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Student Work AnalysisShort Story Assignment Assessment

Part 1. Context: The last unit of our 1st Trimester was a two and a half week Short Stories Unit. The goals for this unit were focused around student understanding of the different elements that make up every short story. A more specific unit goal was for students to be able to use close reading to explore the fluidity that characters have throughout stories, specifically in relation to a conflict. In addition, students were to identify that in every short story there is a lesson to be learned or an overall message provided for the reader. Throughout the Short Stories Unit, students read a number of short stories and evaluated the different elements or the 3 Parts of a short story. They also participated in activities that explored the different aspects of characters and the way they often change to adjust with the problems that arise in the story. The activities throughout the unit ranged from whole class readings and discussions of particular stories, to smaller literature circles with each group assigned a different story to teach to the class. Students also kept a notebook throughout the unit where they participated in short brainstorming activities surrounding character development, plot development, and the use of strong verbs to portray action in a story. As a summative assessment to determine student success with understanding the key components of a short story, students were asked to write their own short story in two pages or less. In this assignment, students were able to use what they learned throughout the unit to create their own characters, actions, and problems/issues within a short story. The assignment overall served as a fun outlet for students to broadcast their own creativity and imagination right as the trimester came to a close. Goals for student learning in Short Stories Unit: SWBAT: Identify the 3 Parts of a Story Problem/Desire Attempt to deal w/ problem or desire Resolution Analyze the 3 Truths of a Character They want something They either change or do not change They pay a price Employ components of writers craft: Dialogue Sensory details

2 Parr Design: By having students write a piece of their own short story, I was able to assess whether or not the unit goals were met. This assessment really allowed me to gauge student understanding of short stories, while giving students the opportunity to use their imaginations to show their comprehension of the unit. The goal of the assessment was to really gauge what students took away from the Short Stories Unit overall, which (I had hoped) was closely aligned with meeting the unit goals. There were a number of in-class activities that students participated in prior to starting this assessment. Listed below are a just a few of these activities/practices: -Character sketches to aid with development -Lit circle roles to become responsible for a specific aspect of a story/group -Scaffolded writing to ensure readiness for assessment ~Dialogue from personal narrative ~Close reading of characters (R&J) -Practice using/creating sensory details to paint a picture for the reader -Notebook entries to brainstorm many different ideas -Modeling/reading numerous short stories throughout the unit Before students began drafting their short stories, they were given the following handout (figure 1) which served as both a checklist for students as they worked on their stories and a grading sheet for me as the teacher to ensure students have all the necessary components in their stories. Figure 1: Literary devices Strong verbs

3 Parr Part 2. Student Responses and Student Learning In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the given assessment, I chose three samples of student work that varied in achievement levels. Sample A-

I chose to evaluate Student As story because it fell on the lower side of average for the class. I also thought it was interesting that this particular student decided it unimportant to put a name on his/her FINAL (summative) assessment for the unit. This clearly shows that Student A had little regard for the importance of the assignment overall. Sample B-

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Sample B is from a very motivated and hard working student who has put a lot of effort into each assignment during the trimester (as you can see by the red paint all over this short story!). I decided it was important to evaluate a piece of work from a student that I expected to do well and did receive an A on the assignment, and compare how this student work fit with the other two samples.

Sample C-

5 Parr Sample C is an outgoing student who falls within the average range of the class grade wise. I chose to look more closely this sample of work for two reasons. First, I know that although he wants to do well, he is not typically the hardest working student in the class. I thought it would be interesting to evaluate his story because he doesnt always take every assignment seriously. Secondly, this was one of the few students who received a 50/50 grade for this assessment. What a surprise for me!

Student interpretations & patterns: These three students all interpreted the assignment efficiently in terms of understanding the expectations. All of these samples provide evidence that the student saw the task at hand and thought carefully about how to create their own story. For the most part, these interpretations are what I expected. This is because students were provided with ample opportunities to brainstorm for and question the assignment as a whole before getting started. As for many activities and larger assignments, there are always going to be some students who are harder to reach because they are not as intrinsically motivated to do well or they havent been given the chance to show their full potential. All three of the student samples provided received passing grades for the assignment. Sample A received a C (72%), Sample B received an A- (92%), and Sample C received an A+ (100%). A pattern that I came to notice throughout these three samples (and from grading the short stories from the rest of the class) is that students need more work with formatting their stories both with dialogue and in general. This seemed to be the number one problem students ran into throughout the entire assessment. Individual student performance/responses: Sample A: It is hard for me to evaluate this paper in terms of a particular student because, as you can see, the student decided not to write a name on the assignment. In addition to the laziness/carelessness of the student right from the start, it is clear throughout the entire story that the student did not take time to edit/proofread for any grammatical, spelling, punctuation, or formatting errors. However, from looking at the paper, I see that some of the students strengths include using strong verbs to show action throughout the story and also creating a fantasy in the story while also connecting the story to something in the real world.

6 Parr Based on this assessment, I can see that this student had the potential and ideas to create a great story, but didnt effectively utilize the tools and knowledge provided. Sample B: With sample B, I was happy to see the everlasting effort this student put into the assignment, just as he did consistently throughout the entire trimester. Another interesting aspect to this story is that the student chose the topic for his story as an extension from an in-class brainstorming activity. I showed the class a few different pictures and they were to create a scenario from their interpretation of the picture, so it was nice for me to see that some students actually did utilize the practices provided in class to help them with their own assignments. The story was very well written, but lacked that certain spark to capture the readers attention. Sample C: Looking back on the grades for these assessments now, I think that Sample C received the perfect grade that it did because I was so surprised by what an exciting and well-written story it was. There were a few grammatical, spelling, and formatting issues scattered throughout the story, but given my knowledge of the student who wrote it I was very proud to see the effort and thought put into this story. It was exciting for me to witness a student who does not always seem engaged with class work to really push an assignment to success. Part 3. For this assessment overall, I had less of an opportunity to talk to students about their work to provide specific feedback. I wrote individual feedback on each students story that was turned in, but never had the chance to sit down or conference with students about their grade as I have done earlier this year for larger writing assessments. Because I am in a unique situation with my placement school being on trimesters, I didnt even get the opportunity to tell the students my thoughts on their assignments as a whole. In fact, most students havent even come to pick up their graded short story to see comments, corrections, etc. because they left for Thanksgiving break and that was the end of our Trimester together. I now have all new students, so this assignment has been helpful in that I was able to reflect on the assessment and will be able to make revisions as necessary for a new set of students. As for the goals of this particular assessment, I think I would revise a couple things. First of all, I felt that the assessment overall spoke for student creativity and ability to piece together important aspects of a short story, but did not entirely meet the objectives of the Short Stories Unit as a whole. When doing this Short Stories

7 Parr Unit again, I will be sure to incorporate more specific goals that can be met by such an open-ended assessment. In addition, grading this creative writing assignment seemed difficult to me because I felt as though I was being somewhat subjective in the grading process. I detected myself giving more cushioned grades to the stories that I had more interest or relatability, regardless if they had all of the criteria for the assignment or not. This was in no way fair for each and every student, and led to anger and frustration with myself halfway through the short stories. One of the reasons I think I found subjectivity to be an issue while grading these stories is because the assessment really lacked a basis for the grading. Looking back, I wish I had provided students with a detailed rubric to aid with grading rather than just a checklist for completing the main components of the assessment. This would have been much more beneficial for both my students and me, as we would all have a more solid foundation for the entire process. For the students, a well-written and detailed rubric would serve as a guide for writing while also acting as a useful checklist that would ensure completeness of the assignment. For me, the rubric would be an easy way to make sure all papers are being graded fairly, without bias, and help generate more specificity in distinguishing a range of student work. The rubric I would create in a revision to this assessment would provide a scale for each different component of the assignment to guarantee effectiveness in assessing student understanding and growth from the unit as a whole.