Paloucek 1 Maggie Paloucek De La Rue EPSY 485 27 November 2012 Course Assignment 1.

Context This is a eighth grade English Literature classroom. There are a total of 25 students, 13 girls and 12 boys. This school is located in rural Illinois, and there is not a wide range of diversity, except for the three ELL students, Jorge, Shen, and Elaine, who have recently immigrated to the United States. For them, comprehension while reading is difficult, but oral communication helps their understanding. Their lessons are often adapted to include options to read aloud their work or exams to the teacher outside of the classroom. Another student, David, has dysgraphia, therefore, his handwriting is impossible to read. There are computers in the back of the classroom that he can utilize to type up all of his work. All lessons are adapted to fit the needs of these students based off of their IEPs. The area that feeds into this district has a low socio-economic status and has major problems with drug abuse, especially meth. A few students in the class have parents who are addicted to meth, and as a result, these students are forced to take care of their own parents in a role reversal situation. A few students have parents who do not value education and pull them out to go hunting or help out on the farm. Several students are expected to have jobs outside of school. Only a few students have plans to pursue education after high school. About half of the students come from traditional family structures of married parents, and the others lived in homes with divorced parents. 2. Unit of Study This is the Non-Fiction Reading and Persuasive Writing Unit. The enduring questions for the persuasive writing genre include: Who is the audience? How does audience and purpose

Paloucek 2 influence our writing? How do we formulate an argument? How does a writer move a reader/listener to action? How do we share our ideas when others disagree with us? How can visuals be used to convey a persuasive message? I have identified three of the ILS reading standards used to create the unit to develop my assessment: 1.8.19 Draw inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and support them with textual evidence and prior knowledge. 1.8.20 Differentiate between conclusions that are based on fact and those that are based on opinion. 1.8.21 Explain information presented in a nonfiction passage using evidence from the passage.

Paloucek 3 3. Assessment During Instruction Activity Sharing in the American Dream by Colin Powell 1. What message is Colin Powell trying to send in his speech? What arguments does he use to support his point?

2. What does Powell mean when he says, "For too many young Americans, that dream deferred does sag like a heavy load that's pushing them down into the ground, and they wonder if they can rise up with that load?" How do you know that?

3. Find one line from the passage that you would view as an opinion statement and explain why. Find one line from the passage that is a factual statement and explain why you classify it as a fact.

Paloucek 4 Analysis of Items Item 1: This short answer question relates to the first ILS reading standard in which students are asked to derive conclusions from texts based on textual evidence and prior knowledge. This item will allow me to assess their basic understanding of the text to identify potential misunderstandings before I assess deeper comprehension. This item address their ability to understand his basic message and the arguments he uses to create his message. Item 2: This short answer question is aligned with the third standard in which students are asked to explain information presented in a nonfiction passage. This item will allow me to analyze students' understanding of a specific line in the text to first see if there are any misinterpretations. This item will ask students to analyze a specific line and interpret its meaning based on the entire text. Item 3: This final short answer question relates to the second standard which asks students to differentiate between fact-based and opinion-based conclusions. By allowing the students to select specific lines instead of generally stating, I can reliably assess their understanding of the differences between the two conclusions. This item asks students to analyze the text by asking them to distinguish between fact-based and opinion-based conclusions. I believe this to be a fair assessment because this text was discussed in multiple formats prior to the quiz in order to give the students the opportunity to learn the text. In terms of reliability, I plan to give the students plenty of time to make sure that I am testing their knowledge of the content and eliminating issues because of lack of time to finish the assessment. Addressing validity, I plan to have the test reviewed by other teachers or faculty to obtain feedback from an outside party in order to test for bias or misleading information. I have also aligned these items with the standards of the unit to ensure validity.

Paloucek 5 4. Explanation Since I consider this activity to be a summative assessment, I would grade this activity. There would have been several lessons on the material, so I would except students to have already discussed the answers to these questions in class at this point. Grading the activity allows students to be rewarded for the knowledge they have attained throughout class and give them the feedback on their in-class work. Students will be given this quiz at the beginning of the class period, and it should take no more than 20 minutes. This quiz will be announced before the class so they have the opportunity to prepare if they choose, but it will be an independent quiz. I will probably go over the quiz after I have graded it in order to make note of any struggles that the entire class seemed to have. The student with dysgraphia would be allowed to use the computer to type out their responses for the quiz. The ELL students could select to have their exams read to them and further explained in order to make sure that they are comprehending the questions. Performance criteria for students: I plan to use the following evidence to demonstrate understanding (for both objectives): Proficient understanding: Students will answer all questions correctly or if students answer any question wrong, they misunderstood a part of the speech but understood the main concept and argument. Adequate understanding: Students will be able to answer most parts of each question correctly. Wrong answers would be listing incorrect answers for the second part of the first question or incorrectly interpreting the statement in the second question. Poor understanding: Students who are unable to correctly answer any of the questions. For my class as a whole, I would want most of my students to be at least at the adequate understanding level. If I am able to accomplish this, I would move forward in my unit while

Paloucek 6 continuing to focus on these standards with other non-fiction texts. Students that demonstrate poor understanding may receive opportunities to re-take the quizzes to make up partial points or have the ability to demonstrate their understanding of the text in different projects later in the unit. If many of the students are struggling to answer these questions, I may try to use similar questions as "bell-ringers," providing low intensity situations where students can practice answering these forms of questions and receiving immediate feedback as I go over the bellringers as a class. Then, the students can learn what I am looking for when I ask these types of questions, and be able to answer questions on these standards based on any text, not just this speech necessarily.