So, I was teaching a lesson on interjections (e.g. Hey!) and exclamatory sentences. We had confirmed that they knew the difference between an interjection and an exclamatory sentence. Basically, I pointed to an interjection that I wrote on the whiteboard. Then, I simply said, "Raise your hand if you think this (interjection) is a complete sentence. (I check to see how many students raised their hand) Ok. Put your hands down. How many of you think this (exclamatory sentence) is a complete sentence?"
So, when I asked how many of them thought an interjection was a complete sentence, no one raised their hand, but when I asked how many of them thought that the exclamatory sentence that I pointed to was an exclamatory sentence, everyone rose their hand. Doing that is so much easier and faster than having everyone take out a sheet of paper, writing the specific interjections or exclamatory sentences down and writing this interjection is not a complete sentence or this exclamatory sentence is a complete sentence. All you need to do is count the number of hands that go up. That's a quick way to determine who does or doesn't understand a concept.
Keep in mind that its basically like giving students multiple choices and just having them choose one. It doesn't require any explanation on their part. This is a possible flaw. That is a flaw whenever an answer can be elaborated upon, but is reduced to a yes or no answer. But, it's my understanding that giving multiple choices and having students pick one is the only way in which all students can be assessed via a mere show of hands. Raising hands doesn't give an explanation.
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