For the past couple semesters, I've used clickers aka Student Response Systems in my basic reading and writing classes. Clickers "are touted as giving both students and faculty quick feedback about 'mastery of content.'" (1) I can attest to this.
For example, using a setup as illustrated in the image to the right, I can determine if students can identify the main idea/topic sentence in a paragraph. I have done this by having students read a paragraph from a text, handout, or a screen projection such as in the image below (I have an LCD projector mounted in the classroom I teach in). Then, I ask students to identify the main idea in the paragraph by clicking.
Very quickly, I can see how the class at large was able to identify the main idea. If the majority do not, then I'll invest time in explaining the hows and whys of pinpointing the main idea in the particular paragraph we were looking at and for all paragraphs. I can also assess which students are having trouble with a skill or concept and assist them as needed.
Miller (2009) did a study of basic writers using clickers. Full-text of the article: Basic Writers Using Clickers: A Case Study
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