Formative Assessment in the English Language Arts Classroom

Move to slide 18. Pass out the attached Caption This handout and share the instructional strategy, Caption This with participants. Share with participants that the photographs of couples on slides 19-24 are from the era of the Kate Chopin stories. The time period when these stories were written is very different than the times we are living in today. Gender and marriage roles are not the same today as they were in the 19th century, and the way people thought about these topics differs vastly from what many people think in the modern day. Ask them to pay careful attention to the photographs to imagine what each spouse is thinking or to create a story behind the picture from the perspectives of both spouses. Instruct participants to write responses on their handouts as you display the images on the screen.

Move to slide 26. Prepare participants to view a video of people telling stories about personal ghost encounters. Before playing the video, share the reflection questions they should keep in mind as they’re watching the video.

Display slide 27. Play the video, “People Tell Their Spookiest Ghost Stories” linked below.

Display slide 28. Introduce the instructional strategy, Fist to Five. Invite participants to hold up a fist (zero fingers) or up to five fingers to indicate how believable they thought each story or storyteller was. Ask them to share the reasoning for their responses with the group.

Display slide 29.  Ask follow-up questions to help guide the discussion:

1. Did you believe these storytellers? Why or why not?

2. What made these stories believable or not believable?

3. What did you like or dislike about these stories?

Display slide 32. Pass out the attached and linked articles:

1. UFO Fans Will Descend on Tiny Town Near Area 51 for Alien Stock Festival

2. Will We Know Alien Life When We See It?

3. Cool Jobs: Reaching Out to E.T. Is a Numbers Game

4. Area 51 Finally Declassified by the CIA

• Share the instructional strategy Why-Lighting with participants.

• Group participants into groups of four.

• Ask them to number off from 1 to 4 within each group.

• Have them read the article corresponding to their group number.

• Each group member will read a different article ("ones" reading article one, "twos" reading article two, etc.).

Once participants have finished Why-Lighting the articles, ask groups to temporarily reshuffle so that those who read the same article are now grouped together. Depending on the size of the session, you may have more than one group of participants who have read the same article.

Display slide 33. Ask participants to share with their group any evidence they found to support either the case for or against alien existence. Encourage them to discuss why they highlighted certain things. Invite them to collaborate within their groups to gain a thorough understanding of what they read.

Display slide 35. Instruct participants to listen carefully to William Golding for the following information:

• The general topic of the speech

• Main point

• Examples/quotes that support the main argument

Display slide 36. Share the instructional strategy, They Say, I Say Writing, with participants. Explain to them that they will be writing two paragraphs:

• The first paragraph summarizes the information about the novel and its characters that they gathered from the video and the novel (Lord of the Flies) itself;

• The second paragraph summarizes the participant’s views on the topic.

Display slides 37 and 38. Provide sentence frames to help participants structure their paragraphs.

Display slide 40. Pass out the attached ABC Graffiti handout to each group along with a different color pen. Share the instructional strategy, ABC Graffiti, with participants.

Ask your participants the following question: What are different temptations that people face?

Display slide 41. Ask the groups to jot down words and phrases for as many letters as they can in the time provided. To complete the activity, they must use their prior knowledge of different motivations people could have for their actions. Give them an allotted amount of time, ideally 2–3 minutes.

When time is up, display slide 42. Have the groups rotate to the next table. They should take their pens with them so their contributions can be traced back to their corresponding pen color. Have each group pick up where the last group left off, again adding words and phrases for each blank letter. If time allows, they also can add words and phrases to letters that were previously used. Allotted time is maximum of 3 minutes.

When time is up, display slide 43. Have the groups rotate once more. After the third round, ask participants to return to their seats. As with previous two rounds, allotted time is a maximum of 3 minutes.

Engage participants in a whole-group discussion about what they wrote or saw on the posters and what their perceptions about about common temptations are. What words and phrases did the posters have in common?