Assessment 1

Objectives To improve students’ ability to make inferences about: 1. how war can affect families and society. 2. current social contexts 3. how to use outside knowledge into their interpretations. Read and understand a sample of historical fiction

Rationales 1. We want the students to construct meaning from My Brother Sam is Dead, which the author gives in the text. 2. Students will expand their thinking by incorporating what they learned into future interpretations about other texts, and even life. 3. Exposure to a slightly different genre

Assessments Formative: “Syntax Surgery” – students will relate pronouns to nouns and use the context to define unknown words. This can be done as a class on the overhead transparency or students can work individually as they mark the passages. Summative: Verbal retelling of the story. Students will record their summary individually. A rubric will outline what students should add to their summary; such as setting, character names, relationships, and etc. The students should continue to practice retelling the same story until they meet the requirements met on the rubric. A Retellings Progress Chart can be used for this. *

Tasks 1. Modeling will be used to scaffold assessments. We will show students an example of how we related pronouns to nouns and etc. 2. Develop students understanding about what is necessary to include in the retelling of a story.

Standards CE 1.1.2, CE 1.1.4, CE 1.1.6, CE 1.3.6, CE 1.3.7, CE 1.5.3, CE 1.5.4 2.1.2, 2.1.12, 2.2.2,

R.NT.08.01 R.CM.08.01 R.CM.08.02 R.CM.08.03 R.CM.08.04 R.MT.08.01

*This exercise has been modified from a lesson provided in Kylene Beers’ book When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do

Retelling Rubric Name: __________________________

Date: ___________________________

Directions: Use the following criteria to shape how you will retell the story of My Brother Sam Is Dead. Tell the story chronologically and explain important plot lines of the story. Feel free to include the inferences you made during the “Syntax Surgery” assignment. In each row, there is a rating from 0-3. On this scale, 0 means the retelling did not include this specific detail, and 3 indicates that the detail had been successfully and completely discussed. The Retelling Includes: 1. An introduction 0- no introduction 2. Character Description

0- just a list of names, or less

1 –the title and author are identified 1-characters are named with a few details given on most or all of them

3. Explanation of main events

0- not done

1- basic plot summary

4. Organization

0-makes no sense; facts are all over the place

1- flows loosely; presentation jumps around in places

5. Text-to-self connection

0-none made

1-very few made

2- a few general facts are given 2- details for every character; protagonists and antagonists are identified 2- several different conflicts and resolutions are identified 2- follows a general direction throughout

2-few are made, but they are elaborated

3- a main idea in the book is stated 3-relationships of the characters presented in context to the chosen main idea 3- significance of conflicts and resolutions relates to the main chosen idea 3-follows a definite logical process in a clear, cohesive, systematic manner 3- several well elaborated connections that

6. Text-to-text connection

0-none made

1-very few made

2-few are made, but they are elaborated

clearly support the main idea 3- several well elaborated connections that clearly support main idea

Total Score___________