7.1 Assignment: Culturally Responsive Assessment
7.1 Assignment: Culturally Responsive Assessment Learning Artifact The following assessment is currently used by myself and my teaching partner in English 7. It is my teaching partner and my version of a fishbowl/Socratic seminar, which we call Socratic Circle. We conduct this assessment four times throughout our social issues/The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) unit in Quarter 3 of the school year. My teaching partner and I have already shared this assessment format with the social studies teachers at our school, who now use it as one of their assessment tools. However, we did not share its connection to culturally responsive teaching. Therefore, I plan to discuss this added benefit of the Socratic Circle assessment model with these teachers. The goal of the assessment is to test students’ comprehension of the chapters read during class time from the novel The Outsiders. In addition, it assesses students’ critical thinking skills regarding various social issues presented in both the novel and the real world, as well as students’ speaking and listening skills. This is an example of a culturally responsive literacy assessment, as it supports the following expectations for culturally responsive teaching set forth by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction: Teachers need to know what students care about and respond to that during instruction. Assessment needs to serve all students and groups. Students need to be given opportunities to demonstrate their own literacy experiences. Every student has a right to learn. Instruction must be rigorous and relevant. Purposeful assessment drives learning. Learning is a collaborative responsibility. Students bring strengths and experiences to learning. Responsive environments engage learners. Validate, Affirm, Build, Bridge (VABB) Validate: accepting all students’ literacy experiences Affirm: regarding students’ literacy experiences as a positive/strength Build: connecting students’ academic culture and home culture (school and home lives) Bridge: allowing learners to use experiences from home culture at school
*See DPI Literacy Consultants Laura Adams and Barb Novak in the following WI DPI Webinar (published 3/25/15) for more information on culturally responsive teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhBzsjNxTGY
Socratic Circle Format Inner Circle: About 10 students form the inner circle (with stools arranged in a circle serving as seats). Volunteers are taken first, but all students are required to be in the inner circle at least once (there are four Socratic Circles total throughout the unit). These students are expected to participate in meaningful discussion with their peers in response to teacher-provided prompts. Students lead their own discussion (the teacher remains silent) and are expected to practice good discussion and leadership behaviors (discussed with students beforehand). The teacher keeps tallies of how many times each student adds a meaningful comment to discussion. These tallies help the teacher determine the “Speaking” category on the Socratic Circle Rubric (included further down this document). Students in the inner circle are not expected to complete the Socratic Circle 4-Square Reflection boxes (included further down this document). Outer Circle: The rest of the students (those not in the inner circle) gather around the inner circle in the surrounding desks. These students are expected to remain silent and observe the inner circle’s discussion. To participate, students in the outer circle are expected to complete the Socratic Circle 4-Square Reflection boxes (included further down this document). Prompts: Students are provided a series of teacher-created prompts, intended to assess students’ comprehension of the novel The Outsiders as they read in class throughout the unit, as well as measure students’ critical thinking regarding various social issues present in both the novel and the real world. During the first three Socratic Circles, students are provided quotations from the novel and are expected to address the following two questions during discussion: What is the significance of the quotation in the novel? What has been done to solve this social issue in the real word? Why hasn't it worked? During the final Socratic Circle, students are provided statistics regarding various social issues taken from a survey administered to students in their own school district/community. In addition, students are asked a series of final questions to reflect upon the novel as a whole, including a discussion of the controversial nature of the novel (see Socratic Circle Prompts included further down this document). Reflection & Rubric: After the fourth Socratic Circle is finished, the teacher uses students’ completed Socratic Circle 4-Square Reflection (included further down this document) to determine scores on the Socratic Circle Rubric (included further down this document).
Socratic Circle Prompts Circle #1 POVERTY "Darry didn't deserve to work like an old man when he was only twenty. He had been a real popular guy in school; he was captain of the football team and he had been voted Boy of the Year. But we just didn't have the money for him to go to college, even with the athletic scholarship he won. And now he didn't have time between jobs to even think about college. He never went anywhere and never did anything anymore, except work out at gyms and go skiing with some old friends of his sometimes." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 16 SMOKING (TOBACCO) “A smoke always lessens the tension.” Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 12 ALCOHOL ABUSE “In our neighborhood it is rare to find a kid who doesn’t drink once in awhile.” Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 8 CHILD ABUSE "His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him, except when she hacked off at something, and then you could hear her yelling clear down at our house. I think he hated that worse than getting whipped. He would have run away a million times if we hadn't been there. If it hadn't been for the gang, Johnny would never have known what love and affection are." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 12 BULLYING “Next time you want a broad, pick up yer own kind - dirt.” Bob Sheldon - Chapter 4, Page 54 GANG VIOLENCE "I remember how awful Johnny had looked when he got beaten up. I had just as much right to use the streets as the Socs did, and Johnny had never hurt them. Why did the Socs hate us so much? We left them alone. I nearly went to sleep over my homework trying to figure it out." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 16 HUMANITY "Cherry no longer looked sick, only sad. 'I'll bet you think the Socs have it made. The rich kids, the West-side Socs. I'll tell you something, Ponyboy, and it may come as a surprise. We have troubles you've never even heard of. You want to know something?" She looked me straight in the eye. "Things are rough all over." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 2, Page 34 “Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn’t want anything else
and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we’re always searching for something to satisfy us, and never finding it. Maybe if we could lose our cool, we could.” Cherry - Chapter 3, page 38 “It’s not money, it’s feelings-you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.” Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 3, Page 38 Circle #2 HUMANITY "It was my pride. It was long and silky, just like Soda's, only a little redder. Our hair was tuff--we didn't have to use much grease on it. Our hair labeled us greasers, too--it was our trademark. The only thing we were proud of." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 5, page 71 HUMANITY "You know, I never noticed colors and clouds and stuff until you kept reminding me about them. It seems like they were never there before.” Johnny - Chapter 5, Page 78 HUMANITY "'Nothing gold can stay.' I was remembering a poem I'd read once." Ponyboy - Chapter 5, page 77 Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay." - Robert Frost HUMANITY "I can't believe little old Johnny could kill somebody." Sodapop - Chapter 5, page 81 HUMANITY "No wonder Johnny was hurt because his parents didn't want him. Dally could take it--Dally was of a breed that could take anything, because he was hard and tough, and when he wasn't, he could turn hard and tough. Johnny was a good fighter and could play it cool, but he was sensitive and that isn't a good way to be when you're a greaser." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 6, page 88 HUMANITY "[His parents] spoiled [Bob] rotten. I mean, most parents would be proud of a kid like that--good
lookin' and smart and everything, but they gave into him all the time. He kept trying to make somebody say 'No' and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted." Randy - Chapter 7, page 116 Circle #3 ALCOHOL ABUSE “I couldn’t [visit Johnny]. He killed Bob. Oh, maybe Bob asked for it. I know he did. But I couldn’t ever look at the person who killed him. You only knew his bad side. He could be sweet sometimes, and friendly. But when he got drunk...it was that part of him that beat up Johnny. I knew it was Bob when you told me the story. He was so proud of his rings. Why do people sell liquor to boys? Why? I know there’s a law against it, but kids get it anyway.” Cherry Valance, Chapter 8, page 128-129 POVERTY “Do you think your spying for us makes up for the fact that you’re sitting there in a Corvette while my brother drops out of school to get a job? Don’t you ever feel sorry for us. Don’t you ever try to give us handouts and then feel high and mighty about it.” Ponyboy - Chapter 8, page 129 HUMANITY “I am a greaser...I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat people up. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society. Man, do I have fun!” Sodapop - Chapter 9, page 136 “Get thee hence, white trash. I am a Soc. I am the privileged and the well-dressed. I throw beer blasts, drive fancy cars, break windows at fancy parties...I jump greasers!” Two-Bit - Chapter 9, page 136 CHILD ABUSE “I said I don’t want to see her...She’s probably come to tell me about all the trouble I’m causing her and about how glad her and the old man’ll be when I’m dead. Well, tell her to leave me alone. For once -- for once just to leave me alone.” Johnny - Chapter 8, page 122 GANG VIOLENCE “They [Darry and Paul Holden] used to be buddies, I thought, they used to be friends, and now they hate each other because one has to work for a living and the other comes from the West Side. They shouldn’t hate each other.” Ponyboy - Chapter 9, page 143 HUMANITY “Nobody would write editorials praising Dally. Two friends of mine had died that night: one a hero, the other a hoodlum. But I remembered Dally pulling Johnny through the window of a burning church; Dally giving us his gun, although it could mean jail for him; Dally risking his life for us, trying to keep Johnny out of trouble. And now he was a dead delinquent and there wouldn’t be any editorials in his favor. Dally didn’t die a hero. He died violent and young and
desperate, just like we all knew he’d die someday. Just like Tim Shepard and Curly Shepard and the Brumly boys and the other guys we knew would die someday. But Johnny was right. He died gallant.” Ponyboy - Chapter 10, page 154 Circle #4 REAL-WORLD STATISTICS (Middle School) *From: Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2015-2016 School Year
620 STUDENTS ENROLLED 2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR 4.9% reported trying cigarette smoking at least once in their life ~ 30 students 3.5% reported drinking alcohol during the past month ~ 22 students 1.1 % reported using marijuana at least once in their life ~ 7 students 2.4% reported taking prescription drugs without a prescription ~ 15 students
*See DPI Literacy Consultants Laura Adams and Barb Novak in the following WI DPI Webinar (published 3/25/15) for more information on culturally responsive teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhBzsjNxTGY
Socratic Circle Format Inner Circle: About 10 students form the inner circle (with stools arranged in a circle serving as seats). Volunteers are taken first, but all students are required to be in the inner circle at least once (there are four Socratic Circles total throughout the unit). These students are expected to participate in meaningful discussion with their peers in response to teacher-provided prompts. Students lead their own discussion (the teacher remains silent) and are expected to practice good discussion and leadership behaviors (discussed with students beforehand). The teacher keeps tallies of how many times each student adds a meaningful comment to discussion. These tallies help the teacher determine the “Speaking” category on the Socratic Circle Rubric (included further down this document). Students in the inner circle are not expected to complete the Socratic Circle 4-Square Reflection boxes (included further down this document). Outer Circle: The rest of the students (those not in the inner circle) gather around the inner circle in the surrounding desks. These students are expected to remain silent and observe the inner circle’s discussion. To participate, students in the outer circle are expected to complete the Socratic Circle 4-Square Reflection boxes (included further down this document). Prompts: Students are provided a series of teacher-created prompts, intended to assess students’ comprehension of the novel The Outsiders as they read in class throughout the unit, as well as measure students’ critical thinking regarding various social issues present in both the novel and the real world. During the first three Socratic Circles, students are provided quotations from the novel and are expected to address the following two questions during discussion: What is the significance of the quotation in the novel? What has been done to solve this social issue in the real word? Why hasn't it worked? During the final Socratic Circle, students are provided statistics regarding various social issues taken from a survey administered to students in their own school district/community. In addition, students are asked a series of final questions to reflect upon the novel as a whole, including a discussion of the controversial nature of the novel (see Socratic Circle Prompts included further down this document). Reflection & Rubric: After the fourth Socratic Circle is finished, the teacher uses students’ completed Socratic Circle 4-Square Reflection (included further down this document) to determine scores on the Socratic Circle Rubric (included further down this document).
Socratic Circle Prompts Circle #1 POVERTY "Darry didn't deserve to work like an old man when he was only twenty. He had been a real popular guy in school; he was captain of the football team and he had been voted Boy of the Year. But we just didn't have the money for him to go to college, even with the athletic scholarship he won. And now he didn't have time between jobs to even think about college. He never went anywhere and never did anything anymore, except work out at gyms and go skiing with some old friends of his sometimes." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 16 SMOKING (TOBACCO) “A smoke always lessens the tension.” Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 12 ALCOHOL ABUSE “In our neighborhood it is rare to find a kid who doesn’t drink once in awhile.” Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 8 CHILD ABUSE "His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him, except when she hacked off at something, and then you could hear her yelling clear down at our house. I think he hated that worse than getting whipped. He would have run away a million times if we hadn't been there. If it hadn't been for the gang, Johnny would never have known what love and affection are." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 12 BULLYING “Next time you want a broad, pick up yer own kind - dirt.” Bob Sheldon - Chapter 4, Page 54 GANG VIOLENCE "I remember how awful Johnny had looked when he got beaten up. I had just as much right to use the streets as the Socs did, and Johnny had never hurt them. Why did the Socs hate us so much? We left them alone. I nearly went to sleep over my homework trying to figure it out." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 1, Page 16 HUMANITY "Cherry no longer looked sick, only sad. 'I'll bet you think the Socs have it made. The rich kids, the West-side Socs. I'll tell you something, Ponyboy, and it may come as a surprise. We have troubles you've never even heard of. You want to know something?" She looked me straight in the eye. "Things are rough all over." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 2, Page 34 “Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn’t want anything else
and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we’re always searching for something to satisfy us, and never finding it. Maybe if we could lose our cool, we could.” Cherry - Chapter 3, page 38 “It’s not money, it’s feelings-you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.” Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 3, Page 38 Circle #2 HUMANITY "It was my pride. It was long and silky, just like Soda's, only a little redder. Our hair was tuff--we didn't have to use much grease on it. Our hair labeled us greasers, too--it was our trademark. The only thing we were proud of." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 5, page 71 HUMANITY "You know, I never noticed colors and clouds and stuff until you kept reminding me about them. It seems like they were never there before.” Johnny - Chapter 5, Page 78 HUMANITY "'Nothing gold can stay.' I was remembering a poem I'd read once." Ponyboy - Chapter 5, page 77 Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay." - Robert Frost HUMANITY "I can't believe little old Johnny could kill somebody." Sodapop - Chapter 5, page 81 HUMANITY "No wonder Johnny was hurt because his parents didn't want him. Dally could take it--Dally was of a breed that could take anything, because he was hard and tough, and when he wasn't, he could turn hard and tough. Johnny was a good fighter and could play it cool, but he was sensitive and that isn't a good way to be when you're a greaser." Narrator/Ponyboy - Chapter 6, page 88 HUMANITY "[His parents] spoiled [Bob] rotten. I mean, most parents would be proud of a kid like that--good
lookin' and smart and everything, but they gave into him all the time. He kept trying to make somebody say 'No' and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted." Randy - Chapter 7, page 116 Circle #3 ALCOHOL ABUSE “I couldn’t [visit Johnny]. He killed Bob. Oh, maybe Bob asked for it. I know he did. But I couldn’t ever look at the person who killed him. You only knew his bad side. He could be sweet sometimes, and friendly. But when he got drunk...it was that part of him that beat up Johnny. I knew it was Bob when you told me the story. He was so proud of his rings. Why do people sell liquor to boys? Why? I know there’s a law against it, but kids get it anyway.” Cherry Valance, Chapter 8, page 128-129 POVERTY “Do you think your spying for us makes up for the fact that you’re sitting there in a Corvette while my brother drops out of school to get a job? Don’t you ever feel sorry for us. Don’t you ever try to give us handouts and then feel high and mighty about it.” Ponyboy - Chapter 8, page 129 HUMANITY “I am a greaser...I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat people up. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society. Man, do I have fun!” Sodapop - Chapter 9, page 136 “Get thee hence, white trash. I am a Soc. I am the privileged and the well-dressed. I throw beer blasts, drive fancy cars, break windows at fancy parties...I jump greasers!” Two-Bit - Chapter 9, page 136 CHILD ABUSE “I said I don’t want to see her...She’s probably come to tell me about all the trouble I’m causing her and about how glad her and the old man’ll be when I’m dead. Well, tell her to leave me alone. For once -- for once just to leave me alone.” Johnny - Chapter 8, page 122 GANG VIOLENCE “They [Darry and Paul Holden] used to be buddies, I thought, they used to be friends, and now they hate each other because one has to work for a living and the other comes from the West Side. They shouldn’t hate each other.” Ponyboy - Chapter 9, page 143 HUMANITY “Nobody would write editorials praising Dally. Two friends of mine had died that night: one a hero, the other a hoodlum. But I remembered Dally pulling Johnny through the window of a burning church; Dally giving us his gun, although it could mean jail for him; Dally risking his life for us, trying to keep Johnny out of trouble. And now he was a dead delinquent and there wouldn’t be any editorials in his favor. Dally didn’t die a hero. He died violent and young and
desperate, just like we all knew he’d die someday. Just like Tim Shepard and Curly Shepard and the Brumly boys and the other guys we knew would die someday. But Johnny was right. He died gallant.” Ponyboy - Chapter 10, page 154 Circle #4 REAL-WORLD STATISTICS (Middle School) *From: Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2015-2016 School Year
620 STUDENTS ENROLLED 2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR 4.9% reported trying cigarette smoking at least once in their life ~ 30 students 3.5% reported drinking alcohol during the past month ~ 22 students 1.1 % reported using marijuana at least once in their life ~ 7 students 2.4% reported taking prescription drugs without a prescription ~ 15 students
