Subject Area: Modern American Literature

Grade Level: 11th

Formative or Performance Task: Three Takeaways and Two Questions (Modified 3-2-1)
A. Reaching Consensus about Proficiency
What are students expected to do?
o Students are expected to hand in a sheet of paper as a ticket out the door at the
end of class outlining three things they learned that day, and two remaining
questions they have. Since our learning targets were pretty inclusive of the entire
lesson, I expect that students will be able to address the learning targets in their
responses.
What standards or curriculum expectations are being assessed?
o Our learning targets that were being assessed were, Given a Hemingway text,
students will be able to identify and discuss the authors purpose, as well as his
use of ethos, pathos, and logos with thoughtful insight, and Given information
on the major events of WWI and The Lost Generation, students will be able to
connect how these issues shaped the literature of the time.
o The CCSS standards addressed were (paraphrased): Analyze impact of the
authors choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story (CCSSRL.11-12.3); Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a
text, and analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone
(CCSS-RL.11-12.4); Demonstrate knowledge of 18th, 19th, and 20th century
foundational works of American Literature (CCSS-RL.11-12.9)
What do you consider to be a proficient response on this assessment? Exactly what do
students need to say or write for you to consider their work proficient?
o I would consider a proficient response one that demonstrates knowledge of: how
Hemingway utilizes ethos, pathos, or logos in the work we examined; how events
and effects of WWI shaped the themes of literature, such as shell shock/PTSD
among authors and citizens; or how these events shaped the style of literature.
Did the assessment give students a good opportunity to demonstrate what they know?
o Yes. By having an open-ended prompt of three things you learned, and two
questions students have the ability to not only show us what they learned, but
show us what they think was important from the lesson.
B. Diagnosing Student Strengths and Needs
High
(Objectives Met)
Benedetto
Julian
Drew
Michael
Jaelene

29 % of Class

Expected
(Objectives Partially Met)
Hannah
Bailey
No Name
No Name
Trevor
Karisscela
Lexie

Low
(Objectives Not Met)
Matt
Tyler
Brandon
Heather
Taylor

42 % of Class

29 % of Class

C. Samples and Prerequisite Knowledge

High
(Objectives Met)
I learned that war was all over
the place, especially for the
mind!
Ernest Hemingway is a sporadic
author; I learned what ethos,
pathos, and logos are.
For the high level, students often
discussed PTSD, the
effects/emotion of war, understood
the Lost Generation, etc. Some of
this was not so clearly stated, but I
could use our discussions from
class to justify that these students
understood these things, even if
they couldnt or didn't quite make
the connection in writing.

Expected
(Objectives Partially Met)
I learned about Hemingways
writing style.
Ethos, pathos, and logos
(definition)
How to find purposes of
writing.

Low
(Objectives Not Met)
WWI start date
I learned F. Scott Fitzgerald is a
writer.
I learned that Germany attacked
with submarines.
WWI was brutal.

The Lost Generation

For this section, many students
simply wrote The lost
generation or Ethos, pathos,
and logos with no further
explanation. What separated this
category from the high category
would be giving no further
details about these topics suggesting that they understood
these things at a purely
denotative level.

For the low category, I placed

students based on whether or not I
felt they pulled out important
information from the lesson. While
we did talk about a timeline of
WWI, and that F. Fitzgerald was
part of the Lost Generation, these
were minor parts of the lesson and
not intended to be the takeaways.

D. Misconceptions and Wrong Information

High
(Objectives Met)

Expected
(Objectives Partially
Met)

Low
(Objectives Not Met)

One thing I noticed about the high

category was that students often only
talked about one of the above mentioned
expectations in depth. So they might say,
Ernest Hemingway is a sporadic author
- which implies knowledge of the effects
that WWI had on literature, but then they
might only talk surface-level about ethos,
pathos, and logos.

These students often

would understand things at
a surface level, the
definition of Lost
Generation for example,
but did not show any
evidence of bridging how
it effected writing.

These students focused more on

events rather than effects -which the effects part was
outlined in our learning targets.
The information listed was
correct, but irrelevant to 90% of
the lesson.

E. Identifying Instructional Next Steps

What patterns or trends are noted for the whole class?

o Some patterns noted for the whole class is that, across all categories, students
demonstrated at least a surface-level knowledge of ethos, pathos, and logos.
Many students did not show a knowledge of how to apply this. Also, often times
a student might be more in depth about one of the three things they learned, and
be very shallow about the other two.
What instructional strategies will be beneficial for the whole class?
o Morgan and I thought that a good whole-class activity would be to separate the
class into groups and have each group make a minute-long commercial to sell
some product using either ethos, pathos, or logos. Students especially seemed to
struggle with logos, so by doing this, all students in the class would get to see or
use each form of rhetoric in their commercial, and be able to focus on just one at
a time. These groups would have a range of students between each
high/expected/low range.
Based on the teams diagnosis of student responses at the high, expected, and low levels,
what instructional strategies will students at each level benefit from?

High
(Objectives Met)

Expected
(Objectives Partially Met)

Low
(Objectives Not Met)

For high performing students, I

would use a strategy such as
Think-Puzzle-Explore, and
maybe talk more about how
WWI effected literature.
Through this, we could have a
conversation about something
like PTSD. What do you think
you know about PTSD? How do
you think that effected what
authors chose to write about?
What puzzles you about how this
effected literature? How can we
explore those puzzles by using
the texts we have in front of us?
This would allow students to
make more bridges between
WWI and literature, and allow
for some higher level thinking.

Students at this level might

benefit from a strategy such as a
Chalk Talk, where we could
look at a few samples of writing
where the author uses strong
rhetoric, and we could either
have each poster center around
either ethos, pathos, or logos; or
have each poster center around
a text we have chosen to
discuss. Since these students
already understand the
definition of ethos, pathos, and
logos, this would give them an
opportunity to collaborate and
help each other to find
examples of these.

For lower performing students, I

might use a strategy such as The
Explanation Game. After making
sure they understand ethos, pathos,
and logos, we could look at, for
example, a commercial (maybe one
of those Sarah McLachlan dog
commercials - those usually have
elements of rhetoric), and have
students examine it and try and
make explanations of why they did
certain things (why was there sad
music? Why did it say for just
pennies a day you can save an
animal in need?). This way,
students can find purpose in an
authors craft, while also examining
ethos, pathos, and logos.