Refined from Understanding by Design

Assessment Plan Blueprint

What understandings or goals will be assessed through this lesson?

Students will be able to create a theme Students will be able to support the theme
statement. statement they created with textual evidence.

What criteria are implied in the standards and understandings regardless of the task specifics?
What qualities must student work demonstrate to signify the standards were met?

Students must determine the theme of a To meet this standard, students must write a theme
text and analyze its development over the statement for a text and support that theme based on
how it is developed throughout a text.
course of a text.

Through what authentic performance task will students demonstrate understanding?

Task Overview: As part of a book review that can be shared on the social platform Goodreads,
students will create a theme statement for one short story from the book The Illustrated Man
by Ray Bradbury. Students will analyze the development of this theme over the course of the
short story by selecting and analyzing a piece of textual evidence that support their theme
statement.

What student products and performances will provide evidence of desired understandings?

Students’ theme statements will Students’ textual evidence and analysis will
demonstrate that they understand how to demonstrate that they understand how the
write a theme statement for a text. theme developed in a text.

By what criteria will student products and performances be evaluated?

Theme statements must capture the main Textual evidence and analysis must show
idea of the text. how the theme developed in the text.
Revised from Understanding by Design; Name: Alli Lindner

Self-Test Assessment Ideas

Desired Results of Student Performance:

Stage 1

Students will be able to create a theme statement. Students will be

able to support their theme statement with textual evidence.

Proposed Assessment:
As part of a book review that can be shared on the social platform Goodreads,
Stage 2

students will create a theme statement for one short story from the book The
Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. Students will analyze the development of this
theme over the course of the short story by selecting and analyzing 1 pieces of
textual evidence that support their theme statement.

How likely is it that a student could do well on the assessment by

1. Making clever guesses based on limited understanding? ☐ ☐

2. Parroting back or plugging in what was learned, with accurate recall but ☐ ☐
limited or no understanding?

3. Making a good-faith effort, with lots of hard work and enthusiasm, but with ☐ ☐
limited understanding?

4. Producing lovely products and performances, but with limited understanding? ☐ ☐

5. Applying natural ability to be articulate and intelligent, with limited
understanding of the content in question?
☐ ☐

How likely is it that a student could do poorly on the assessment by

6. Failing to meet the performance goals despite having a deep understanding of ☐ ☐

the big ideas (i.e., the task is not relevant to the goals)

7. Failing to meet the scoring and grading criteria used, despite having a deep ☐ ☐
understanding of the Big Ideas? (i.e., some of the criteria are arbitrary, placing
undue or inappropriate emphasis on things that have little to do with the
desired results or true excellence at such a task)