A5. The teacher designs coherent short range and long-range opportunities for student learning and assessment.
During the course that I taught Academic English 12 at Altoona Area High School, I created a few long-range projects for my students to accomplish including creating their own propaganda posters that the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm might have sent to other farms or plastered all over their farm. Below is the rubric I had them follow in order to create proper propaganda posters, along with some students’ posters they created then shared to the class.
As the rubric above shows, the students had to reflect their understanding of propaganda in Animal Farm through the posters they created that Napoleon, Snowball, and/or Squealer might have sent to other farms or shown to their own farm.
The picture above is a student’s poster. She drew Napoleon and Squealer expressing how important it is to the Animal Farm that they take all the farm’s milk supply in order to become the strong leaders the farm needs. In the background, she wrote the word “equal” several times over, alluding to the Seven Commandments the pigs came up with for the farm: “All animals are created equal. But some are more equal than others.”
The picture above is another student’s poster. He drew Napoleon on a golden throne to represent the power he has over the Animal Farm. The quote says, “Let’s all join and fight the true enemy, the men who walk on two feet, the humans.”
The last picture above is another student’s poster. What I loved most about this project was the seal of approval she added on the bottom right corner that is supposed to be Napoleon’s stamp of approval to distribute this piece of propaganda to neighboring farms and the Animal Farm.
Along with long-range assignments, I also gave students opportunities to participate and bring their grades up by engaging in informational but fun Padlets, Jamboards, and quizzes, among other activities. Pictured below are a few snapshots from these assignments.
This picture shows students’ answers to the question, “What is one thing you would change about your book and why?” during their readers workshop unit regarding books written by Jason Reynolds - specifically Long Way Down, All American Boys, and The Boy in the Black Suit.
This picture above shows a finished draft on Google Jamboard of the Class Commandments that the students and I came up with together. They were divided into groups and had to come up with three rules, then the entire class voted on whether or not they wanted to keep the rule as a Commandment. This went hand-in-hand with the Animal Farm unit I taught to them.
The last two pictures above show Google Forms quizzes the students created after finishing their chosen books written by Jason Reynolds. These particular students read The Boy in the Black Suit, then collaborated with each other (virtual and in-person students) to create a quiz of ten questions related to the book’s characters, plot, themes, social issues, and/or symbols.