Reading

Writing

Speaking/Listening

Technology

Common Core
Standards

RL.9-10.110.
RI.9-10.1-9.
L.9-10.1-6.

W.9-10.1-10
L.9-10.1-6

SL.9-10.1-6.

SL.9-10 4-6.

Essential
Elements

-Analyzing
essential
themes
Development
of complex
characters
-Analyzing
authors
choices.
-Determining
the main
claim of a
text.

-Focus on
development,
organization, and
style.
-The writing
processprewriting/editing.
-Research
projects.
-Personal
narratives

-Focus on
collaboration in
groups, one-on-one,
and teacher led for
building on others
ideas and expressing
their own clearly and
persuasively
- note taking for take
aways from listening
and modeling
- Multi-perspectives

- create
documents for
writing as well as
speech written
formats to present
in various forms
to an audience or
teacher.

-RAFT
-Journals
-Quick Writes
-Essays
-Writers
workshop

-Group Discussions
-One-on-one
Discussions
-Teacher led
Discussions
-Student Led
Discussions
-Literature circles
-Speeches
-Summarizing
-Read alouds
-Reciprocal Teaching

-Online
discussions
-Class Website
-Multi-media
presentations
-Navigating
Hypertext/literacy

W.9-10.6 and 8

-Textual
evidence to
support
claims
Strategies/stud
y skills

-Annotation
-Character
Charts
-Shift Charts
-Journals
-Read alouds
-Think alouds

Assessment

-Multi-Genre
project.
-Plan/Explore
-Timed
reading and
comprehensi
on questions

-Research project
-Portfolio
-Multigenre
Project.

- Rubric based on
elements of
communicating for a
purpose,
informational,
persuasive.
- researched speech

-online written
portfolio
-media projects
-blog project

Motivation

-High interest
texts
-High interest
topics.
-Real
applicability

-High interest
topics.

- Sharing work
product
-Use of technology

-collaboration
-authentic use of
media and online
technology
- working with
various types of
media

-Readings
may not all
be at the
same lexile
level
-

-Lack of
scaffolding
regarding the
writing process.

-teachers many not

know how to
evaluate listening
comprehension
-amount of time
frontloading
discussion
procedures
-

- technology is
not always
available
-teachers may not
be proficient
when teaching
using various
medias

Common
Errors

Our assessment for reading comprehension is the Explore test which was created by ACT. The
Explore assessment is a norm referenced test that projects a students level of college
readiness in a given subject at a given grade. In our case, this test would give Freshman a
projected score on the ACT, which would identify whether as Freshmen they are projected to be
college ready in reading. We chose Explore, because the test gives subscores relating to ACT
standards, so teachers and students would be able to understand exactly what types of reading
students excel at and what kind of reading gives students difficulty. Specifically, the reading
portion is broken down into social science, science, arts, and literature. If teachers understand
that their students have having difficulty reading literature, they can tailor instruction to address
that need. This is obviously true for all of the other reading subsets as well. Explore was normed
in 2010 from A) the group of schools that used the Explore test in the fall of 2010, B) Non-user
schools that participated in the 2010 Explore equity study and C) a sample of schools from non
users drawn specifically for norming. Under these rules, the eighth-grade norms are based on
the records from 10,429 students from 248 nonuser schools and 731,458 students from 6,453
user schools. The ninth grade norms are based on records from 9,450 students from 86
nonuser schools and 230,898 students from 1,574 user schools.

Reliability Scores
English, Usage/Mechanics, Rhetorical Skills
Reliability 0.87 0.78 0.75
Scale Scores
Reliability 0.84 0.76 0.74 0.76
SEM 1.66 1.16 1.11 1.71
Form A Grade 9
Raw Scores
Reliability 0.88 0.80 0.78
Scale Scores
Reliability 0.86 0.79 0.76
SEM 1.69 1.11 1.10
Form B Grade 8
Raw Scores
Reliability 0.88 0.82 0.75
Scale Scores
Reliability 0.85 0.81 0.73
SEM 1.55 1.01 1.20

Our assessment for writing is a multi-genre writing project in which students are able to
showcase their mastery of our common core writing standards (W.9-10.1-10
L.9-10.1-6) through completing various small writing projects in a variety of formats. This
assessment will give students agency in how they demonstrate mastery; students can choose
the format in which they want to be assessed. The project has six different formats from which
students can choose: a letter, a news report, a timeline, an epitaph, a journal entry, and a photo
essay. Students can choose whichever they feel most comfortable and complete four projects.
This assessment is important to our students because they need additional instruction and
scaffolding based on scores in the mechanics and rhetoric subsections of the English section of
the ACT. With additional assessment and feedback on these particular areas of writing,
students will be able to practice skills of good writers and improve not only on standardized
tests, but more importantly be able to produce more polished, professional writing.

Our assessments for technology create documents for writing as well as speech written formats
to present in various forms to an audience or teacher (SL.9-10 4-6.
W.9-10.6 and 8). Students will participate in activities and strategies such as online discussions,
Class Website, Multi-media presentations, Navigating Hypertext/literacy
Assessments include online written portfolio, media projects, and blog projects. Motivation for
the technology projects include. These projects will be utilized quarterly to help assess the
students progress using specific technology in collaboration with reading and writing projects
across the curriculum.

Our assessment for speaking and listening is a researched persuasive speech. Throughout the
quarter students will analyze various human rights, and if those human rights are or are not
seen/guaranteed in their everyday lives. Ultimately students will pick a single human right that if
guaranteed to all Chicagoans, would better the quality of life in the city. Once students have
chosen their respective human right they will craft a speech that persuades and informs their
audience as to exactly how that human right would better life in Chicago. Students will also be
responsible for evaluating their peers speeches based on the use of a variety of different
rhetorical devices. In order for students to successfully complete this assessment they will have
to take a complex idea and communicate that idea in a clear and coherent manner. Students
will also have to employ higher level listening skills in order to evaluate the speeches given by
their peers.