Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• Two lessons have been allocated for this assessment to ensure sufficient time for students to draft their informative essays. If these are taught in two separate lessons rather than together as one block, revisit the learning targets and the task at the beginning of the second 45-minute lesson to remind students of the task and purpose. Be sure to collect written work at the end of each session.
• Repeated routines occur in the following:
• Opening A: In the entrance ticket activity, students consider how previous lessons prepared them for the assessment task.
• Opening B: Students review the learning target.
• New skills are introduced in the following:
• Work Time A: Students complete their end of unit assessments, in which they write the essays they've been planning over the previous several lessons. Students draw on evidence to compare and contrast the novel A Long Walk to Water and the informational article "The 'Lost Girls' of Sudan" to analyze how the author of the novel uses or alters history. (RL.7.1, RL.7.9, RI.7.1, W.7.2, W.7.4, W.7.6, W.7.9, W.7.10)
• W.7.2 - Closing and Assessment A: Students track their progress on writing informative essays, evaluating how effectively they introduced their topic, provided evidence, and concluded their essay.
• This is a baseline assessment, so look for grammar, usage, and mechanical error patterns that can be taught in future but not assessed now.
• The Think-Pair-Share protocol is used in this lesson. Protocols are an important feature of our curriculum because they are one of the best ways we know to engage students in discussion, inquiry, critical thinking, and sophisticated communication. A protocol consists of agreed-upon, detailed guidelines for reading, recording, discussing, or reporting that ensure equal participation and accountability in learning.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• Encourage those students who finish the assessment early to begin tracking their progress and revising or adding to their essays to meet their informative writing goals.

How It Builds on Previous Work

• In Units 1 and 2, students have been closely examining A Long Walk to Water and informational texts related to the history and context of the events in the novel. Over the past several lessons, students have been refining skills related to comparing and contrasting texts and planning the essay they are writing in this lesson.

Support All Students

• If students receive accommodations for assessments, communicate with the cooperating service providers regarding the practices of instruction in use during this study as well as the goals of the assessment.
• Some students may require more than the time allotted to complete the assessment.
• Continue to monitor students to determine if there are issues surfacing as a result of the content of this lesson that need to be discussed as a whole group, in smaller groups, or individually.

Assessment Guidance

• All assessment materials (student copy, annotated student exemplar) are included in the Assessment download on this page.
• When assessing and providing feedback to students on this assessment, use the Informative Writing Rubric (Writing Rubrics and Checklists are available for download on the Tools page) and the annotated sample essay to help complete the student Tracking Progress recording form (see Assessment download on this page). Consider making notes in the appropriate column for each criterion in a different color from student responses. There is also space provided to respond to student comments.
• In this assessment, students are tracking progress toward the following anchor standard:
• W.2: By the end of Grade 12 I will be able to: write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
• Save a copy of the scored essays to use as a baseline assessment. These pieces can be used to measure the progress of individual students throughout the year, as well as to identify common instructional needs in a class.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will engage in peer critique of each other's essays, focusing on improving transitions and spelling. Students will then have an opportunity to incorporate their peers' feedback.