Grade 6 English

Open-Ended Creative Assessment Trash

Choose one of the following to show your understanding of the novel Trash.

1. Conduct a question-and-answer interview of one of the characters. You must

present it orally to the class. Pretend you work for a newspaper or radio station
and interview one of characters once they have reached the island.
For example:
ROXANNA: This is Roxanna Delacueva, from WBZR, tell me kids,
how did you know the money was buried in the cemetery?
GARDO: Well, its a long story, but once we decoded the bible, we
went to the cemetery and .
Your interview should have at least 6 questions and answers. Make sure you
have good notes, but dont just read from your paper. You must pretend you are
that character and be able to answer the questions like the character would.
You can choose someone from the class to be the interviewer.

2. Pretend you work for a newspaper in Manila. Write a newspaper report (and
read it to the class) about how the boys found the money. You may include funny
drawings like the ones on page 169 of the book. It should be about one page
long. Each paragraph should include the important events that led the boys to
finding the money.

3. Write and perform a song with Lyrics about the boys. This can be any kind of
song (Rap, Hip Hop, etc) but must show an understanding of the how the
boys found the money, not just that they found it. You could focus on how the
friendship helped the boys to find the money or how one of the characters used
his character traits helped to find the money.

4. Write and perform a Found Poem. Choose a passage from the book that you
like and that you think is important to the story. Then take phrases from that
passage to create a Poem. The poem should reflect the story somehow: the
setting or conditions in which the boys live, the characters, one of the themes, or
the story itself. See the example below to understand how to write a found Poem.

Sample Found Poem

P_r_o_s_e_ _S_e_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s_ _f_r_o_m_ _C_h_a_n_g_-_r_a_e_

_L_e_e_s_ _C_o_m_i_n_g_ _H_o_m_e_,_ _A_g_a_i_n_ _

From that day, my mother prepared a certain meal to welcome me home.
It was always the same. Even as I rode the schools shuttle bus from Exeter to
Logan airport, I could already see the exact arrangement of my mothers table.
I knew that we would eat in the kitchen, the table brimming with plates.
There was the kalbi, of course, broiled or grilled depending on the season. Leaf
lettuce, to wrap the meat with. Bowls of garlicky clam broth with miso and tofu
and fresh spinach. Shavings of cod dusted in flour and then dipped in egg wash
and fried. Glass noodles with onions and shiitake. Scallion-and-hot-pepper
pancakes. Chilled steamed shrimp. Seasoned salads of bean sprouts, spinach,
and white radish. Crispy squares of seaweed. Steamed rice with barley and red
beans. Homemade kimchi. It was all therethe old flavors I knew, the beautiful
salt, the sweet, the excellent taste. (p. 5)
....................................................................................................................
I wish I had paid more attention. After her death, when my father and I
were the only ones left in the house, drifting through the rooms like ghosts, I
sometimes tried to make that meal for him. Though it was too much for two, I
made each dish anyway, taking as much care as I could. But nothing turned out
quite rightnot the color, not the smell. At the table, neither of us said much of
anything. And we had to eat the food for days. (p. 6)
You can find the full essay at
http://readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson998/ComingHomeAgain.pdf

*******************************
Found Poem Based on the Prose Selection
My mother prepared
A certain meal
To welcome me home.
We would eat in the kitchen
Table brimming
Kalbi, leaf lettuce to wrap the meat
Garlicky clam broth with miso and tofu and fresh spinach
Shavings of cod
Scallion and pepper pancakes
Chilled steamed shrimp
Steamed rice.
The old flavors I knew
Beautiful, salt, sweet, excellent.
I wish I had paid more attention.
You will present these in class on Monday 2/9 and Tuesday 2/10. We are
assessing Criterion C: Producing Text and Criterion D: Oral Language
Presentation Skills.

Criterion C:
Show that you can:

produce texts that demonstrate thought and

imagination while exploring new
perspectives and ideas arising from personal
engagement with the creative process
make stylistic choices in terms of linguistic,
literary and visual devices, demonstrating
awareness of impact on an audience
select relevant details and examples to
support ideas.
Criterion D:
Show that you can:

use appropriate and varied vocabulary, sentence structures and

forms of expression
speak in an appropriate register (TONE) and style
use correct grammar, syntax and punctuation
pronounce with accuracy
use appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication techniques.