLS) portion of the Massachusetts Educator Certification Tests. The authors describe a specific activity, inviting preservice teachers to explore the social nature of literacies, investigate the characteristics of the CLS, and reflect on this type of high-stakes assessment. After providing a critique of the CLS test based on this type of activity, the authors offer recommendations for more extended activities to be used in teacher education courses.