End of Unit 3 Assessment: Write a Narrative about a Lost Boy or Girl of Sudan | EL Education Curriculum

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ELA 2019 G7:M1:U3:L8

End of Unit 3 Assessment: Write a Narrative about a Lost Boy or Girl of Sudan

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Focus Standards: These are the standards the instruction addresses.

  • W.7.3, W.7.4, W.7.6

Supporting Standards: These are the standards that are incidental—no direct instruction in this lesson, but practice of these standards occurs as a result of addressing the focus standards.

  • W.7.10

Daily Learning Targets

  • I can write a narrative telling the story of a Lost Child of Sudan for elementary school students. (W.7.3, W.7.4)

Ongoing Assessment

  • Work Time A: End of Unit 3 Assessment Narrative (W.7.3, W.7.4, W.7.6, W.7.10)

Agenda

AgendaTeaching Notes

1. Opening

A. Return Mid-Unit 3 Assessments with Feedback (5 minutes)

B. Engage the Learner - W.7.4 (5 minutes)

2. Work Time

A. End of Unit 3 Assessment: Write a Narrative (30 minutes)

3. Closing and Assessment

A. Review the Learning Target (5 minutes)

4. Homework

A. Independent Research Reading: Students read for at least 20 minutes in their independent research reading text. Then they select a prompt and write a response in their independent reading journal.

B. Create Illustrations: In art class or at home, follow the instructions on Homework: Create Illustrations to continue creating illustrations for their narrative children's ebook.

Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

  • Repeated routines occur in the following:
    • W.7.4 – Opening A and B: In the entrance ticket activity, students consider the ways they can add elements to their stories that will appeal to third-grade elementary school students.
    • Opening B: Students review the learning target.
    • Closing and Assessment A: Students engage in a collaborative discussion to reflect on habits of character and academic mindsets.
  • New skills are introduced in the following:
    • Work Time A: Students draw on their Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizers and the evidence they’ve collected throughout the module from A Long Walk to Water and related texts to draft a narrative that showcases the habits of character that a Lost Boy or Girl of Sudan demonstrated in his or her journey. (W.7.3, W.7.4, W.7.6, W.7.10)
  • 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 narrative writing goals.

How It Builds on Previous Work

  • In Units 1 and 2, students closely examined 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 planning a narrative to demonstrate their understanding of the events and characters of the people involved in these stories and to transform the material into stories that they can share with others.

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.
  • If technology is not available or a barrier for students, they can handwrite their narrative. However, if possible, students should type their narratives into a word-processing program.

Assessment Guidance

  • Assessment materials (student copy, answer key) are included in the Assessment download on this page. For an exemplar, consult the text Brothers in Hope by Mary Williams.
  • When providing feedback to students on this assessment, use the Narrative Writing rubric (see Tools Page to download the Writing Rubrics document) in order to complete the student Track Progress recording form. Consider making notes in the appropriate column for each criterion in a different color than student responses. There is also space provided to respond to student comments.
  • In this assessment, students are tracking progress toward anchor standard:
    • W.3: By the end of Grade 12 I will be able to: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Down the Road

  • In the next lesson, students will begin their performance task in which they transfer their narrative into an ebook format and write an author’s note explaining the habits of character on display in their narratives.

In Advance

  • Ensure there is a copy of Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 8 at each student's workspace.
  • Post the learning target and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

  • Work Time A: Word-processing program and devices for students to draft their narratives

Supporting English Language Learners

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standards 7.I.C.10, 7.I.C.12, 7.II.B.4, 7.II.C.6, and 7.II.C.7. 

Important Points in the Lesson Itself

  • To support ELLs, this lesson enables students to write a narrative in the form of a children's picture book, a genre that is accessible and manageable for students with a wide variety of language skills and which also allows opportunities for both simple and sophisticated forms of expression, enabling ELLs both to use and stretch their narrative English skills. Moreover, for emergent English speakers, the chance to illustrate their narratives greatly increases their opportunities for expression, since these new English speakers may be able to draw more of their thoughts in English than they are currently able to write. For such beginning English students, providing the opportunity to label as well as draw their illustrations, using an illustrated bilingual dictionary can further support their vocabulary development. 
  • ELLs may find the process of knowing and using English words in their narrative writing challenging, and may, as result, not develop their narratives as fully as they possibly can in the allotted time. Therefore, additional supports such as the ones below, in which student volunteers present strategies for "getting unstuck" and persevering, may be useful.

Vocabulary

  • N/A

Materials from Previous Lessons

Teacher

Student

  • Mid-Unit 3 Assessment: Compare Audio to Text: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 1 (returned with feedback; from Lesson 3; one per student)
  • Criteria of an Effective Narrative anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Work Time B)
  • Work to Become Effective Learners anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 5, Work Time A)
  • Work to Become Ethical People anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening B)
  • Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer (one per student; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Work Time B)
  • Narrative Writing checklist (one per student; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Closing and Assessment A)
  • Homework: Create Illustrations (one per student; from Unit 3, Lesson 4, Homework A)

New Materials

Teacher

Student

  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 8 (answers for teacher reference)
  • End of Unit 3 Assessment scoring materials (see Assessment download)
  • Brothers in Hope by Mary Williams (model narrative for teacher reference)
  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 8 (one per student)
  • End of Unit 3 Assessment: Write a Narrative about a Lost Boy or Girl of Sudan (one per student and one for display; see Assessment download)
  • Track Progress: Narrative Writing (one per student and one for display)
  • Sticky notes (three per student)

Assessment

Each unit in the 6-8 Language Arts Curriculum has two standards-based assessments built in, one mid-unit assessment and one end of unit assessment. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize students' understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.

Opening

Opening

A. Return Mid-Unit 3 Assessment with Feedback (5 minutes)

  • Repeated routine: students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 8. Students will review their responses in Opening B.
  • Return students' Mid-Unit 3 Assessment: Compare Audio to Text: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 1, with feedback, and follow the same routine established in previous modules for students to review feedback and write their name on the board if they require support.

B. Engage the Learner - W.7.4 (5 minutes)

  • Once all students have completed the entrance ticket, invite them to Turn and Talk to share their responses
  • Repeated routine: follow the same routine as in previous lessons to review the learning target and the purpose of the lesson, reminding students of any similarities between this learning target and those from previous lessons.

Work Time

Work TimeLevels of Support

A. End of Unit 3 Assessment: Write a Narrative (30 minutes)

  • Review the learning target:

"I can write a narrative telling the story of a Lost Child of Sudan for elementary school students."

  • Invite students to retrieve the following materials:
    • Narrative Writing Plan graphic organizer
    • Narrative Writing checklist
  • Focus students on the Criteria of an Effective Narrative anchor chart. Tell students that, for this part of the assessment, they will write the narratives they've been planning over the past several lessons.
  • Distribute End of Unit 3 Assessment: Write a Narrative about a Lost Boy or Girl of Sudan.
  • Read the prompt aloud while students follow along silently. Answer clarifying questions.
  • Remind students that because this is an assessment, they should complete it independently in silence. Focus students on the Work to Become Effective Learners and Work to Become Ethical People anchor charts. Remind students that because they will be writing independently for the assessment, they will need to practice perseverance and integrity.
  • Remind students that they planned and began drafting this narrative in the previous lessons.
  • Invite students to begin the assessment.
  • While students are taking the assessment, circulate to monitor and document their test-taking skills.

For Lighter Support

  • In Work Time A, when introducing the narrative assessment, have students share what they do to get unstuck and keep going when they are having trouble knowing what to write. This sharing of strategies for "getting unstuck" helps ELLs in two ways. First, allowing students to verbally help peers builds efficacy and language skills. Second, it provides useful strategies and encouragement for those who may struggle with the language entailed in writing the narrative assessment.
  • If strategies for getting unstuck were previously introduced before the mid-unit assessment, as suggested in the supports for Lesson 3, then remind students of this discussion, and ask student volunteers to share the strategies they used during the mid-unit assessment or another time that they were working independently to get unstuck.

For Heavier Support

  • In Work Time A, when introducing the narrative assessment, allow time for students to briefly sketch and label the outline of their narrative in three boxes: one for the beginning, one for the middle, and one for the end. This presketching activity allows ELLs to rehearse the general shape of their narrative, so they do not have to spend as much time planning their narratives while writing and can focus more on the sometimes challenging task of generating the language they need to create their story.

Closing & Assessments

ClosingLevels of Support

A. Review the Learning Target (5 minutes)

  • Give students specific, positive feedback on their completion of the end of unit assessment (e.g., "I noticed a lot of you were rereading your narrative after you finished drafting to revise and edit").
  • Focus students on the Work to Become Effective Learners anchor chart. Remind students that they will take responsibility for their own learning as they assess their progress toward the learning target.
  • Review the learning target:

"I can write a narrative telling the story of a Lost Child of Sudan for elementary school students."

  • Ask students to Think-Write-Pair-Share about how well they progressed toward the learning target and areas in which they still need to grow. Discuss as a class plans or strategies for growing in this learning target.
  • Incorporate reflection on and awareness of the following academic mindsets: "I can succeed at this." and "My ability and competence grow with my effort."
  • Ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

"What helped you to be successful at that task? How much effort did you put in on this task? How did your effort affect your learning?" (Responses will vary. Possible response: Focusing and working hard helped me be successful and improve my writing.)

For Lighter Support

  • Before releasing students to find evidence of the specified criteria in their own writing, summarize each of the specified criteria in simpler, more ordinary language, and ask students if they have any questions about the criteria they are looking for. Expanding opportunities for students to better understand the designated criteria supports ELLs and further clarifies language related to the task which they may not have understood.

For Heavier Support

  • Consider reducing the number of criteria students are seeking evidence for in their own writing, because the amount of language involved in managing a long list of criteria may overwhelm ELLs. Also, the variety of criteria their writing in English must fulfill may be daunting for them. To make these adjustments without diminishing the productive challenge inherent in the task of finding evidence for particular criteria in one's own writing, ask students to find multiple examples of evidence for one or two criteria, allowing them to go deep with the task, rather than wide.

Homework

Homework

A. Independent Research Reading

  • Students read for at least 20 minutes in their independent research reading text. Then they select a prompt and write a response in their independent reading journal.

B. Create Illustrations

  • In art class or at home, students follow the instructions on Homework: Create Illustrations to continue creating illustrations for their narrative children's ebook.

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