Enhancing subject-specific literacy through low-stakes testing

Challenging students to think hard is bread and butter in teaching and learning at The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School. But how does a department enhance literacy whilst also providing intellectual rigour? Our department of eight theology and philosophy subject specialists is tackling this head-on with a commitment to enhancing subject-specific literacy. Having explored Cognitive Load Theory, the department decided to delve deeper into knowledge retrieval and its effective application. A combination of ingenuity and creativity (Willingham, 2018) seemed like a good starting point and, conscious of students’ enjoyment of the course, it was essential that assessment methods were fun and engaging. Of paramount importance was for students to be questioning theological-philosophical arguments that drive key movements in the contemporary world, and we agreed that literacy is fundamental to this (ISRSA Statement on Religious Studies, 2017). How could low-stakes testing enhance thi