Nanuet Union Free School District
101 Church Street
Nanuet, New York  10954

PERFORMANCE TASK

Area of Study:  English Language Arts

Grade Level/Course:  Grade 6 - Remedial English
Synthesis & Application of Reading Strategies

developed by:  M. Kronberg

Nanuet Learner Standard(s): 

Effective Communicator
Lifelong Learner
Resourceful Reasoner

New York State Learning Standard(s): 

English Language Arts Standard1:   Language for Information and Understanding  (Intermediate)

Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.

As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.

Key Idea 1:  Listening and Reading:  Listening and reading to acquire information and understanding involves collecting data, facts, and ideas; discovering relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and using knowledge from oral, written, and electronic sources.

Key Idea 2:  Speaking and Writing:  Speaking and writing to acquire and transmit information requires asking probing and clarifying questions, interpreting information in one’s own words, applying information from one context to another, and presenting the information and interpretation clearly, concisely, and comprehensibly.

Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.

As listeners and readers, students will analyze experiences, ideas, information, and issues presented by others using a variety of established criteria. As speakers and writers, they will present, in oral and written language and from a variety of perspectives, their opinions and judgments on experiences, ideas, information and issues.

Key Idea 1:  Listening and Reading:  Listening and reading to analyze and evaluate experiences, ideas, information, and issues requires using evaluative criteria from a variety of perspectives and recognizing the difference in evaluations based on different sets of criteria.

Key Idea 2:  Speaking and Writing:  Speaking and writing for critical analysis and evaluation requires presenting opinions and judgments on experiences, ideas, information, and issues clearly, logically, and persuasively with reference to specific criteria on which the opinion or judgment is based.

MST Standard 2:   Information Systems   (Intermediate)

Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies.

Key Idea 1: Information technology is used to retrieve, process, and communicate information and as a tool to enhance learning.

Nanuet Content Standard(s): 

English Language Arts Standard 1:  Informational Listening, Reading, and Viewing  (Middle Level)

Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.

Students will read, write, listen, speak, and view for critical analysis and evaluation

 Instructional Technology Standard 2:  Information Access and Processing (Middle Level)

Students will use technology tools to access, retrieve, interpret and evaluate information.

Benchmarks (New York State/Nanuet):      

English Language Arts

• Compare and synthesize information from different sources
• Use a wide variety of strategies for selecting organizing, and categorizing information
• Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information and between fact and opinion
• Analyze, interpret, and evaluate information, ideas, organization, and language from academic and non-academic texts, such as textbooks, public documents, book and movie reviews, and editorials
• Present (in essays, position papers, speeches, and debates) clear analyses of issues, ideas, texts, and experiences, supporting their positions with well. developed arguments

Instructional Technology

• Students use spreadsheets and database software to collect, process, display, and analyze information. Students’ access needed information from electronic databases and on-line telecommunication services
• Independently creates databases and spreadsheets and integrates them into finished documents (software applications)

Concepts: 

• The student will understand the importance of criteria in evaluating information.
• The student will gather, sort, compare, contrast, and evaluate information to determine relevancy for a given task.
• The student will understand and utilize persuasive writing techniques.

Skills:

Instructional Technology Skills and Competencies:

• General:
• Retrieves and saves files to appropriate locations.

• Word Processing
• Copies, cuts, pastes, and moves text; searches and replaces text
• Imports and exports data and graphics, merges word processing documents with other applications

• Spreadsheet:
• Recognizes and navigates through a spreadsheet.
• Enters and edits information.
•  Telecommunications
• Uses appropriate terminology
• Accesses and uses resources available from commercial online services
• Uses gophers and world wide web browsers to search the Internet

Context for the Task:

As part of the 6^th grade curriculum the reading skill of synthesis is explored. This task is designed to integrate the reading strategies being taught throughout the year in an authentic application.

Task: 

For this project, you are a travel agency. I have come to you to try to book a vacation to WDW. The trip should include round trip tickets by airplane, a hotel, tickets to the parks, suggestions for meals, and other activities.

You will be using Internet resources to complete this project. At the end of the research I want you to submit a written proposal for my trip. This proposed schedule for a trip or vacation is called an ITINERARY. The proposal should include:

• A budget for my trip with an overall total and breakdown into specific categories.
• A paragraph explaining your recommendations for airlines, hotels, etc., and the reasons why you are making these recommendations.
• You may want to include some pictures of the sites that will be visited, such as pictures of attractions or the hotel rooms. You could also include any maps you think would be helpful for the trip.
• A schedule of what the plan is for each day and each part of the trip. This is the actual itinerary.

Time and Materials Required to Complete the Task: 

Time:  The time frame for the project should be flexible, but basically should take six to ten class periods to complete.

Materials:   Students will need access to the Internet and the web page posted with the tasks and appropriate links. A shared folder for each group should be set up on the file server so students can share information with their group members. The teacher may also wish to set up a template for the spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.

Teaching Tips: 

Before beginning this activity students should have a refresher of Microsoft Excel and a brief overview of how to search using the Internet.

Possible Solutions:

Rubrics:

Reflections:

Updated 07/30/04