Assessments

Lessons 1 5:
Informal: Students acquisition of new knowledge will be determined by
assessing students dialogue in their Unison Reading (UR) groups. I will assess the
major ideas or concepts that are emerging for students within the text that they
are reading by recording their collective dialogue. I will have a written log of
everything students say to document what understandings students are coming
to as well as what concepts that need to be further scaffolded for students. I will
also measures students understanding of concepts as well as possible confusion
they are experiencing through a collective dialogue with their peers. This
assessment will occur at the end of the lesson to determine where students are in
terms of the big ideas or essential understandings pertaining to the lesson and
whether further elaboration or scaffolding is needed before continuing with the
next lesson.
Formal: Within this lesson, I will assess students understanding of the major
concepts as well as language comprehension by evaluating their Breach Logs and
the specific entry for this day. Their entry or debrief for the day will evaluate
how students are interrogating the language within complex texts and if they
need additional support to understand the language and/or central ideas of the
texts they are reading. Students get two points for a well-developed breach log
debrief entry. Students get one point for a sufficient entry that may need to be
more clear or developed. Students get a zero if they do not complete their entry
or their entry is unclear. Students who receive a score of one or zero will be
students I will work with individually to help them by scaffolding on the language
or complex ideas that they may be struggling to comprehend. This formal
assessment allows to me to determine which students need more support and
what they need support for.
Methods of Assessment: Informal assessments are based on dialogue and
discussions that occur during the mini-lesson, the unison reading, and the
debrief or reflective discussion at the end of class. Another informal assessment
that occurs on an individual level is the writing or learning conferences. Formal
assessments take the form of daily debriefs where students write in their breach
logs. I will also require students to complete weekly formal assessments such as
annotated bibliographies and genre analysis exams. Students will have one final
formal assessment at the end of the unit called the Final Synthesis Argument
where I will evaluate what knowledge and skills students have acquired
throughout the unit.
Differentiation: During informal assessments, I work with struggling readers by
completing a learning conference. A learning conference helps students think
meta-cognitively about their breach or point confusion and how to resolve these
breakdowns in their learning. As students talk through their confusion, I record
what they say. Next, I ask guiding questions that direct students to think about
the mental strategies they used to resolve their confusion. Students respond by

guiding me through their mental process and what they did mentally to achieve
understanding. The final part of the learning conference is that students choose a
strategy that they identified during the conference and pledge to use this
strategy next time they approach confusing language or concepts. Many of these
strategies are explained in the Common Core Standards under the category of
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use.
During formal assessments, I will repeat the directions in a simpler or
alternative way. Rephrasing the directions for students can allow them to
effectively answer the prompt and show they know. Students are also given a
variety of options on what they can debrief or reflect on. They can elaborate on
the language they observed while reading, they can discuss the major ideas that
surface in the texts, or they can explain what specific element of informational
literacy such as claims, rhetorical strategies, and evidence, they found in the text
and how to it supports the writers purpose. Giving students the option to write
about language, concepts, or elements of informational literacy can provide them
with the freedom to show what they have learned during the lesson.

Daily Informal Assessments

Unison Reading:
Unison Reading assesses cooperative learning among students in their
Unison Reading (UR) groups. This assessment measures how students examine
texts literally and critically, what understandings or new knowledge they are
constructing through collaborative inquiry, and what language and evidence are
they drawing from the text in order to construct meaning of the text. I will assess
students understanding and participation by recording their dialogue within their
group and then repeating the dialogue for students so they can hear valuable
ideas that they have generated as a group.
Group Debriefs:
This assessment measures students understanding of concepts as well as
possible confusion they are experiencing through a collective dialogue with their
peers. The purpose of this assessment is to determine where students are in
terms of the big ideas or essential understandings pertaining to the lesson and
whether further elaboration or scaffolding is needed before continuing with the

next lesson.
Daily Formal Assessments
Unison Daily Debrief Logs:
The Unison Daily Debrief Logs measures students understanding of words
and language they encounter during their reading. Students are encouraged to
write about what words or language encounter how the author implements it in
the text, and how their understanding of such words and language promotes their
understanding of the text and their topic. We assess these logs to see how
students are interrogating the language within complex texts and if they need
additional support to understand the central ideas of the texts they are reading.

Unison & Work Time Debrief

Every two weeks you are responsible for 5 debriefs.
2 - Clear & Correct 1 - Mostly correct and/or sometimes clear 0 - Not
present, complete, or correct.
Debrief contains a variety of words and phrases that were
breached on for different levels of understanding (meaning, word
choice, figurative or academic language). (L4)
Explanations are accurate and stated in own words. (L4)
Debrief explains how these words led to an understanding of the
text or topic. (L6)
Step 1: List all of the words that you breached on during your UR
session or Work Time today in your notebook. Define each word in your
own words.
Step 2: Choose the most important word and copy the sentence it
is from. Based off of your definition, explain how the author is using
the word in the sentence.
Step 3: Write a brief narrative of how learning this specific word
allowed you to better understand your text as a whole.
* This assignment was developed by the Urban Assembly for Green Careers English Department
Staff.

Long-term Formal Assessments

Annotated Bibliography:
This assignment is intended to get students to think critically about how the
text they are analyzing contributes to their comprehension or new knowledge of
their topic. This assessment is also intended to support students as they work
towards the final writing assignment. An annotated bibliography serves as a
genre of writing that can help students flesh out their ideas about why the text is
significant to their overall purpose of their research on their topic. As an assessor,
it will allow me to where students are struggling in terms of their essential
question of their topic, their understanding of the functions of their text, and how
it connects to their topic. I can determine what kinds of support I can offer my
students based on this assessment.

Annotated Bibliography Entry

Citation, Text Title, Date Published, Author(s), Genre
Write an annotated bibliography entry about your Unison Reading or
independent text from the past two weeks. For your entry, discuss the main
point of the text and how it connects to your unit topic. Your response must be
2-3 paragraphs.
0 - Not present or inaccurate 1 - Present but lacking development 2 Present and well developed
Establish your inquiry about your unit topic before reading this text.
Identify the central idea(s) of the text you read. Do not summarize
the text.
Cite evidence from the text that demonstrates the central idea.
Discuss how the texts ideas support or challenge your claim or how
youve changed your claim after having read this piece.
Score

/
8

* This assignment was developed by the Urban Assembly for Green Careers English Department
Staff.

Reading Analysis Exam:

The Reading Analysis Exam assesses where students are in terms of writing
to inform their reader of their topic. Students will be assessed based their ability
to identify the central idea of the text, identify the most important writing
strategy, cite strong evidence, and explain how the author develops the central
idea. It also provides an evaluation of the students comprehension of their text
and their topic of interest. Based on this assessment, I can determine what
elements of informational writing I need to review with students so that they are
prepared for the final writing assignment.

Reading Analysis Exam

Text Title, Author, Genre
Read the text provided by your teacher and write a well-developed, textbased response of two to three paragraphs in which you explain the
central idea and how they achieve it through the use of writing
strategies and literary techniques.
0 - Not present or inaccurate 1 - Present but lacking
development 2 - Present and well developed
Identify the text and its central idea. Do not summarize the

text.
Identify the most important writing strategy (literary element
or literary technique or rhetorical device) the author uses to
develop this central idea.
Cite strong evidence demonstrating the writing strategy.
Identify each piece of evidence by line number.
Analyze how the authors use of this writing strategy develops
the central idea.
Summarize your analysis of the text in a clear conclusion.
Organize your response in two-three coherent paragraphs.
Score

/
12

* This assignment was developed by the Urban Assembly for Green Careers English Department
Staff.

Final Formative Assessment:

All of the assignments that students complete during the six-week unit,
formal and informal, supports and prepares students for the final writing
assignment. The final writing assignment will assess if students successfully
acquired the reading and writing skills that I have established as goals or
objectives for this unit. The assessment will also measure what new knowledge
students have constructed through researching, reading, and writing about their
topic of interest.

Synthesis Argument
At the end of the unit, you will make an argument about a topic
relevant to your unit of study. Use at least three of the texts
you have read as evidence to support a well-developed
argument.
Your Unison debriefs, annotated bibliography entries, and
genre analysis exams will help you in the writing of your final
Synthesis Argument.
Synthesis Argument prompts:

Introduce a precise, accurate claim about the topic.

Distinguish your claim from alternate or opposing claims

Use specific, relevant, and sufficient evidence from at

least three texts to develop your argument.

Identify each source that you reference by title and page
number or graphic.
Explain how each piece of cited evidence supports your
claim Summarize how you proved your claim in a clear
conclusion.
Exhibit skillful organization of ideas and information to
create a cohesive and coherent essay.
Establish and maintain a formal style, using appropriate
language and conventions.

* This assignment was developed by the Urban Assembly for Green Careers English Department
Staff.