Part C Assessment Commentary

Secondary English Language Arts
Task 3: Assessment Commentary
TASK 3: ASSESSMENT COMMENTARY

Respond to the prompts below (no more than 10 single-spaced pages, including prompts) by typing your responses within
the brackets following each prompt. Do not delete or alter the prompts. Commentary pages exceeding the maximum will not be
scored. Attach the assessment you used to evaluate student performance (no more than 5 additional pages) to the end of this
file. If you submit a student work sample or feedback as a video or audio clip and you or your focus students cannot be clearly
heard, attach a transcription of the inaudible comments (no more than 2 additional pages) to the end of this file. These pages
do not count toward your page total.
1. Analyzing Student Learning

a. Identify the specific learning objectives measured by the assessment you chose for
analysis.
• [Students will be able to synthesize information across a diverse selection of complex
texts and through strong text-to-self connections in a written product
• Students will be able to compare and contrast specific thematic elements of the artistic
genres of poetry, literature, and visual art
• Students will be able to draw conclusions about the ability of different artistic genres to
capture and portray emotion
• Students will be able to apply specific textual evidence and analysis to support a written
claim]
b. Provide a graphic (table or chart) or narrative that summarizes student learning for your
whole class. Be sure to summarize student learning for all evaluation criteria submitted
in Assessment Task 3, Part D.
A 90-100% 7
B 80-89% 4
C 70-79% 4
D 60-69% 1
E 0-59% 3*
*The students who received a score of E did not submit an essay. Per county policy, these
students received a score of 0 on this assignment.
c. Use evidence found in the 3 student work samples and the whole class summary to
analyze the patterns of learning for the whole class and differences for groups or
individual learners relative to
 constructing meaning from complex text
 interpreting OR responding to complex text
Consider what students understand and do well, and where they continue to struggle
(e.g., common errors, confusions, need for greater challenge).
[Judging by the grade distribution for the entire class, the majority of students were able
to successfully interpret and respond to their two chosen texts in the synthesis essay. As a
class, my students demonstrated strong comprehension of their chosen texts and were able to
display an advanced understanding of the events and meaning of the texts and/or images.
Students tended to struggle more in the area that I previously addressed as a common pitfall:
bridging the gap between effective comprehension/evidence and developed commentary and
analysis. Students also struggled with general writing skills, including mechanics and fluidity.
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Each of these common successes and failures can be viewed across the three selected sample
essays.
Each of the students demonstrates a strong understanding of the theme of the texts.
Each of the three sample students were able to summarize the main idea of Maya Angelou’s
“Still I Rise,” overcoming adversity. For example, Student B notes, “The author is trying to tell us
that we should still keep our head up even if people are saying bad things towards you.” Each
sample student also demonstrated strong application of academic vocabulary; they effectively
define resilience, apply it to each of their chosen texts, and use it as a through-line for overall
organization. Many students also applied prior learning and earlier concepts from class
discussion of Night to their new texts, such as dehumanization and the bystander effect.
Student A writes, “The Door (Admission’s Office”) by David Hammon makes a statement about
protesting for your right as a human to show that you have to stand up for you from racism and
not be a bystander.”
As a whole, students were more successful at applying close reading and analysis to the
art pieces than to the written texts. Students pulled more specific examples from the art pieces
to describe the role of resilience (such as Student C’s acknowledgement of Kahlo’s pain being
shown by her depiction of a figure “laying sideways and showing her back ripped or cut off
because lots of blood is coming out” and Student B’s description of “two women that represent
Frida Kahlo, one is lying down, she’s hurt and suffering. The other looks normal, she’s sitting,
she’s holding a back brace.”) This aligns with my expectations for the students’ work, as the
visual art was intended as accessible practice with close observation skills.
Each of the sample students discussed “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. They were able
to relate the poem to the theme of resilience and/or resistance and select a relevant quote, but
struggled to add their own interpretation and analysis of the chosen quote. For example,
Student A writes, “One quote that shows resistance from the poem is when she said ‘You may
write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies, you may trod me in the very dirt but still,
like dust, I’ll rise.’ This quote shows that Maya Angelou refused to accept what people think and
wrote about her during time.” The student’s conclusion is perfectly accurate, but she does not
outline for the reader how this conclusion is informed by the text or discuss the meaning of the
metaphor (despite the mini-presentations aiming to scaffold this step.) Student B mentions that
Maya Angelou uses similes and figurate language in her poem and writes, “For example ‘You
may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your
hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.’ She is basically saying that people can tell her whatever
and she will rise to the top.” Again, the conclusion is accurate and relates to the quote, but the
student does not explain the significance of the quote, it’s simile, or Angelou’s word choice to
relate the quote back to the theme of resilience. Student C develops possibly the most
advanced close reading of a quote, writing ““The quote from still i rise shows resilience: ‘You
may trod me in the very dirt. But still, like dust, I’ll rise.’ the word trod means to step on
someone’s body and it shows that people don’t care about her. She compares herself as dust
while she’s rising when people step into her.” Student C begins to pull specific words from the
quote, such as “trod” and “dust” to explain how the quote demonstrates resilience, but his
analysis is hindered by the mechanic and fluency issues inherent in his writing.
Students A and C are prime examples of students with specific learning needs (Specific
Learning Disability and second language learners respectively) who struggle with translating the
complexity of their thoughts to the page. Both students are incredibly bright, astute, and speak
very fluently, but struggle with basic mechanics and written organization.]
d. If a video or audio work sample occurs in a group context (e.g., discussion), provide the
name of the clip and clearly describe how the scorer can identify the focus student(s)
(e.g., position, physical description) whose work is portrayed.
[Student A is visible in Video clip 1. She is wearing a black and gold patterned headscarf
and a black and light tan jacket. Her contribution to discussion is most visible during her group’s
mini-presentation from 05:33-08:03.
Student C is also visible during video 1. He is sitting at a desk towards the front of the
room and has dark brown hair, tan pants, and a red, white and black windbreaker.]
2. Feedback to Guide Further Learning
Refer to specific evidence of submitted feedback to support your explanations.
a. Identify the format in which you submitted your evidence of feedback for the 3 focus
students. (Delete choices that do not apply.)
 Written directly on work samples or in separate documents that were provided to the
focus students
b. Explain how feedback provided to the 3 focus students addresses their individual
strengths and needs relative to the learning objectives measured.
[For this assignment, I used a modified version of the single point rubric, which
demonstrates to students directly how their grade is factored and provides a blank space for
direct feedback for each grading criteria. As a rule, I try to keep my comments to a minimum to
ensure that my students actually read what I write on their papers. On each rubric, I emphasize
a particular problem-point or criteria that I want each student to focus on in any possible
revisions or future writing assignments. On the rubric, that focal area is demonstrated with red
text in the comment box. This allows me to further individualize the rubric to each student’s
particular needs.
Student A has an IEP for a specific learning disability. She primarily struggles with
working memory, processing speed, and reading comprehension. She is incredibly strong in
class, frequently participates, and offers insightful analysis. For example, in her mini-
presentation, in discussion with her partner, she made the connection between the line “I walk
like I’ve got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs” to body confidence, self-worth, and gender
without assistance. Throughout the semester, Student A’s primary struggle in English class has
been with her written work; she struggles to translate the depth of her ideas from her head to
the page. Although she is an incredibly fluent speaker, her writing is often littered with spelling
and grammar errors and unedited, stream-of-consciousness language. My feedback to Student
A is focused on encouraging her to dig even deeper in her analysis. However, the primary area
of concern is on providing her with proofreading strategies. I am also careful to compliment
Student A’s discussion of the “impact of the word ‘air’ in ‘Still I Rise’” as positive reinforcement
for her close reading.
Student B does not have an IEP or particular learning need. Her writing and analysis are
fairly strong, so the biggest thing I wanted to focus on was pushing her to make her writing even
more fluent and varied. The biggest problem with her essay is that her wording is occasionally
awkward. She also tends to doubt herself and asks for frequent help or feedback while writing.
This is a student I’ve identified as needing a push to improve her already strong writing, but also
requiring validation to build her confidence with her own writing style. To build Student B’s
writing confidence, I point out specific elements of her essay which work very well, such as her
specific details from the Frida Kahlo painting, the text-to-self connection, and quote integration.
To push the student towards using more complex sentence structure and relying less heavily on
the graphic organizer, I activate prior knowledge about the writing strategies we have discussed
in class, sentence combining and correcting comma splices with a connecting word or
semicolon. In this way, my feedback both moves the student forward and draws upon familiar
skills the student has already practiced.
Student C graduated from an ESOL program in 2017 and speaks Spanish as a primary
language at home. The student is fluent in English, but he struggles greatly with basic grammar
and mechanics. He lacks prior knowledge of locating parts of speech. During an earlier lesson
on comma splices, Student C struggled greatly. When I assist the student in class, he can
demonstrate strong close reading and analysis skills but struggles to translate his thoughts into
coherent, well-organized, and grammatical sentences on the page. For this student, the focal
area I wanted to address was mechanics. I offer a strategy to move the student forward in future
revisions, encouraging him to read his essay out loud and catch moments where his writing
doesn’t sound like his normal speaking voice. This should be a more successful gateway into
proofreading for this particular student because his speaking skills are far more advanced than
his written grammar skills. Because this skill is fairly ambiguous and difficult to teach in written
language, during his individual conference, I will have this student read a selected sentence out
loud to model and practice the strategy. Student C’s essay was also very short and was missing
critical information to answer the prompt. My feedback encourages the student to write more
and provides guiding questions of what the student could add to “beef” up his paper.
c. Describe how you will support each focus student to understand and use this feedback
to further their learning related to learning objectives, either within the learning segment
or at a later time.
[The synthesis essay was the students’ first summative grade in their gradebook. Per county
policy, summative assessments comprise 40% of the students’ overall grade for the quarter. As
such, I want to ensure that my students understand why they received the grade they did and
give them an opportunity for constructive feedback and revision. Many of my students view their
grade online and do not bother reading the comments I leave on their papers, so I plan to
devote class time to holding short, individualized conferences for each student. When I return
papers, I typically have students use the Chromebooks in class to check their grades, review
their comments, and ask questions about anything they don’t understand. After checking their
comments, students write a short personal writing goal based on their focal area of
improvement. Students are reminded of their prior goal because it will be posted on the top of
their next writing prompt. This act of conscious goal setting should increase student
accountability for their own learning and force them to rewrite my comments in their own
language, which should fossilize the feedback.
My mentor teacher and I also offer students the opportunity to rewrite any paper. If the
student uses the supplied comments and successfully adapts the paper, he/she will receive a
higher grade. This incentivizes grade motivated students to think critically about my comments
and apply them in active revision. I make myself available to students every day during lunch for
academic support to assist during the revision process.]
3. Evidence of Language Understanding and Use

When responding to the prompt below, use concrete examples from the video clip(s) and/or
student work samples as evidence. Evidence from the clip(s) may focus on one or more
students.
You may provide evidence of students’ language use from ONE, TWO, OR ALL THREE
of the following sources:
1. Use video clips from Instruction Task 2 and provide time-stamp references for
evidence of language use.
2. Submit an additional video file named “Language Use” of no more than 5 minutes in
length and cite language use (this can be footage of one or more students’ language
use). Submit the clip in Assessment Task 3, Part B.
3. Use the student work samples analyzed in Assessment Task 3 and cite language use.
a. Explain and provide concrete examples for the extent to which your students were able
to use or struggled to use the
 selected language function,
 vocabulary, AND
 discourse or syntax
to develop content understandings.
[Students demonstrated strong synthesis skills because they were able to use the terms
resilience and resistance as a thematic through-line. As a whole, the class was very successful
at describing each chosen text through the lens of resilience and/or resistance. Students also
demonstrated effective synthesis skills in their final paragraph, which tasked them with directly
comparing and contrasting their chosen texts. Students were fairly effective as this task but
seemed much more comfortable comparing the authors’ backgrounds than the actual content or
writing style of the pieces. For example, Student A writes, “Maya Angelou and David Hammons
have similar backgrounds and inspiration. Maya Angelou and David Hammons are both African
American that were active during the civil right movement. They both created art that was
confronting issues of problems people face, especially African American people.” Along a
similar vein, Student B writes, “Both of these authors suffered through so much. Both suffered
through pain. These authors used art to express what their struggles were, they wanted people
to see what they had to go through. They wanted to show people what they faced during their
life. These art pieces are different because Maya Angelou is mostly talking about people telling
her she can’t do certain things…Frida Kahlo was suffering mental illness and suffering from
other illnesses.” Both writers relied more heavily on background information and the paragraph
accompanying the visual images than the texts themselves or their personal analysis. Although
this demonstrates synthesis skills, the skill seems to be more emerging than mastered.
Likely due to the frequent repetition of prominent vocabulary terms and the key terms
box that defines them on the prompt, each student was able to offer an effective (albeit
unoriginal) definition of one or both of these key vocabulary terms. The most promising part of
the students’ writing was in their successful elaboration upon and application of the terms
themselves. Student B writes, “Resilience is a very powerful and meaningful word in my opinion
because so many people recover from the hardest times of their lives,” proving that she
understands that the concept has to do with recovery from difficulty. Student A writes, “The art
that talks about suffering and resilience makes people feel like they are not the only one facing
problems, and they can overcome it,” demonstrating an internalization of the term and lending to
her text-to-self connection. In his essay, Student C defines resistance in his first paragraph, but
talks about resilience in the rest of his essay. Student C is able to successfully analyze “Still I
Rise” through the lens of resilience (“This quote from still I rise shows resilience… One of the
hardships she is not telling people to give up but to rise up just like she says, “Still I Rise.”) so
the misplaced definition in the first paragraph is likely evocative of an organization problem over
a vocabulary issue.
Students were very effective at working in independent groups. They demonstrated the
learning segment’s defined discourse goals by building off of each other’s examples, self-
motivating, and self-monitoring. During their pair work on “Still I Rise,” students independently
made their way through close analysis of their assigned stanza and prepared a short
presentation with little to no teacher intervention. Furthermore, in the group work shown in Video
2, from 00:00-00:20, Student A takes the unprompted initiative to read the short background
paragraph and begin the conversation by stating his observations. When he is unable to think of
the term he wants to use at 00:20, Student B finishes his thought by offering the word
“struggles.” The other group members listen politely and at 00:41, Student C questions his
groupmates, “The flag… what’s it say?” The other members of the group work together to make
sense of the meaning and independently work their way through the first two boxes of the
graphic organizer.]
4. Using Assessment to Inform Instruction
a. Based on your analysis of student learning presented in prompts 1b–c, describe next
steps for instruction to impact student learning:
 For the whole class
 For the 3 focus students and other individuals/groups with specific needs
Consider the variety of learners in your class who may require different
strategies/support (e.g., students with IEPs or 504 plans, English language learners,
struggling readers, underperforming students or those with gaps in academic
knowledge, and/or gifted students).
[The essays I read demonstrate to me that my students have a strong grasp of general
content knowledge. They have shown excellent comprehension of various complex texts and
thematic ideas. However, the essays reveal that my students would benefit from additional
instruction on various writing demands, such as quote integration, balancing evidence and
analysis, and mechanics. I will likely use data sustained from this assessment to inform a writing
workshop for the entire class. Although each student will receive personalized feedback in a
short conference, there are certain writing skills I believe would benefit the entire class, even the
population who received an A on their paper.
In the past, my students have worked on identifying and balancing evidence and
analysis in short literary analysis paragraphs that I wrote. I will likely present a refresher
presentation on the topic, using anonymous student samples from the class as models. I will
have my students practice highlighting the evidence and the analysis and giving the sample
paragraph a grade in small groups. I will supply my own model paragraph to the students and
have them explain what was different/the same about the model paragraph’s evidence and
analysis as compared to the student samples. This should engage visual, auditory, and
kinesthetic learners. Students can continue practicing and applying this skill by revisiting one of
their own analytical paragraphs and making improvements. This will directly benefit Students A
and B, who I am pushing towards deeper, more balanced analysis and close reading.
I also plan to continue practicing writing strategies such as identifying and correcting comma
splices, fragments, and integrating more sentence combining activities into instruction to
encourage students to vary their sentence structure. I would also include examples of quote
integration into sentence combining activities to allow students to practice this somewhat
unfamiliar skill as well. This will directly benefit students A and C, who require more strategies to
improve the fluency and readability of their writing. Hopefully, this should provide the focus
students with a proofreading toolbox to apply to their future writings.
The entire class will continue practicing emerging synthesis skills in their upcoming research
common task, which requires them to engage with various sources to unpack a single research
topic. Writing workshop strategies will be directly applicable to and integrated within this
research unit.]
b. Explain how these next steps follow from your analysis of student learning. Support
your explanation with principles from research and/or theory.
[In their book, Best Practices for Writing Instruction, Graham et. al discuss effective ways
in which teachers can use samples of student performance to inform and adjust instruction.
Graham et. al suggest helping students take ownership of their own learning by setting personal
goals, analyzing their performance, and building the metacognitive strategies needed to
succeed independently (Graham et.al 2019). The goal-setting activity I have arranged for
students based on their feedback is directly informed by these recommendations.
Furthermore, Graham et. al encourage using students as peer supports for learning and
modeling effective writing strategies. The evidence/analysis activity involves both methods. It
allows students to use their own writing as a sample, making the activity more relevant and
forcing them to rehearse proofreading strategies and engages them in working with and learning
from their peers. The activity also involves the teacher actively modelling the strategy. Graham
et. al suggest that modelling is often more effective when the teacher, rather than simply
providing an exemplary sample, works and talks through her thinking process live.
Finally, my review tasks based on comma splices and sentence combining are directly
informed by problem areas that were consistent across students’ papers. Due to this
consistency, I am aware that all students would benefit from the instruction, not just a small
population. In their study on grammar instruction in K-12 education, Andrews et. al discovered
that direct, sentence-level grammar instruction (such as identifying subjects & verbs or sentence
mapping) has “virtually no influence on the writing quality of accuracy of 5-16-year-olds”
(Andrews et. al 2006). The results of the study indicate that sentence combining has a much
more positive effect on English writing. Thus, the grammar strategies I intend to teach are based
more on encouraging proofreading skills in direct partnership with student work rather than more
ephemeral grammar exercises. Comma splice activities aim to familiarize students with
identifying and correcting the error within their own writing. Graham et. al also advocate for
sentence combining activities in place of traditional grammar work, as it “opens writers up to
difference syntactical combinations” (Graham et. al 2019). My planned mechanics support
focuses more on relevance, application, and strategy instruction than rote memorization, which
studies show, is more effective in improving student writing.]
Works Cited
Andrews, R., Torgerson, C., Beverton, S., Freeman, A., Locke, T., Low, G., . . . Zhu, D. (2006).
The effect of grammar teaching on writing development. British Educational Research
Journal, 32(1), 39-55.
Graham, S., MacArthur, C.A., & Hebert, M. (Eds.) (2019). Best practices in writing instruction
(3rd ed.) New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Lesson 3: Summative Synthesis Essay
Writing #4
Art and the Power of Resistance and Resilience
Over the past few classes, we’ve focused on art as a form of resistance and resilience.
At this point, you should have a book, a poem, 5-6 pieces of artwork, and your own personal
and cultural experiences in your toolbox. We’ve analyzed each of these genres of art for the
theme of resistance and resilience on their own; now it’s time to bring them all together!
Key Terms:
Resistance: Refusing to accept something you don’t believe in
Resilience: The ability to recover from difficulties; toughness
For this paper, you will write a multi-paragraph essay using your own personal
experiences and at least two sources to explain how art demonstrates resistance and/or
resilience. To do so, you must use direct quotes from at least one of your sources. You
should also touch on the question: Why is it important to look at art that is born from
suffering or trauma? What do we (as modern Americans, as citizens of the world, as
students, etc.) have to learn from it?
Source options: (one of your sources must be one of the written pieces (either Night or “Still
I Rise.” You can’t just write about the visual art!)
• Night by Elie Wiesel
• “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
• “The Door (Admissions Office)” by David Hammons
• “Strangers” by Edel Rodriguez
• “Stormtroops advancing under a gas attack” by Otto Dix
• “Tree of Hope, Remain Firm” by Frida Kahlo
• “Death March” by Jan Harman
• “Crayon Boy” by Banksy
Getting Started on Writing #4

These are examples of questions you could address in each paragraph of your paper to
form a successful essay. You DO NOT need to answer every single question, but you
should feel free to use them to guide your thinking and assist your organization.
Potential Questions to Address Brainstorming
• What does resistance mean?

Paragraph 1
• What does resilience mean?
• What makes art about suffering and resilience
different than other art you have seen?
• Can you think of a moment in which art has
helped you through a difficult time?
• Do you ever turn to music, art, books, or
poetry to feel stronger?
• Has art helped your culture through hardship?
• Has art helped your community through
hardship?
• What scenes or quotes show examples of

Paragraph 2
resilience or toughness?
(an example for for • Does the author use any figurative language
a written art (images, metaphors, similes) to paint a picture
source) of suffering or strength?
• What hardship has the author undergone that
inspired the piece?
• What statement does the author try to make
about surviving hardship?
• What does the image show?

Paragraph 3
• Do you notice anything interesting about the
(an example for a colors used?
visual art source) • Do you notice anything interesting about the
shapes or figures used?
• How does the piece show emotion?
• Is there anything interesting about the medium
of the art (i.e. painting, collage, graffiti,
sculpture?)
• What suffering/hardship has the author
undergone that inspired the piece?
• What statement does the author try to make
about surviving or protesting?
• What is similar about the inspiration or

Paragraph 4
background of the two artists?
• Does an image or idea in one art piece remind

you of a scene, idea, or word in the other art
piece?
• What is different about the inspiration or
background of the two artists?
• Does one genre of art seem better at
communicating suffering or resilience than the
other?
• Why is it important to look at resilience art?
• Is art about suffering important even though it
can be sad/depressing?
• What can you learn about the world or
yourself by looking at these pieces?

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Secondary English Language Arts

Task 3: Assessment Commentary

TASK 3: ASSESSMENT COMMENTARY

1. Analyzing Student Learning

3. Evidence of Language Understanding and Use

Lesson 3: Summative Synthesis Essay

Getting Started on Writing #4

Potential Questions to Address Brainstorming

• What does resistance mean?

• What scenes or quotes show examples of

• What does the image show?

• What is similar about the inspiration or

• Does an image or idea in one art piece remind

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