Implementing District Standards
The following NCEE Performance Standards are utilized in Duval County in alignment with the Sunshine State Standards adopted by the state of Florida to identify the desired results in student learning and achievement.
E1c is a reading standard that asks students to read and comprehend informational text and produce written work that restates or summarizes the information and relates new information to prior knowledge and experience. Students will complete worksheets and other products that demonstrate their ability to summarize the information obtained through cultural mini-lessons and readings. In addition, I will periodically administer quizzes to ensure that students have developed enduring understandings of pertinent material.
The speaking, listening and viewing standard, E3b will be significantly utilized throughout the unit, as students will complete a number of activities in small groups. Students will be required to display appropriate turn-taking behaviors, give reasons in support of opinions expressed, and divide the labor to complete the group assignment.
The final demonstration of understanding requires students to select an area of social concern and prepare a presentation that meets the E3c standard for individual presentations. Each student will shape appropriate information based upon research to create a print advertisement that highlights an area of social concern. Each presentation will have a thesis and have several main points that develop their premise. The presentation will be important and engage the audience in a significant manner.
Students will also complete effective work on standard E5a by responding to the multitude of non-fiction texts. Sometimes they will be required to journal about the tone of an editorial piece or make thematic connections between background information and literary texts. I also expect them to demonstrate how non-fictional literary texts reflect the culture that shapes them.
Similarly, standard E6a demands that students develop the skills to effectively critique public documents. Reading government texts and speeches will allow students to exercise this skill by determining if the strategies employed in the documents were effective such as the use of argument, anecdotes, emotionally laden words and imagery and citing of appropriate references or authorities.
Students will be required to write an editorial suitable for publication on the issue of China's one-child policy. This assignment will meet standard E6b in which the student produced a public document that uses arguments that are appropriate demonstrations of knowledge, values and use a range of strategies to appeal to readers.
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