Applying Standards Based Constructivism:
A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students
Beezus and Ramona

Popular name:  The Beezus and Ramona Task
Grade level of lesson: Third
Discipline: English Language Arts
Standards and Performance Indicators Context
 
ELA Standard 2
Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.
  • Understand the literary elements of setting, character, plot, theme, and point of view and compare those features to other works and to their own lives
  • Use inference and deduction to understand the text
Core Curriculum Outline Connection
  • Relate setting, plot and characters in literature to own lives
  • Make predictions, and draw conclusions and inference about events and characters
Learning Objectives (which will become the dimensions of the assessment’s rubric)
Students will be able to:
  • Analyze characters in a story
  • Compare characters in a story
  • Use details from a story as evidence to justify predictions
EXPLORATORY PHASE

(Estimated time: 10 minutes for the icebreaker and 15 minutes for the remaining activities).
In groups of three, the teacher asks the students to briefly discuss, record, and post on newsprint answers to the following questions:
  1. What was the best party you ever went to, and what made it so great?
  2. What was the funniest thing that ever happened at a party you attended?
  3. What was the most unexpected thing that ever happened at a party you attended?
Students experience each other’s responses by going around and reading their responses (carousel technique).
  • Teacher leads a brief discussion in which the students are asked to identify their favorite storybooks (excluding Beezus and Ramona).  The teacher lists these storybooks on the board.
  • In groups of three, the students identify two characters in the identified storybooks and compare them.
  • The student-groups report the results of their discussions.
  • Teacher leads those reporting out to back up their comparisons with evidence from the storybook.
DISCOVERY PHASE

Allow a minimum of 30 minutes, but additional time (30 minutes) could be allotted for reflection/self-analysis regarding the first draft the following day and rewriting based on the conclusions of that self-analysis.  The rubric should be used to scaffold the reflection/self-analysis process.  With audience beyond the teacher aspect, allow an additional 30 minutes.  Total 1 _ hours.

Performance Task
Students are asked to individually write an essay in which they predict how a party given by Beezus in the storybook, Beezus and Ramona, would be similar and different from the party given by Ramona in the book.
Audience beyond the teacher:
  • The teacher photocopies the essays after removing the names of the student-authors.
  • Students read one another’s essays and select the six essays that are most in agreement with the points they made in their own essay.
  • The teacher intervenes in the essay selection process when necessary.  The objective is to end up with four essay-groups.
  • Each essay-group makes a five-minute presentation based on the positions taken in their essay regarding Beezus’s party.
  • The audience for the presentation is the other three essay-groups.
  • The essay-groups use the criteria expressed on the essay rubric plus presentation dimensions and criteria.  These the teacher translates into a scoring form.
  • Optional: The other essay-group members meet to moderate and coordinate their individual scoring.
  • Additional audience: parents/grandparents using the scoring form.
  • Celebratory conclusion: The results of the scoring are presented in all essay-groups in series and asked to stand to receive the audience’s applause.  Optional: Next day reflection – the teacher conducts a debrief/reflection regarding the experience, which feeds further exploratory phases.
Task Specifications for Developing the Student-Generated Product/Process.
  • Length / size of product / presentation: The essay must be at least one page in length.
Assessment of Performance Task

Dimensions/
Characteristics
 Criteria for a score of
4
 Criteria for a score of
3
 Criteria for a score of
2
 Criteria for a score of
1
Analysis of characters in a story
 Essay accurately describes the characters’ mannerisms, peculiarities, ways of reacting to others and events, likes and dislikes, ways of looking at the world
 Essay uses half of the following to describe the characters’ mannerisms, peculiarities, ways of react-ting to others and events, likes and dislikes, ways of looking at the world.
Essay uses less than half of the following to describe the characters’ mannerisms, peculiarities, ways of react-ting to others and events, likes and dislikes, ways of looking at the world.
 Essay uses few or none of the following to describe the characters’ mannerisms, peculiarities, ways of reacting to others and events, likes and dislikes, ways of looking at the world.
Comparison of characters in a story
 Essay lines up one character against the other using all the elements listed above.
 Essay lines up one character against the other using half of the elements listed above.
 Essay lines up one character against the other using less than half of the elements listed above.
 Essay lines up one character against the other using few or none of the elements listed above.
Use of details from a story as evidence to justify predictions
 Essay makes predictions regarding the party Beezus would have given and backs them up with evidence from the book.  Essay states how this party would be the same and how different from the party Ramona gave and backs this up with evidence from the book.  Essay bases these comparisons on evidence from the book.
 Essay makes predictions regarding the party Beezus would have given and partially backs them up with evidence from the book.  Essay states how this party would be the same and how different from the party Ramona gave and backs this up with some evidence from the book. Essay bases these comparisons on evidence.
 Essay makes predictions regarding the party Beezus would have given but doesn’t back them up with evidence from the book.  Essay only mentions how this party would be the same and how different from the party Ramona gave.
 Essay makes no predictions regarding the party Beezus would have given.  Essay doesn’t state how this party would be the same and how different from the party Ramona gave.