Assessment Plan
Units/Strands and Big Ideas/Essential Skills
Unit: This I Believe (Diagnostic Unit)
Strands: Oral with diagnostic focus
on Reading, Writing, Media
Big Ideas/Essential Skills:
How do you effectively explain your
beliefs and share them with others?
 Listening to Understand
 Speaking to Communicate
 Reflecting on Skills and Strategies
Unit: Horror Fiction (review elements
of fiction as a scaffold to the more
independent literature circles)
Strands: Reading and Writing
Big Ideas/Essential Skills:
How do literature and media allow us
to explore subconscious fears and
desires?
 Reading for Meaning
 Reading with Fluency
 Understanding Media Texts
 Developing and Organizing
Content
 Applying Knowledge of
Conventions
Unit: Relationships and Identity
(Literature Circles and Media)
Strands: Reading, Oral, and Media
Unit: Hot Topics (Research Report
and Non-fiction) Writing includes mini
unit on writing for the work world
Unit: Drama
Strands: Reading (with emphasis on
Literature Studies) Writing
Unit: Portfolio
Strands: Oral, Reading, Writing,
Media
Big Ideas/Essential Skills:
How do the choices we make affect
us and those around us?
What are the connections between
literature and popular culture?
 Reading for Meaning
 Understanding Media Texts
 Listening to Understand
 Understanding Form and Style
 Reading With Fluency
 Reflecting on Skills and Strategies
Big Ideas/Essential Skills:
What is our relationship to the
important issues in our world today?
 Developing and Organizing
Content
 Using Knowledge of Form and
Style
 Applying Knowledge of
Conventions
 Reflecting on Skills and Strategies
 Understanding Media Texts
 Understanding Media Forms,
Conventions and Techniques
 Creating Media Texts
Big Ideas/Essential Skills:
Are there issues that we face today
that are universal?
 Reading for Meaning
 Understanding Form and Style
 Reading with Fluency
 Using Knowledge of Form and
Style
 Speaking to Communicate
 Reflecting on Skills and Strategies
Big Ideas/Essential Skills:
 Reflecting on Skills and Strategies
(from all four strands
This unit will be the culminating task
assessing students mastery of the
Oral Communication, Writing, and
Media Strands
Reading will be assessed on the final
exam.
Summative Assessments
Title/description: This I Believe Oral
Essay: Peer Edit Sheet, Template,
Rubric
Title/description: Re-write of a short
story (“We” or “Heil”) / Unit test
Title/description: Book Club Portfolio
Title/description: Research Report,
and business letter (based on topics
in previous unit)
Title/description: Mock Trial or
Presentation
Title/description: Portfolio and
presentation CCA
Rubric
Tracking sheet
O 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.7, 1.9, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3,
2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 3.1
R 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8
2.1, 2.2, 2.3,; 3.2, 4.1
M 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4
W1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 3.6, 3.7
R 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8
2.1, 2.2, 2.3,; 3.2, 4.1
M 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4
W1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6,
3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6, 3.7, 4.1
M2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 4.1
R 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8
2.1, 2.2, 2.3,; 3.2, 4.1
W1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 3.6, 3.7
M 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4
O 1.2, 1.9, 2.2, 2.3, 2.6, 2.7
O 4.1, 4.2
R 4.1, 4.2,
W 4.1, 4.2,
M 4.1, 4.2
Title/description: How to read a
Drama: note
Title/description: CCA Personal
Essay *
Title/description: Intro to play
(presentation introducing key themes
and ideas in either One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest or A Streetcar Named
Title/description: CCA Writing in
Role *
Formative Assessments
Title/description: Reading
Diagnostic: “Dignity of Work”
Scoring Scale
Title/description: Stephen King “On
Fear” personal essay with questions
and personal response
Title/description: Writing Diagnostic:
Students will be given a series of
writing prompts and then asked to
respond personally.
Title/description: Scary Movie comic
As a diagnostic students create a
comic illustrating the stereotypical plot
of a typical horror movie (Bitstrips)
Title/description: Qualities of
Effective Cooperative Learning:
diagnostic activity, survival game,
note on Five Elements of Effective
Cooperative Learning.
Title/description: Concept
Attainment: Generating Effective
Discussion Questions: concept
attainment exercise, Q chart
Title/description: Business Letter:
Students learn audience, purpose,
and structure of a business letter.
They demonstrate this by producing
the “world’s worst business letter”
Title/description: Reading and
Incorporating Graphics: Students
examine different types of graphics
and answer questions about what
Title/description: Four Corners
Discussions using belief statements
(anecdotally assess oral
communication skills)
Title/description: Personal Essay
Moderation
Students read through several
examples of personal essays
Moderation sheet
Note on Personal Essay
Essays, essay
Title/description: Anchor Charts
Based on essays from previous
lesson, students develop list of
qualities of a good personal essay
Effective Speaking Strategies
Title/description: “Scared Witless”
article with questions (on the
physiology of fear)
Note on Three Streams of Horror and
history of horror fiction including
Freud’s theory of the unconscious
mind.
Title/description: Short Story “We”
Questions, (Including retell of short
story from alternate perspective.
Students will submit one for We and
one for Heil. The best one is
summative. See this scoring scale
under summative) individual and
small group
Short story chart
Title/description: Short Story “Heil”
Questions, individual and small group
Short story chart (Including retell of
short story from alternate perspective.
Students will submit one for We and
one for Heil. The best one is
summative. See this scoring scale
under summative)
Title/description: Short Story “I Am
the Doorway”
Questions, individual and small group
Short story chart
Journal response
Title/description: Fairy tale as horror
story in miniature students examine
a variety of fairytales and present one
in a small group: structure, how they
deal with subconscious fears
note
The Robber Bridgegroom
Title/description: Buffy the Vampire
Slayer episode “Hush”
Presentation.
Introduce media elements by writing a
journal response on how lighting,
sound, music, and camera angles
contribute to feeling of horror
Title/Description: Secret Window:
horror on film Any non-graphic
horror movie/thriller works. Students
apply understanding of psychology of
horror on the test so they take notes
as they watch on a graphic organizer.
Title/Description: Concept Map
To synthesize and review key ideas
from unit in preparation for test
they’re used for.
Graphics
Reading Graphics
Title/description: Research Report:
read about and complete questions
on the audience, purpose, and
structure of a business report.
Report assignment
Rubric
Desire
Title/description: Read Aloud teacher
and students take turns reading the
text aloud.
Title/description: CCA business
letter *
Title/description: Practice Literature
Circle: practice literature circle
using short non-fiction articles
Title/description: Grammar/Writing
Conventions: Throughout this unit
(and all the units actually), work in
grammar/writing mini-lessons based
on issues that pop up in student
writing eg/ Common Errors
Title/description: Comprehension
questions
Streetcar
Streetcar Journal
Cuckoo
Title/description: CCA memo *
Title/description: Literature circle
meetings: One per week (5 in total)
See 4th R curriculum binder
Expectations
Book Club Ning
Title/description: Research
strategies: work with librarian to
develop appropriate research
strategies. Learn how to evaluate the
reliability of a website.
Title/description: Memo/Writing in
Role: Depending on text, students will
either write a memo as Nurse
Ratched (memo exemplars) and
rubric or a writing in role piece as one
of the characters from Streetcar
Title/description: CCA Knowledge
and Content section of Report **
Title/description: Scene presentation
In small groups students present a
scene from the play and summarize
how the scene develops key ideas
from intro note.
Title/description: Film Review:
Compare film version to script
Title/description: CCA Thinking
Skills section of Report **
Title/description: Book Look students
use reading strategies to preview
literature circle book options
Title/description: Media violence
articles: with questions and
discussion See 4th R curriculum
binder
Title/description: Weekly blog posts
(or reading journal responses)
Teacher will create topics based on
issues that come up in literature circle
discussions.
Title/description: CCA
Communication Skills section of
Report **
Title/description: Stereotypes in the
media: clips, 4 corners discussion,
blog post (see above)
Title/description: CCA Application
section of Report **
Title/description: Book Trailer: Using
Photopeach or Animoto, students will
create a book trailer to present
themes in the book and persuade
peers to read it.
Title/description: CCA Summary
section of Report
Title/description: Peer editing and
revising (ongoing)
*All of the formative assignments in the final unit are done in class. Students will get feedback on each section with suggestions for improvement. Then students compile and present all assignments for their summative assessment. They may be
altered depending on what is covered/not covered in class.
** These are each different sections of the Portfolio Report. As a culminating task, students will respond to formative feedback and compile the entire report.
I am indebted to Wendy Jackson for helping create much of this material.