Final Project Description

The following assessment ideas have been designed for a unit of literature circles during which English 3 Regents (primarily eleventh grade) students will study different pieces of American literature within small cooperative groups of 4-6 students. The pieces include The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I have decided to focus on this unit throughout the semester because it is the one my students are working on currently and it is one of my very favorites because it provides the opportunity to continue building upon the skills we’ve practiced in previous literature units while, I hope, offering students the chance to get more creative with their final projects while dealing with interpersonal skills and individual habits of mind that have real world applications.

Corroborated by Nitko and Brookhart, I have found that a combination of group and individual projects has been an effective approach to our third major literature unit of the year. It holds students accountable to one another by requiring them to “work together to create a high quality product” (248) but individual students must “have the ability to prepare final reports, interpret results on their own, and so on” (249). As such, I have created both group and individual learning targets along with different scoring rubrics and checklists. By and large, the various components of the unit best qualify as performance assessments, which is appropriate during the second semester after more traditional major assessments were completed during the first.

As individuals, students will be required to produce a log of their personal annotations of the text in a “reader’s journal,” which is collected and graded using a checklist. Also, each will be graded on participation by me and his/her own group mates using an analytic rubric provided in advance. These strictly individual assessments account for 150 points toward the unit grade. Notably, those students not participating at a satisfactory level may be removed from groups and held accountable to additional individual paper-and-pencil assessments.

In their groups, students will be required to submit a portfolio which will include various works, each of which addresses some specific aspect of comprehension or analysis of the text. The selections to be included, the criteria, and point values of each “mini project,” as I call them, are clearly delineated in a grading checklist that is distributed at the start of the unit. Knowing what is expected, student groups will also be responsible for writing a proposal that indicates thoughtful and cooperative planning of individual roles and time management throughout the unit, graded according to a checklist. Finally, group presentations of the various literature circles texts will be shared with the class and graded according to a checklist once again. These group assessments combine to account for 300 points of the final unit grade.

Ticket-Out-the-Door Attempt #2

1. Students effectively manage individual roles and limited class time to prepare a final group product.

This learning target best relates to NYS Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction because students will need to

· engage in conversations and discussions on academic, technical, and community subjects, anticipating listeners’ needs and skillfully addressing them

· express their thoughts and views clearly with attention to the perspectives and voiced concerns of the others in the conversation

2. Students annotate literature books to aid comprehension and analysis of a primary text.

This learning target ideally relates to all four NYS Standards: Language for Information and Understanding, Literary Response and Expression, Critical Analysis and Evaluation, and Social Interaction. Annotation is a process that can be applied variously by individual students and can provide, thusly, great opportunities for differentiation but, when endeavored by a proficient or masterful reader, it should span all four standards. Accordingly, students will do all of the following with some degree of variation by individual:

· use a combination of techniques (e.g., previewing, use of advance organizers, structural cues) to extract salient information from texts

· make distinctions about the relative value and significance of specific data, facts, and ideas

· make perceptive and well developed connections to prior knowledge

· evaluate writing strategies and presentational features that affect interpretation of the information

· use a wide range of organizational patterns such as chronological, logical (both deductive and inductive), cause and effect, and omparison/contrast

· support interpretations and decisions about relative significance of information with explicit statement, evidence, and appropriate argument

(^ Standard 1)

· read and view independently and fluently across many genres of literature from many cultures and historical periods

· identify the distinguishing features of different literary genres, periods and traditions and use those features to interpret the work

· recognize and understand the significance of a wide range of literary elements and techniques, (including figurative language, imagery, allegory, irony, blank verse, symbolism, stream-of-consciousness) and use those elements to interpret the work

· understand how multiple levels of meaning are conveyed in a text

· evaluate literary merit based on an understanding of the genre, the literary elements, and the literary period and tradition

· present responses to and interpretations of works of recognized literary merit with references to the principal features of the genre, the period, and literary tradition, and drawing on their personal experiences and knowledge

(^ Standard 2)

· make precise determinations about the perspective of a particular writer or speaker by recognizing the relative weight they place on particular arguments and criteria

· present orally and in writing well-developed analyses of issues, ideas, and texts, explaining the rationale for their positions and analyzing their positions from a variety of perspectives in such forms as formal speeches, debates, thesis/support papers, literary critiques, and issues analyses

· make effective use of details, evidence, and arguments and of presentational strategies to influence an audience to adopt their position

(^ Standard 3)

· engage in conversations and discussions on academic, technical, and community subjects, anticipating listeners’ needs and skillfully addressing them

· express their thoughts and views clearly with attention to the perspectives and voiced concerns of the others in the conversation

(^ Standard 4)

3. Students summarize the main events, ideas and themes of a primary text.

This learning target best relates to NYS Standard 2: Language for Literary Response and Expression because students will need to

· read and view independently and fluently across many genres of literature from many cultures and historical periods

· identify the distinguishing features of different literary genres, periods and traditions and use those features to interpret the work

· present responses to and interpretations of works of recognized literary merit with references to the principal features of the genre, the period, and literary tradition, and drawing on their personal experiences and knowledge

· produce literary interpretations that explicate the multiple layers of meaning

4. Students use textual information to support analysis of major characters.

This learning target best relates to NYS Standard 3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation because students will need to

· present orally and in writing well-developed analyses of issues, ideas, and texts, explaining the rationale for their positions and analyzing their positions from a variety of perspectives in such forms as formal speeches, debates, thesis/support papers, literary critiques, and issues analyses

· make effective use of details, evidence, and arguments and of presentational strategies to influence an audience to adopt their position

5. Students evaluate the author’s use of specific literary devices to convey the theme of the work.

This learning target best relates to NYS Standards 2 and 3: Language for Literary Response and Expression as well as Critical Analysis and Evaluation because students will need to

· read and view independently and fluently across many genres of literature from many cultures and historical periods

· identify the distinguishing features of different literary genres, periods and traditions and use those features to interpret the work

· present responses to and interpretations of works of recognized literary merit with references to the principal features of the genre, the period, and literary tradition, and drawing on their personal experiences and knowledge

· produce literary interpretations that explicate the multiple layers of meaning

(^ Standard 2)

· present orally and in writing well-developed analyses of issues, ideas, and texts, explaining the rationale for their positions and analyzing their positions from a variety of perspectives in such forms as formal speeches, debates, thesis/support papers, literary critiques, and issues analyses

· make effective use of details, evidence, and arguments and of presentational strategies to influence an audience to adopt their position

(^ Standard 3)

6. Students work cooperatively with peers to prepare a final group product.

This learning target best relates to NYS Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction because students will need to

· engage in conversations and discussions on academic, technical, and community subjects, anticipating listeners’ needs and skillfully addressing them

· express their thoughts and views clearly with attention to the perspectives and voiced concerns of the others in the conversation

7. Students clearly and effectively present a critical review of their literary works to their peers without relying upon summary.

This learning target best relates to NYS Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction because students will need to

· engage in conversations and discussions on academic,technical, and community subjects, anticipating listeners’ needs and skillfully addressing them

· express their thoughts and views clearly with attention to the perspectives and voiced concerns of the others in the conversation

· use appropriately the language conventions for a wide variety of social situations, such as informal conversations, first meetings with peers or adults, and more formal situations such as job interviews or customer service.

· use a variety of print and electronic forms for social communication with peers and adults

· make effective use of language and style to connect the message with the audience and context

Learning Targets Final Draft

Based on the feedback offered in class and the comments posted by my professor and peers, I have revised the following learning targets to be more flexible with regard to assessment so that they can be met by various means and tasks.

1. Students effectively manage individual roles and limited class time to prepare a final group product.

• Developmental learning target
• Alter, ask, choose, complete, comply, contribute, follow, help, influence, lead, order, organize, plan, work, revise, solve (Krathwohl)

2. Students annotate literature books to aid comprehension and analysis of a primary text.

• Developmental learning target
• Criticize, define, identify, infer, predict (Bloom)
• Defend, discuss, respond, question (Krathwohl)

3. Students summarize the main events, ideas and themes of a primary text.

• Mastery learning target
• Compile, describe, explain, give examples, paraphrase, recall, summarize (Bloom)

4. Students use textual information to support analysis of major characters.

• Mastery learning target
• Describe, discriminate, categorize, compare/contrast, criticize, identify, infer, justify, relate, select, support (Bloom)

5. Students evaluate the author’s use of specific literary devices to convey the theme of the work.

• Developmental learning target
• Define, give examples, identify, predict (Bloom)
• Defend, discuss, question (Krathwohl)

6. Students work cooperatively with peers to prepare a final group product.

• Developmental learning target
• Answer, ask, assist, complete, comply, discuss, invite, prepare, present, respect, share (Krathwohl)

7. Students clearly and effectively present a critical review of their literary works to their peers without relying upon summary.

• Developmental learning target
• Criticize, describe, explain, give examples, influence, justify, perform, prepare, select (Bloom)
• Answer, discuss, give, help, present, recognize, relate, share (Krathwohl)