At the end of the Oppression/Advocacy Unit, students were assigned a creative piece to respond to the unit. They could write Spoke Word or poetry pieces, make a drawing or poster, or create something digitally on the computer as a visual and audio representation of their reactions and connections to the unit. This is one of the best examples of student work. It is a Spoke Word piece. Spoken Word is a form of poetry that emphasizes the way it is presented.
Understanding: This student, Ava*, understood the material and was able to pull the arguments from the primary and secondary sources used. The reason I took points from this section is partly my fault, the assignment was to make a creative response and I did not require the students to pull in information from the topics we covered. Had I done that, I think Ava would have received all of the points.
Analysis: There is absolutely an argument in Ava’s piece. She is arguing against the oppression of the slaves and the Native Americans. Because this is a responsive piece there is not an argument for her to repeat from someone else. This is a downfall of the rubric and the assignment: the rubric does not allow for room if there is a more creative bend, and the assignment could have been more rigorous and maybe this section would have been dealt with as a valuable section of the student’s work.
Connections: Ava got a 10/10 for this section because not only did she make connections between the slave trade and modern day, but she also was able to make connections between different groups that we talked about including the Native American tribes. Her work is clear and poignant—she does not back down at all and as a result the connections jump off the page. This is the kind of work that I believe Tomlin and McTighe (2006) would approve of; they write, “Understanding cannot be simply transferred like a load of freight from one mind to another. Coming to understand requires active intellectual engagement on the part of the learner” (p. 123), which is precisely what Ava did in the connection she drew.
Application: Once again, I gave Ava a 10/10 because her connections and her application were flawless. She went above and beyond the requirements to engage on a person level as well as a historical level. She was able to apply the information she learned about the African slave trade, the Trail of Tears, modern day Native Americans, and research and prior knowledge to create a beautiful expression of her own pain and the pain of millions of people over hundreds of years.
*Names changed for students privacy
Analysis: There is absolutely an argument in Ava’s piece. She is arguing against the oppression of the slaves and the Native Americans. Because this is a responsive piece there is not an argument for her to repeat from someone else. This is a downfall of the rubric and the assignment: the rubric does not allow for room if there is a more creative bend, and the assignment could have been more rigorous and maybe this section would have been dealt with as a valuable section of the student’s work.
Connections: Ava got a 10/10 for this section because not only did she make connections between the slave trade and modern day, but she also was able to make connections between different groups that we talked about including the Native American tribes. Her work is clear and poignant—she does not back down at all and as a result the connections jump off the page. This is the kind of work that I believe Tomlin and McTighe (2006) would approve of; they write, “Understanding cannot be simply transferred like a load of freight from one mind to another. Coming to understand requires active intellectual engagement on the part of the learner” (p. 123), which is precisely what Ava did in the connection she drew.
Application: Once again, I gave Ava a 10/10 because her connections and her application were flawless. She went above and beyond the requirements to engage on a person level as well as a historical level. She was able to apply the information she learned about the African slave trade, the Trail of Tears, modern day Native Americans, and research and prior knowledge to create a beautiful expression of her own pain and the pain of millions of people over hundreds of years.
*Names changed for students privacy