Authentic++Instruction-Assessment

What have you done for Authentic Assessment. I am including a contest and a link to a video my speech class created. I am not sure if it will work but I am going to try.

In January, my students had the opportunity to participate in a humorous video contest. The link is for the assignment and the video is for one of the more humorous videos.
 * Humorous Video Assignment:**

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My Authentic Instruction was a writing piece my students completed. My students randomly selected a sea animal, research it, and wrote an expository text over the research they did. After all my students finished, we put the pages together to create a class book. The book also included a front cover, dedication page, and a bibliography page. It was sent off to be published. We haven't recieved the book yet, but the students were excited about it!
 * Stephanie Barber-Class Book**

LaVonna Woods - Social Studies Social studies is so hard for elementary students to relate to. They tend to think it was a long time ago and doesn't have anything to do with today. We were learning about freedom of the speech in the press shortly after the shooting in Tucson. I specifically called their attention to all the press about Sarah Palin and her web site. I found several clips online and asked them to watch thinking about what we learned about freedom of speech. We had a lively conversation about whether the pundits had the right to say those things about the website. It was very exciting to listen to them speak with each other about it. I closed this lesson with reminding them that we still struggle with the rights that were created so long ago. I will continue to archive newspaper articles and video clips of things like this for the future.

Katie Thompson-Letter Writing

After discussing how to write a formal/friendly letters and what is needed to persuade someone, my students chose someone to write a persuasive letter to. They had to include at least 3 strong reasons for their opinion with details to back-up those reasons. They applied the elements of letter writing as well as elements of a persuasive letter into constructing this authentic assessment.

Candice Tuttle- Writing with specifics- Answering the 5 W's

We were working hard in the first grade to be specific with our writing. Often first graders will leave their reader with many many questions still after reading their stories. To fix this I put on a show and got them all involved. When the students returned from recess they found me at the door in a trenchcoat with a magnifying glass. They heard the pink panther music playing in the background, and I hurried them all to the carpet. I told them their was a mystery and we needed to solve it. They were so excited as I began to read the book __Grandpa's Teeth__ by Ron Clements. We read the story and then I had them pretend to be a detective solving the crime. They had to write a story about what exactly happened with specifics as if they were solving the case. When the kids wrote about their favorite things to their parents aroung open house time, they unannimously decided this was one of their favorite things all year!

Lauren Barker-Wh Questions

A lot of the kiddos I see with language impairments have difficulty understanding -wh questions. To work on understanding what each word meant and applying it to real life situations, the students had to choose their dream vacation, and answer various -wh questions relating to their trip. They got to do some research on their destination, finding all the things they could do while there, climate (deciding what kind of clothes they would need), when the best time of the year was to go, etc. They really enjoyed it and it worked on a ton of different language skills!

Brittany Anderson- Installation Art Journal Critique

Recently I had my third grade classes complete a critique session of the installation art piece that their grade built in the hallway outside the art room. They were asked a series of questions that they then had to both journal about and share with fellow classmates. Questions included: What do you see? How does the piece make you feel? What elements and principles of art were used? What would you change or edit in the piece? This encouraged the students to reflect on what they had done in a group along with relating the work to memories, emotions, and other aesthetic response. An upcoming authentic lesson plan that I will be using with my third grade is the creation of Haiti Pocket Buddies. I have teamed up with a missions group that will be traveling to Haiti this summer to help out at a local school and orphanage. My students will be making little pocket sized stuffed animals out of felt to send over to the children attending those facilitates. This project will introduce them to the ideas of community service and along with bringing in a cultural lesson to the unit.

Lacey Middleton- "What do you want to be when you grow up..."

At the begining of the school year, we were learning about different careers and studying the requirements for specific career choices. They were given a poster and a task to complete at home and return back to school. They got to choose what they wanted to be when they grew up and create a poster about their particular career choice. The posters needed to be neat, organized, and full of lots of information regarding their future career. They dressed up like they would for their career and presented their poster to the class. I dressed up as a teacher "back in the day" and had the long skirt, boots, hair in a bun, and petty coat too. I presented to the class and pretended our classroom was an old school house and we compared the differences between school today and school back in the day. This project went over very well and the kid's really enjoyed learning about each other and different careers.