Part 1 Date(s) of Lesson: 10/24, 10/29, 10/31, 11/05 Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.

1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. Objective: SWBAT identify and define symbols in order to understand the theme of the novel. Rationale: It is important that you, as a writer, can figure out the theme of the piece, because there is often a larger meaning to any story, even those that your friends and family tell you. This assignment is designed to make you think about how the small parts of something can contribute to the larger whole. This is a critical thinking skill that you can use in other subjects to figure out problems with many small parts. Lesson: The Scarlet Letter unit was mostly an independent unit. This unit was designed for my honors class to complete during another unit on The Crucible. They read the book independently, and for three days I took them through the steps of writing the essay. It was a very basic introduction to writing a formal essay. We took about 30 minutes on each of the three days to teach the specific part of the essay and give the students time to work on their essay. They had about a week and a half to complete the essay. 10/24 Warm up: What is Proctor's internal conflict at the end of Act II? ~ Journal entry SW fill out graphic organizer as a class, identifying symbols from the novel and quotes that exemplified those symbols. SW work on an introduction as a class that includes a thesis and a hook statement, two requirements of the essay. 10/29 Warm up: Do you believe in our legal system? Are we all equal under the law? ~ Journal SW work on the body paragraphs of their essay. They will learn how to write a topic sentence and how to integrate evidence from the text into their paragraphs, two more requirements of the essay. 10/31 Warm up: What is your favorite thing about Halloween? ~ Journal SW work on their conclusions. They will learn that conclusions need to restate the thesis and condense and restate the topic sentences of their body paragraphs. It must also include what theme those symbols illuminated. 11/05 Essay Due

Assessment: SWBAT write an essay that describes three symbols in the novel The Scarlet Letter in order to understand how symbols, when read together, can illuminate the reader as to the theme of the story. Goals: The goal of this assignment was for students to be able to write an essay in which they discuss three symbols in order to discuss the themes in the novel. I wanted them to have a basic introduction to formal essays, because I didn't know how much experience they had previous to my class. The curriculum requires that honors tenth grade students read a complex text on their own during the first marking period. Because American Literature is a writing based literature course, I wanted to give them an essay early enough that I could determine their level and still have time to work on improving their writing. This was the final assessment of this particular unit. It was also the first formal essay of the year. As I mentioned above, this class is a writing based lit course. Writing is the main focus of this year, in addition to the required reading from the district. I definitely want their writing to grow and, now that I know that their writing isn't where I though it was, I will work on improving certain things.

Design: The rubric that I came up with for this essay focused on skills that we had covered as class, mostly. The students' papers were required to have a hook statement, a simple thesis statement, basic spelling and grammar conventions, organization, evidence from the text and a basic conclusion. The reason I chose to do an essay is that it is required in the curriculum and these students need to learn how to write a five paragraph essay for their standardized tests. This type of assessment shows me that the students can determine what specific symbols represent and how those symbols translate into figuring out what the themes may be. I can also ascertain that they are gaining a basic knowledge of writing a five paragraph essay. On the other hand, I can't really see if they are completely understanding this complex text. They had to read it completely independently, but the internet is a

wonderful tool and they could have figured out how to write this essay, theoretically, without opening the book. Part 2 The three students I chose, all interpreted this assignment rather similarly. They all seemed to struggle with incorporating supporting evidence into their paragraphs and explaining what theme they were trying to illuminate with their symbols. As I said above, I was expecting them to have more experience when writing a five paragraph analytical essay. Because of this, I wasn't expecting them to have as much content trouble with this assignment as they did. I was expecting some well thought out essay that that really explained the symbols and themes from the novel. Instead, what I got were five paragraph essays that pointed out some symbols and barely touched on the themes. I've already discussed that all the essays were lacking enough evidence and discussion of the themes. Another pattern that I noticed was they all had issues with comma use and organizing a sentence. They all made good points in at least one of their paragraphs, but lost it somewhere. Each student's performance on this essay went right along with what I was expecting. We haven't written many formal assessments this year, but we have had a lot of class discussions and quick writes. These activities have given me a good idea of what each student is capable of when it comes to an assessment like this. For example, B's essay showed a great knowledge of the material. Her voice was very academic, and the evidence that she used to support her thesis was very well put together. She did have some construction issues. Her comma usage was inconsistent and she seemed confused when it came to sentence structure. I know now, however, that she probably has more to say than she does in class currently. F is an ESL student, but I would have never guessed it from his work, both this essay and his overall classwork. He never says much in class unless I directly ask, but when he does he is very

eloquent and has great insights. His essay was also very well done. His examples were not quoted or paraphrased quite as correctly as I wanted them to be, but the explanations of his examples were very thorough and clear. His conclusion was lacking in a message or explanation. His English writing and speaking skills have gotten better and I think that they will continue to improve this year. N is an interesting student. He is a very intelligent young man, but he has kind of a jock mentality. He likes to be the class clown and believes that he is entitled to the attention that he receives from his classmates. This does hinder his performance, but his humor infuses his work. He has a very well developed voice, but his skill in constructing his essay is lacking. He doesn't use much evidence when supporting his symbols. His conclusion was also not substantial enough. I do need to start expecting more from him. I didn't realize that he was as bright as he was. I wasn't giving him enough credit. All three of these student show learning over time when it comes to expanding upon their original ideas. In the first assignment sample that I had them do, they had to explain why they would choose five of Ben Franklin's attributes for perfection. Each response is very short. Most of them only have one sentence per attribute and none of them give very concrete or creative reasons why they chose those five. N got substantially better when it came to expanding on his ideas. While his original sample was about a paragraph, his essay was well thought out and he made his points. F's works follows the same trend. B's, however, is more thought out overall. She put a lot of thought into both her response and her essay. Getting students to develop into more critical thinkers takes time, especially if the first time they have ever had to explain themselves fully was this class. Being able to get an idea to write about is great, but being able to expand that idea into something that took thought and time is something all together. We are trying to train students to be able to do some critical thinking, fast. The MME and ACT expect students to be able to write a thought provoking essay in less than an hour. The first step to getting them there, is to get them to write thought provoking essays. I believe that this first essay shows

that I'm one step closer to getting them to where they need to be by next year. Part 3 My main focus in evaluating this particular piece of writing was to check for a well developed thesis statement, discussion about at least three symbols from the novel, and evidence for each symbol. From the markings on each students' work, I can tell that I got a little too caught up in their punctuation. I think that this comes from being an editor. My eye automatically looks for grammatical mistakes whenever I look at a piece of written work. My intention was to only correct students for things that we had done in class. While I did do that, one of the requirements on the rubric was writing conventions. I think because I had never graded something like this before, I didn't really know how to focus my responses. The next time that we do an essay like this one, I plan to completely overhaul how I teach it and how I grade it. I think that I made the last rubric too broad and didn't teach everything that was on the rubric. While I think that this particular assessment is a good one, I would definitely start out by showing the students the rubric that I will be using to grade their papers. I will also show them a good example of the same essay and a bad example. This way they will know what I'm looking for in a good essay. From here I will take them through what I expect. We will write some sample theses together, as well as some body paragraphs that include evidence from the text. I will also make sure that when I grade the essays, I'm sticking to the rubric and giving some constructive criticism, so that the next time they will be able to utilize those suggestions. I want to be a more understanding reader when it comes to my students writing. To do this I'm going to have to remember that they are not sophisticated writers yet and that they can only do what I've taught them to do so far. I need to use my rubric as a guide to help myself grade fairly, but I also need to think critically myself so that I can push my students to the next level in their writing. My dream with these three students, and all my students, would be to have an essay writing

routine. We would write together, then I would conference with each of them over their rough drafts, then they would peer edit and hand in an almost flawless piece. I know that this might not be possible, but I think that this kind of personal attention to detail create better writers and therefore better writing. My students actually have another writing assignment that's due on Friday. I didn't do all that I wanted, but I did do some of it and I'm excited to see what came from it. I'm expecting some better results from these three students, as well as my other students. We really focused on how to expand the details of their ideas and how to make their essays flow from one idea to the next. I can't wait to read their new writing.