Evaluating Reading and Listening Skills

I am reading Felipe Alou by Carol Gaab with my Spanish 4/5 class. I got also the teachers guide from the

 website, which has helped me a lot with ideas and more!

This has been one of the most fulfilling units I have had since I switched to Comprehensible Input.  The book gives you the opportunity to truly reach  across curriculum and get into social studies, physical education, health, even current events! Before starting chapter 3, I had to introduce and practice "Deber" (must) using comprehensible input.  I used the power point to first get through some verb-conjugation for those students that need all the forms at once, however, I introduce them still using comprehensible input.  That part takes just a minute or two.  No explanation, just quick references such as:  what is the "N" in "DEBEN" doing?, pop-up grammar style.  Then, we go over the rest of the slides developing conversation:  I ask the question, and they discuss it with the student next to them.  Then, we discuss it as a whole class.



We have read 3 chapters so far, and watched the movie "En el tiempo de las mariposas"  , which is the real story of three sisters who suffered through the dictatorship that our book talks about.  So, my students have had the opportunity to really study the topic in depth, and now I wanted to test them in their writing, reading and listening skills. This time, I tried to do something simpler to test them.
1) For the reading part, I had ten questions based on the story that they had to respond using either English or Spanish.  The focus here is to test them on their understanding of my questions, not their writing. Most students responded in Spanish because "it is harder to switch back and forth!" :)
2) For listening, I read ten statements based on the story that they had to translate into English. (You will find the statements on the third page of the document).


3) For writing, they had to use past tenses and (for differentiation purposes) choose between three options:
        a) write a summary of the book (minimum of 100 words)
        b) Make a "hybrid": tweak the story introducing original parts
        c) Make your own original story with characters living in Dominican Republic during the dictatorship.
What do you do to test these skills in your classroom?