A few years ago, I began making a concerted effort to focus on student engagement in my classroom. Offering voice and choice in activities and assessments became an integral part of this process. As I began to offer voice and choice with learning activities, I found that student engagement increased dramatically. I was so inspired that I decided to try and allow for voice and choice in summative assessments as well. The very first summative assessment I attempted this with was analyzing rhetoric. For years (and years) I had asked my students to analyze Atticus’ closing arguments in To Kill a Mockingbird. I built an AMAZING lesson. I differentiated it. I scaffolded it. It was creative and unique. I adored this lesson. Then, I opened this up for student choice. We went through the steps outlined below to successfully allow for voice and choice in assessments, and we brainstormed ways in which students could show mastery of this standard. Their ideas were phenomenal. They were creative, challenging and engaging. But, the true surprise for me was the nearly tangible level of excitement from my students. They were nearly jumping out of their seats to share possible assessments. They were begging for the brainstorming to end so they could go get started right away. Finally, to really hit this home as a winning classroom idea, the level of work completed FAR surpassed my own created assessment for TKAM.
Steps to Success with Voice and Choice Assessments
1. Unpack the standard or learning target for yourself. Determine what you are assessing within that standard. How will you know if they have mastered the skill/standard? For me, this helps me to determine some basic requirements that students will need to do in order to meet this learning target. Essentially, I determine my non-negotiables for the lesson. Offering voice and choice is wonderful, but these non-negotiables will help establish the criteria for success and give students the structure and scaffolding they will need to develop their own project/assessment ideas. For example, in my tone and mood unit, I knew I wanted my students to identify the tone and mood of a piece of work. Then, to push them up that Bloom’s Taxonomy ladder, I wanted them to recreate/change/or adapt the tone and mood of that original work. I also knew that I wanted a detailed explanation of these changes so I could fully assess whether students have mastered the skill. These were my non-negotiables. The work and the project were still open for students, but the basic framework was set. This was really helpful in setting up step 2.
2. Create success criteria. This is just a basic rubric. This rubric should be general enough for any project but cover the basic skills you want to assess. This is an example of a success criteria rubric for my tone and mood assessment. Grab this freebie here!
3. Unpack the standard or learning target with students. Now that you have established the essential framework for the assessment as well as the success criteria, you can get those students involved in their own learning. Start by showing students the standard or learning target. Facilitate a discussion asking them to identify what that standard is asking for them to demonstrate. Help them to understand new words as necessary, because we know those standards are not always written in student-friendly language. You can also just create the learning target and unpack this with students.
4. Walk through the success criteria (rubric) you have created. Show students how they will be assessed, pointing out the key elements they must include in their final project.
5. Now, the fun part. BRAINSTORMING! I clear off my whiteboard/smartboard and start brainstorming with students asking them to share what type of project or activity would meet that standard. I will never forget that first brainstorming session. I was so nervous that my students would just sit there, waiting for me to tell them what to do. I introduced the rhetorical analysis standard, showed my students the success criteria, and opened the discussion. I started by asking students what speeches or texts they thought they could analyze for rhetorical appeals. I, of course, came prepared with a few famous speeches just in case, but I would not need them. Hands shot into the air! Eighth and ninth graders, who are usually too-cool-for-school, were waving their hands in excitement to be called upon like elementary students. This was in the fall of 2015, just before the Trump/Clinton election. Students desperately wanted to analyze their speeches for rhetoric and logical fallacies! They also mentioned famous speeches they had read or heard of in the past. Several of my girls wanted to find a speech from the Women’s Rights Movement. Many students wanted to explore the Civil Rights Movement. My board was filled with speech ideas, and I had not even started brainstorming for the project yet. I had to clear off the back whiteboard for that brainstorming session!
Then, I asked students, “after you have read and analyzed these speeches, how will you show what you know about rhetorical appeals?” This brainstorming session was just like the last one. I had students suggesting that they would create a picket sign to display the rhetorical appeals for the Women’s Rights Movement speeches. Another student suggested a felt creation of a pie. She wanted to create a “Trumpkin Pie,” with each layer of the pie reflecting the elements of SMELL (sender/receiver relationship, Message, Ethos-Pathos-Logos, Logical fallacies, and Language). She explained that the crust would be for examples of fallacious reasoning because a crust is crumbly. It was brilliant! The projects that I received were absolutely incredible. Students put far more effort, time, and thought into these mini-passion projects than they ever did with my scripted assessment. I will say that I did have several students choose to complete the analysis of Atticus Finch’s closing arguments, however!
Variations on the Voice and Choice Assessments:
I realize that it is not always possible to leave an assessment completely open to students. Some students will struggle with such an open-ended task. Some groups of students may not be ready for this type of open assessment. Check out these variations that offer voice and choice with more structure and scaffolding.
1. Choice Boards/Menu Boards
I use choice boards in my classroom a lot. This provides options that I have created for students, while still providing an option for those creative students to create their own project/assessment. My tone and mood choice board assessment is free! I also have a freebie for my citing text evidence choice board if you are interested. These provide directions and structure for students, while still allowing for voice and choice.
2. Must do/Can do
For this type of assessment, I create projects that are ‘must-dos.’ These are activities that I do not want students to miss out on because they are too critical for student success. I have done this with my tone and mood unit in the past as well. I have students create a blackout poetry project with tone and mood words. They box out the words that show the author’s tone and draw a picture of the mood over the top of the page. This is their must-do. Then, I provide the choice board (or some version of this) as their ‘can do’ assessments. This has worked very well in the past. Students still feel that they have a voice, but I can hold on to some of that control. My blackout poetry assignment is available in my Tone and Mood Unit – click here to learn more!
Interested in some of the units I wrote about today? Check these out below!
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Check out my Personalized Learning Blog Series for more ways to put students into the driver’s seat of their learning!