Essential Learning(s)--Write about a text with critical and argumentative intent

Goals for the year

* Create common assessment   

* Give the common assessment in the fall, 1st part of 2nd semester, and again the end of April     

* Assess the common assessments individually and as a PLC

* Analyze the data

* Determine what to do for the students who are not proficient

* Determine how to challenge the students who are already proficient

* Create steps for intervention for students who are not proficient

Successes

We have given our 1st common assessment and have analyzed the student samples. We discussed the levels of proficient writing and have determined the characteristics for being proficient on the common assessment.

Common Assessment(s)

The following common assessment is not the one we have given, but an example:

What does Odysseus most value and why? We like this prompt in that it inherently makes students write with a persuasive slant and focus their answer on why they believe what they do. The students that were not proficient did not answer the WHY part of the question.

Essential Learning: Students should be able to write an effective thesis statement for an essay that identifies a literary theme from a story.

American Literature Vision Statement: To encourage students to expand their perception of themselves in relation to the world, to develop critical inquiry and thought, and foster a progressive approach to learning.  

Goals for the year: The American literature PLC is currently trying to refine our process for evaluating student thesis statements. We have already collected samples and evaluated student work. By the end of the year, we plan to have a new and improved prompt to evaluate student writing and to have agreed on some common guidelines for evaluating student thesis statements.

Successes: We have redefined our expectations for student writing. Adjusting our assessment mechanism, our common assessment focuses on developing thesis statements that guide thematic essays.  As a PLC, we divided up student writing and identified characteristics of the strongest writing. 

Common Assessment: Students read various works of literature and write thematic essays guided by strong, argumentative thesis statements.

Essential Learning:  To develop a thesis statement for a synthesis essay.

Goals for the year: (1) Develop a common assessment for first semester; (2) Collect writing prompts in common on-line folder; (3) Work towards proficiency; (4) At least one common assessment per semester.

Successes:  (1) Revised essential learning; (2) Set up common folder on-line for sample writing prompts; (3) Finalized rubric for an effective thesis statement; (4) Reached agreement that a proficient thesis must be debatable and provable; (5) Set up folder on-line to collect student data / sample writing; (6) Analyzed data and suggested actions to improve proficiency.

Common Assessment example:  What is the most important flaw / action / event of fate that causes a hero to be tragic?  Argue and defend while incorporating a minimum of one outside source.