Assessed samples of student work

Our 8th grade students spent the six weeks leading up to spring break working on a gigantic research project. It was structured vaguely like a traditional I-search paper, but really it was centered around a large, heavily-researched persuasive essay. This long lesson was split with the social studies teacher and his student teacher, so that there were four teachers on the job. We divided up the 8th graders so that each of us would be responsible for seeing 16 of the students through the process. This allowed all of us to engage intimately with the work that these students were churning out, and have lengthy conferences with them in class and during our RTI time to focus their research, push back against assertions they wanted to make, and hold writing workshops. 

The first thing that students did was to write a prologue for the paper, showing what they knew, what they assumed, what they wanted to learn, and why. 

The student whose work I will be using in this post wrote about government information gathering. Of primary interest was the NSA's metadata collection, but early on he wanted to take a look at the role of traditional spying, ala 007. 

 

It's sort of strange for me to look at this from a content perspective, as obviously the content is really centered around things generally considered part of the social studies curriculum. What I can tell about this student's understanding is that it's fragmented, based on pieces of news, parts of social studies lectures, riddled with holes. Like most 21st century US adults, this student's real problem was seeing a complicated issue in black and white, not making any real attempt to understand the motivations of those who would disagree with him. 

We rectified this by taking 45 minutes in RTI time one day and laying out pros and cons on the whiteboard. One of the paper writing techniques I wanted students to focus on for writing an argumentative paper was laying out the position they were arguing against, and refuting it point by point. This particular student, like  many others, was unable to articulate the possible logic that the opposing view relied on. In this case, the NSA is doing what they are doing in the name of national security in a post 9-11 world. We talked for quite a while about 9-11 and how it changed so much in foreign affairs and the personal lives of Americans, particularly with regard to what some, including this student, see as an invasion of privacy. But it is not for nothing that the NSA is doing what they are doing. One can disagree with their premises, but it isn't for nefarious, nebulous reasons that the NSA is collecting metadata on citizens. 

We used a standards-based rubric to assess the progress the students made on their projects. The standards used to assess this entire project were as follows:

Organization & structure: ELA.Literacy.W.8.2.A: Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

Development: ELA.Literacy.W.8.1: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

Research: ELA.Literacy.W.8.8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

Language: ELA.Language.L.8.1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Lolo grades on a 4 point mastery scale wherein 3 represents a skill at grade level. Work that earns a 4 is truly exemplary, and in my experience there, rare. This particular student earned a 4 in organization & structure, research, and development, while earning a 3.5 in language. 

My comments on the paper were as follows: 'Dear [name withheld]: this is a fine paper. The organization is excellent, and you do a great job of orienting the reader at the beginning of each paragraph as to where you are going. This skill will serve you well in all the writing you will ever do. The prose is a little stilted, but I appreciate that you are trying to write in an academic manner in most sections. This will come easier with more practice. You also let your opinion come out at appropriate times and in appropriate ways.
Your research was very thorough and you did a nice job of finding and evaluating a variety of articles. One area that could be improved in this paper is formatting. There are a few different fonts in the annotated bibliography section. Everything else looks great.
Let me reiterate that this was a fine, fine paper. I was excited to read your take on the NSA’s activities, and I can see that you turned it over in your head and really grasped the complexity of the issue. That shows a certain sophistication about you. Well, at least in academic matters.'


I'm not confident that I'll take on such a large project with an entire grade level again. The circumstances aligned such that we had enough teacher-hours to devote to really provide students with the feedback and guidance that they would need to complete it, and that is unlikely to happen in a normal school year. The grading process was streamlined because of Lolo's commitment to the Common Core Standards and their use of a mastery grading scale. In the future, I would probably do a condensed version, requiring a good deal less research and a correspondingly shorter paper. While this student excelled, others languished under the heavy yoke of spending six weeks on the same topic. That said, I do think we accomplished the important goals that we set out, and it had the benefit of showing these 13 and 14 year old students that they could, given guidance, put together a project that was four times larger than anything they had done up until that point.