Summative assessment in this particular unit plan will most likely a group project. Groups will have to rewrite a fairytale or well known story. They will have a few options: The could write it in the traditional story/essay format, or they could create a video or a skit. The stories will be required to be at least two to three pages long and the skits/videos will have to be approximately five minutes long.My main goal is to have students get creative and to have more practice working in groups. It's my hope that students will be more enthusiastic about texts when they see them rewritten-It gives them examples of how different authors have taken liberty with texts and provides examples of creativity.
I can't get over how much I like your unit concept! Of course I like your idea of using large and small group discussion. My question is what possible ideas will these discussions be about? I think your summative assignment are spot on I would maybe just make the paper and required skit length a little shorter.
ReplyDeleteI am excited that your are imagining a summative assessment to be a text transformation. I think it is really smart to think about this a potentially a group assignment--esp. if students develop a skit, video, etc. But you might also want to allow for individual projects too--a comic strip, a song, etc. could easily be accomplished by individual authors too.
ReplyDeleteI think that group discussion is very important to include in the unit plan. However, it is very difficult to assess individual performance in discussion. So, I also encourage you to include individual written responses, & compare/ contrast analysis of the texts that you study. This is the crux of the standard, so I think it also needs to be present. Remember that writing improves discussion, and discussion improve dialogue. . . so these should work well together. One question: how are you coming along with text selections? You have mentioned R&J a couple times. If you are going to teach R&J as a whole text, that is probably going to take you in a different direction(and it would probably take 3-4 weeks). So one thought: pick 1 or 2 keys scenes from the play--read and compare just those. Keep me posted on questions as they develop.