Assessment

Assessment is a means of gathering information for a specific purpose, and most often reveals one's knowledge about targeted content. It is a way of determining whether a student knows information about a topic or how much they know about the topic. It can be formal or informal, have high-stakes or low-stakes, come in a variety of forms, and can be graded multiple ways.

Authentic Assessment Examples:
1.) Create a product: (Ex: shoe-box setting) Students can create a setting of a story/novel inside a shoe-box. They will make the inside of the shoe-box look like a setting in the story. It should display what the author describes.

2.) Make a movie: Students could re-create a scene in the story and film it. An extension of this could be to take the idea/concept of the story and relate it to a modern day idea. They would film the new version of the story and show how it relates the old story. The new film would need to follow the same story structure. (Ex: Students could take the storyline from 'Frankenstein' and use it to re-create a film about 'Pimp My Ride ~ Went Wrong'.)

3.) Create a collage: Students would find pictures that are relevant to the topic and create a collage. This could be abstract. For example, the collage could represent the mood of the story.

Informative & Persuasive Writing

The goal of informative writing is to provide information. This means that the content is full of facts. By writing an informative text you must keep in mind that you are teaching the reader about the topic. The purpose must be very clear and follow with organization. Keep in mind that accurate definitions are vital and word choice needs to be carefully selected. If your goal of writing is to convince the reader to agree with your opinion then you will be taking a different approach. This type of writing is called persuasive writing. When writing a persuasive paper, including facts that support your opinion are crucial to influence your reader because you want to ensure your reader that your opinion is best. It is important to consider the targeted audience, data, and a focused argument. Determining if you are selling toward egos, emotions, fear, or character can be helpful. By using adjectives and feeling words you can really sell your point.

Activities:
Informative - Students will select a career that they are interested in pursuing. They will research it and use what they have learned to write a newspaper ad about a job opening. Their ad should contain job requirements, skills, possible salary or hourly rate, opportunity's for advancement, structure of work schedule, and a description of the job and what is expected.

Persuasive - Give each student a bite-size candy bar (a variety may be used). The student will write a letter to candy company convincing them what they should do to improve the candy bar.