Jillian Brimigion

Activity 6.4 Creating a Short Answer Exercise and Scoring Guide

Work independently, with a partner, or with a team to complete this activity. It helps if those

you are working with are familiar with the content being assessed.

1. After reading the section, “Short Answer or Extended Response?” on page 185 in the

text, select one or more learning targets for which short answer exercises are a good

match.

i. The student will apply what they have learned this week to write at least

one sentence about alligators and crocodiles on their whiteboard.

2. Follow the guidelines in the section, “Devising Short Answer Exercises” on pages

186 and 187 to write one or more short answer exercises to assess the learning

target(s) you selected. Use the Checklist for Written Response Exercise Quality to

evaluate each exercise and revise as needed.

i. Write a sentence about alligators. Try to remember what we learned this

week.

3. Follow the recommendations for when to use which type of scoring guide option in

the section, “Step 5, Part 2: Preparing the Scoring Guides” to select a scoring guide

option (list, task-specific rubric, or general rubric) for each exercise. Then follow the

instructions for creating the type(s) of scoring guide(s) you selected. Use the

Checklist for Written Response Scoring Guide Quality to evaluate each scoring

guide and revise as needed.

i. Task Specific List:

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 1. The teacher will be looking for students to include at least one

about alligators and crocodiles in their sentence. Opinions like

“alligators are cool” will not be accepted as an appropriate

response. The teacher will look from grammatical conventions

(capitalize beginning of sentence and period)

2. Examples of facts students could include:

a. Alligators/croc are green, reptiles, big, cold blooded

b. Alligators/croc have eyes, nose, feet, tail, scales, body,

eggs, V-shaped mouths, U-shapes mouths, teeth

c. Alligators/crocs can swim, chomp/bite, breathe air

d. Alligators/crocs eat meat

e. Alligators live in the USA

f. Crocodiles live in Australia

g. I saw alligator/croc at the zoo

h. Alligators/croc need the sun

4. Ask a student to complete your exercises and then have them score their responses

using the scoring guides you have created. Discuss any difficulties in responding or

scoring.

a. Friend A’s response:

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Friend A’s got full points for his response. Together we looked at our chart of alligator and

crocodile facts. We found his fact on this list Alligators/Crocodiles have teeth. Friend A

included the proper grammatical conventions adding a capital letter and a period.

5. Revise your exercises and scoring guides again as needed.

The activity and scoring guide were used for the whole class. It seemed my written

response was successful. The only challenge I faced was students not responding to the

question. Some students could not produce a sentence with a fact about alligators and

crocodiles.

Checklist for Written Response Exercise Quality

 Is written response the best assessment method for this learning target?

o Yes, student is being asked to produce a sentence

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 Do exercises call for focused responses?

o Yes, the response is trying to identify if students can recall specific facts

 Is the knowledge to be used clearly indicated?

o Yes, students will have multiple activities and a chart of facts

 Is the reasoning to be demonstrated (if any) clearly indicated?

o No reasoning needed

 Is the exercise itself written at the lowest possible reading level—will all students

understand what they are to do?

o Yes, directions are written simply, and a prompt is provided

 Will students’ level of writing proficiency in English be adequate to show you what they

know and can do?

o Yes students are not expected to spell correctly

 Is there anything in the exercise that might put a group of students at a disadvantage

regardless of their knowledge or reasoning level?

o Some students need one on one support with writing, this activity was expected to

be completed independently.

 Are there enough exercises to provide a defensible estimate of student learning on

intended targets?

o Yes, there are other assessments in this unit not only written response. Students

also practiced a sentence in class for their formative assessment.