Assessment Plan

Here are my assessment plans for my unit project:

1. In order to narrow down an essay topic, I will have students work together in groups to come up with ideas for topics to write on. As students discuss and narrow down topic ideas, I will observe student interaction, answer any questions they may have, and provide some potential guiding topic ideas. By the end of the class period, students will turn in a topic proposal for peer and teacher evaluation. Questions to consider for evaluation based on the topic: is it specific enough? Is there enough support through research/material to write a 1000-word essay?Do the primary texts studied throughout the course of the school year support the topic?

2. The research process will be a guided, step-by-step process, and students will turn in notecards which contain bibliographic information along with the content they will use for their essay from each individual source. Students will need to use research from a minimum of two print resources and two valid electronic resources (these resources will require teacher approval). The notecards will be required at different stages of the research as a way for me to check their progress.

3. As part of a formative assessment, students will turn in rough drafts for peer and teacher review. They will receive feedback before they turn in their final copy.

4. The final copy of their essay will have two graded components: First, the final copy will be graded using a rubric which student will have access to from the beginning of the essay writing process. Second, students will compile a small portfolio of all their work during the essay writing process to be handed in along with their final copy. This way, it will be easy to identify the changes made in the essay writing process from beginning to end and to evaluate the student based upon improvement/effort throughout the process.

Integration of Technology:

Students will use technology for multiple stages of this plan:
1. Students can use technology to help them choose a topic for the essay. Students will be given advance notice of the assignment before they are assigned to groups to discuss their ideas. It would be advisable for them to do some preliminary research to ensure that there is information about the topic they are most interested in.
2. Students will use technology to conduct research. This includes using library databases to find print resources along with searching the Internet for online resources and using some journal databases like Ebsco or JSTOR.
3. Students will use word processing programs to type their essays. The essay will be broken into stages, and students will be required to type anything that is turned in for evaluation.