Is this task worth the effort it will take to develop and score it?
Is it a DOL IV task in which students are asked to problem solve, make a decision, investigate an issue, or invent something?
If it is a writing assignment, is the topic worth writing about and of interest to the the students?
Are students being challenged?
Context of the Task
This task is part of an 8th grade unit on how magazines use art and persuasive techniques to persuade us to buy their products.
At the beginning of the unit, the teacher asked students to talk about what they already knew about advertisements in magazines and on television.
She also used examples of various kinds of advertising to demonstrate techniques of advertising. She modeled the process of analyzing advertisements to identify the persuasive techniques by using a think aloud strategy to explain her thinking to the class.
She then had several students practice the process as they analyzed various advertisements and went through the think aloud process for the rest of the class. Class discussion added additional information to the process.
Students then worked in small groups so each student would have the opportunity to use the think aloud process to analyze an advertisement from a magazine.
The teacher is now ready to individually assess student understanding of how magazine advertisements are used to persuade us to buy their products.
Assessing the Connection of the Task to State Content Standards
Does the task provide evidence of an understanding of a state standard(s)?
Is the connection the teacher making a realistic one?
Are there opportunities to connect this task to standards in other program areas?
Are connections made to specific skills?
Standards
This task targets the following indicators:
Writing to Inform (Grades 6-8)
Students support all statements and claims with relevant anecdotes, descriptions, facts, statistics, and/or specific information.
Students write reports for an intended audience that convey a clear and accurate perspective on the subject, and that support the main idea with facts, details, and explanations.
Students write essays for an intended audience and purpose that state the thesis or purpose of the paper, that follow an organizational pattern, and that offer compelling evidence in the form of facts and details to support the thesis.
Assessing the Scoring Tool
Does the scoring tool provide clear and accurate directions telling the students what the product should look like?
Does the scoring tool provide opportunities for the student to be creative and inventive?
Does the scoring tool provide opportunities to demonstrate understanding?
Rubric
4: This answer shows a thorough understanding of the advertisement with evidence of connections between the reader’s ideas and the advertisement; the answer has references to text/art in support of inferences to the advertisement’s effectiveness; responses indicate clear personal judgment with support.
3: This answer shows a good understanding and evidence of connections to the reader’s ideas; the answer has references to text/art in support of inferences to the advertisement’s effectiveness; responses indicate a personal judgment with some support.
2: This answer shows some surface understanding of persuasion; the answer has minimal references to text/art in support of inferences to the advertisement’s effectiveness; responses indicate little personal judgment of effectiveness.
1: This answer indicates there may be some understanding of the advertisement, but there is little evidence of constructing meaning (some unsupported inferences).
0: No evidence of understanding
Scoring the Task (Individually)
Is each team member using the scoring guide to score the student samples? Is each team member scoring each example of student work? Are they keeping their score confidential until it is time to discuss the score with the team?
FOCUSED FEEDBACK
Is the feedback corrective in nature? Is the feedback specific to the criteria and the scoring guide? Have I used questions to focus the feedback on specific criteria? Have I provided some positive feedback? Will I be able to use the focused feedback to make suggestions to the teacher?
What did the students’ work show?
A need to do some re-teaching
Student work showed only a surface understanding of the criteria.
Students did not make connections between their ideas and the advertisements.
Most students were not able to link the art and the text.
Responses did not indicate clear personal judgment with relevant or adequate support.
FOCUSED FEEDBACK
Is the feedback corrective in nature?
Is the feedback specific to the criteria and the scoring guide?
Is the feedback provided in a positive manner?
Does the feedback lead to specific suggested teaching strategies for the classroom?
Teaching Strategies
What are the areas in which students are performing well?
What teaching strategies seem to be working well?
What are the areas in which students need to improve?
What specific teaching strategies might we suggest to bring about improvement?
What specific feedback should the teacher give the students about overall performance on this task?
Are there any students who need individual help in critical areas of performance?
Teacher Feedback
How I have helped the team become a more effective instructional unit?
Analyzing Student Work
Analyzing student work is a logical extension of the module development process
Provides the critical element of feedback to the planning process
