SAMPLE ITEMS CBAL LANGUAGE ARTS FORMATIVE … · The formative-assessment tasks are accompanied by teacher handbooks. These include an overview of formative assessment and suggest

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SAMPLE ITEMS

CBAL LANGUAGE ARTS FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Overview The CBAL initiative is committed to developing formative-assessment materials that teachers and students will find worthwhile for classroom use. To date, we have developed two kinds of formative task sets:

♦ A scenario-based sequence of exercises that develop a particular topic and require a week or more of coursework (“E-Waste,” “Junk Food,” “Robot Ethics”)

♦ Flexible and much smaller component tasks that can be easily interjected into the

curriculum whenever the teacher needs to check on student understanding or progress in a particular skill area (Argumentation, Summarization, Characterization, etc.)

This document includes sample items of the second type, component skills, in the Argumentation set. Some of the tasks parallel summative tasks, but others are necessarily more basic so that the teacher can target the appropriate developmental level for an individual student or group of students. The formative-assessment tasks are accompanied by teacher handbooks. These include an overview of formative assessment and suggest assessment-for-learning strategies that are particularly relevant for each exercise. The tasks have been developed in collaboration with the school district of Portland, Maine, where teachers and their eighth-grade students are pilot testing the tasks and the assessment-for-learning strategies. From the Language Arts Teacher Handbook: Argumentation

I. Why are argumentation skills important for writers? People present arguments all the time — on internet forums, in professional journals, in the editorial pages of newspapers, in business memoranda, to name a few of the many contexts in which argumentation matters. Because argumentation is central to academic writing and crucial for student success in college, it is a key target of instruction. It does not really matter if we think of argumentation as a reading skill, a writing skill, or a critical thinking skill. It is all of these and more. And yet argumentation is not easy for students to learn if they haven’t had previous experiences with it, because it involves a whole family of interlinked skills and strategies and


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requires students to do things that may seem rude or inappropriate. They have to know how to disagree with people while treating them respectfully. They have to know how to take and defend a position as well as how to evaluate other people’s positions and arguments. These are complex skills, not easily learned. We cannot assume that students will understand how to argue, even if the skills we are trying to teach seem like common sense to us. As with many skills, the pieces all fit together, and it can be hard to understand any one of them without understanding its place in the larger picture. Argument typically happens in a group — a group of people who are open to new ideas, who are willing to listen to people they disagree with, and who are willing to change their minds if other people make a good enough case. While argument also happens between two people, or inside one’s own mind, it depends on internalizing the values that make argument and debate possible. Students must understand what it means to be an advocate. They need to understand how to listen and read with an open mind. If students do not understand this, argument may seem like an artificial exercise. One of the great challenges in teaching argumentation is creating a classroom environment in which advocacy and reasoned dialogue seem as natural as breathing. Argumentation presupposes that we understand that other people have different points of view. What seems obvious to us may not be obvious to others. What we assume, others may challenge. What others presuppose, we may question. Learning how to argue is learning how to understand the ways in which other people think. It is learning how to shape an argument to convince others, not just ourselves. Central to argument is learning how to take a stand. But while anyone can make a claim, claims are more than thesis sentences. Claims should be clear and precise, reasonable, and defensible. When people make claims, they should know what they are committed to defending and be ready to back it up with evidence. They should be thinking about how other people will react to the claim and why. A good argument gives valid reasons for believing the claim. Anyone making an argument should be prepared for criticism and willing to rebut other people’s arguments. Not all writing is built around argument. But when writing is, students need to know how to handle it. They need to be able to read a text and analyze the arguments it contains. They need to be able to formulate arguments of their own and express them appropriately. The formative exercises presented in this manual are designed to help students learn how to understand and build arguments. They are not a curriculum by themselves, but they should help teachers present argumentation to students, devise lesson plans, and assess how well students understand key concepts.


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II. How do CBAL exercises address argumentation skills? This set of CBAL formative-assessment exercises is designed to help students develop and demonstrate skills in five important areas.

Argumentation Exercises What Students Will Need To Do

Introduction:

• What Is an Argument? • Why Are Arguments Important? • What Makes a Good Argument?

• Read a brief definition of arguments • Read a brief rationale for arguments • See essential criteria for arguments

Exercise 1: Pro & Con

• Figuring Out Which Side of an Issue a Writer Is On

• Read 2 screens about Pro/Con and Off-Topic statements

• Classify 9 statements as Pro/Con/Neither/Off Topic

Exercise 2: Claims & Evidence

• Evaluating Evidence

• Selecting the Best Evidence

• Read 2 screens about claims and supporting evidence • Classify evidence for 6 claims (supports, weakens, does

neither) • Choose strongest evidence to support 2 different

claims Exercise 3: Facts & Opinions

• Classifying Statements as Fact or Opinion

• Identifying Opinion Words

• Read 1 screen with examples of facts and opinions • Classify 4 sets of statements as fact/opinion

• Read 1 screen about opinion words • Delete opinion words from 5 sentences to form

statements of fact

Exercise 4: Errors In Logic

• Identifying Logical Fallacies

• Read definitions of 6 logical errors • Classify 7 brief arguments (OK? If not, what is the logical

error?)

Exercise 5: Evaluating Arguments

• Giving Good Feedback (Proposals for Using Town Lot) (Argument for Teens in Space)

• Read intro screen & “Tips for Giving Feedback on Arguments”

• Select best feedback for a proposal on use of the community lot

• Select best feedback for another community-lot proposal

• Write your feedback for a third community-lot proposal • Write your feedback for a student’s letter arguing that

teens should be trained as astronauts


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Exercise 1: Figuring Out Which Side of an Issue a Writer Is On (Selected Response)

Introductory Screen

Sample Item


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Exercise 2: Evaluating Evidence (Selected Response)

Introductory Screen

Sample Item


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Exercise 3: Classifying Statements as Fact or Opinion (Selected Response)

Introductory Screen

Sample Item


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Exercise 3: Identifying Opinion Words (Deletion Response) Introductory Screen

Sample Item


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Exercise 4: Identifying Logical Fallacies (Selected Response) Introductory Screens


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Sample Item


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Exercise 5: Evaluating Arguments: Giving Good Feedback (Selected Response)

Introductory Screens

Sample Item

Documents

SAMPLE ITEMS CBAL LANGUAGE ARTS FORMATIVE … · The formative-assessment tasks are accompanied by teacher handbooks. These include an overview of formative assessment and suggest