SUNDAY UPDATE ASSESSMENT PROJECTS

Assessment Projects

Below are some suggested non-traditional assessment projects. These activities are meant to provide you with an opportunity to observe how and what your students are learning from the Sunday Update program. Feel free to revise these activities to fit your classroom needs.

"Issues and Articles" Circles

Project Description: Loosely based on literature circles, students self-direct themselves in small groups, to discuss, analyze and problem-solve issues studied in your course curriculum. It's unique in that students select the theme, articles and facilitate the discussion.

Objectives: The student will:

Develop an understanding for issues critical to her/his experience;
Recognize and appreciate the various perspectives and realities represented in her/his community;
Articulate her/his opinion and ideas;
Facilitate discussions; and
Communicate effectively.

Materials:

The Sunday Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper
Themes/issues brainstorm list

Procedure:

Introduce the project by explaining to students that they get to decide their own course of study for the semester (or quarter, week, month, however long you want to do this). Explain to them why you selected this project and how it will assess her/his competencies in your course objectives. In addition, if you are giving them a grade for this project, explain the grading requirements and your expectations.
Ask students to think about the themes/issues that are important to them, their communities and our nation. Record the answers on the board. Transfer them to a permanent poster board and 8.5 x 11 versions. Each student will need a copy of the list for the duration of the project.
Have students divide into groups of at least three (you may want to pre-select these groups depending on the culture of your classroom).
Each week, students are given 1 hour to discuss a minimum of two articles presented in the Sunday newspaper. On Mondays, each group pre-selects themes/issues from the class brainstorm and a new "facilitator" is assigned (by the group or you). The role of the facilitator is to facilitate the discussion. The facilitator must ensure each member of the group participates.
Also on Mondays, students select articles from the newspaper. Students are give until Friday to read the assigned articles and write a minimum of three questions to guide a discussion with their group.
On Friday, have students sit with their "Articles and Issues" circle groups. Allow 45 minutes of discussion.
At the end of class, have students complete an "exit slip" that explains what they learned from the conversation or what they felt was most interesting in the discussion.

"A Chapter in Time" Book *

Project Description: Textbooks for social studies classrooms are extremely out of date and do truly reflect the history of the everyday people. This project addresses both issues of time and relevance. Over the course of the quarter, students will create their own chapter in this year's history book. Each chapter will be unique and represent the various truths held in your classroom. This project would be an ideal one to do as an integrated unit with another teacher or group of teachers.

Objectives: The student will:

Explore themes and issues important to our nation's history;
Identify events, people and issues critical for others to know and understand in order to move our nation forward;
Create a chapter for a history book of 2003 - 2004; and
Work together as a team.

Materials:

The Sunday Seattle P-I and Seattle Times newspaper
Access to various media sources
Computer program such as Word, Power Point or some other method of creating a chapter book

Procedure Summary:
This project has students creating their own history book. This project can be done in a group or individually. Prior to assigning the project, consider what components need to be included in the history book: timelines, terms and definitions, key figures, oral histories, cultural traditions and voices, etc. The final chapter can be represented in a variety of forms: skits, music CD's, CD-ROM, Web site, Power Point, etc. Create a project assignment sheet to distribute to students that provides enough detail and structure to guide students. Consider periodic due dates throughout the duration of the project to help the group structure their work. One deliverable of the assignment should include a work plan. Below are some ideas for deliverables for the project:

Chapter outline
Sources - one of which should be the Sunday newspaper
Oral histories
Political cartoons
Visual graphics
Timelines
Work plan
Draft and final chapter (book, CD ROM, music CD, Power Point, skit, etc)

Undoubtedly, this project requires class time to work but students should also work outside of class on it. Encourage students to be creative and design a chapter that they would like to use in a social studies class, encourage innovation in how they represent history and the various voices that make it such.

* NIE plans on providing additional details and resources to assist you with this project. Please contact Elizabeth Duffell to receive the project materials — eduffell@seattletimes.com.

Sunday Update Journal

Project Description: Journaling is an excellent way for students to reflect on what they have learned. Have students keep a journal during the Sunday Update program. Periodically, students will submit an entry for you to read in order to evaluate their learning.

Objectives: The student will:

Write weekly about current events;
Reflect on what they heard, read and learned; and
Develop interests in reading the newspaper.

Materials:

The Sunday Seattle Times and Seattle P-I
Spiral notebook

Procedure Summary:

Introduce the project to students by explaining that they will be required to spend 20 minutes writing about what they read, discussed and learned as a result of the Sunday Update program. Time to write can be offered during class or done as homework. Allow students to submit one journal entry every two weeks. Students should be given a grade based on the fact that they wrote, not their opinions, grammar or what they wrote. To further students' learning and interest in current events and historical themes, respond to their journal writing by answering their questions, providing additional insight/information about an event/issue/article. To ensure that weekly writing is occurring, you might want to visually verify their writing weekly. Students new to the journaling experience might need prompts to stimulate writing. You may want to brainstorm a "starter" list with them, here are a few to help you:

Today I
I thought the article about
If I was writing this article I would
I learned that
One interesting piece of information I learned was
The worst part of the discussion was
The United States is
Our government
If I could change one thing about the news I read it would be
I wish
My favorite part of today was
I do not like
I want to know more about