Sample Tasks

The sample tasks that follow are examples of general education activities in the content areas of reading, math, and science at elementary, middle, and high school levels.  These can be used as is or serve as models if educators develop their own.  It will be important to make sure that whatever task(s) are administered to students that they:

• are directly connected to the grade level benchmark and target skill that the assessment is evidencing
• are directly connected to the grade level, general education curriculum for that particular district, school, or class
• are broken down into more steps tailored to the individual needs of each student
• are adapted to make instruction and performance accessible and meaningful for each individual student

Elementary Language Arts Sample Task

CCSB: A. Students can comprehend what they read in a variety of literary and informational texts.

3. Students can draw conclusions, make inferences, and deduce meaning.

Student Name _________________________________________ Date of Task Administration ____________________________________________________

Age appropriate grade level activity (specify curriculum based)______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Tester ________________________________________________

Scoring Key_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Materials needed (must be age appropriate) ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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Activity (for planning purposes) Create comic strip type story maps to examine story elements.

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Steps w/in the Learning Activity	Benchmark/Target Skill	Script for Each Step	Student Performance Indicators	Student Response
Step 1: As a class read "Where the Wild Things Are" or another grade level book.
Step 2: Students should write a short response in their writers' notebooks to the text. Ask questions to elicit conversation such as: What stood out the most for you in the story and why?, If you were the main character in the story, how would things have been different?, etc.
Step 3: Explain that a story map helps the reader think about the significant features of a text. It is a graphic organizer that a reader can use to explore how a story is put together.
Step 4: Using chart paper, overhead projector, or LCD projector, write the work "Setting" as your first heading. Explain that the setting is the time and place of the story. Ask the students to identify the setting of the book that you've read.
Step 5: Have the students provide supporting evidence from the book for the description they gave and write that evidence under the Settings heading.
Step 6: Ask what made the setting interesting (or not), and how important the setting was to the story.
Step 7: Repeat the process for the following elements: characters, problem, events, and solution.
Step 8: Use a comic strip planning sheet to have the students: name the story, give a comic subtitle (name the elements they will focus on), write authors).
Step 9: In each of the remaining frames of the comic strip, students should create a caption for the frame with the appropriate story element as well as the supporting details from the story.
Step 10: They can add backgrounds, characters, and dialogue that relate to the information represented in the frame.

* Instructional activities retrieved from the web: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=236

Middle School Language Arts Sample Task

CCSB: A. Students can comprehend what they read in a variety of literary and informational texts.

4. Students can infer traits, feelings, and motives of characters.

Student Name _________________________________________ Date of Task Administration ____________________________________________________

Age appropriate grade level activity (specify curriculum based)______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________

Tester ________________________________________________

Scoring Key_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Materials needed (must be age appropriate) ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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Activity (for planning purposes) Create a homepage for a website that a character from a book would likely develop based on the characteristics given in the book.

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Steps w/in the Learning Activity	Benchmark/Target Skill	Script for Each Step	Student Performance Indicators	Student Response
Step 1: Provide some sample personal homepages for students for students to preview. Each student should make a list of elements that they found common to most homepages and make a list of elements which would be unique to them and would be found on their own homepages.
Step 2: Students choose a character from their novel for whom they will develop a homepage. They then will analyze the character thoroughly and list what things might this person put on his or homepage.
Step 3: Students will gather basic information about their characters. Encourage students to answer the questions from the perspective of their character (e.g., what is the main conflict for the character you're exploring?)
Step 4: Using a web-authoring or word-processing program, students create their character's homepage. It should contain a minimum of five graphic elements and three written elements.
Step 5: The character's homepage should also include a minimum of four pages hyperlinked to each other.
Step 6: Save the pages as web pages onto diskettes or if allowed, upload them to a web site.

*Instructional activity retrieved from the web www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=50

High School Language Arts Sample Task

CCSB: A. Students can comprehend what they read in a variety of literary and informational texts.

9. Students can analyze style or structure.

Student Name _________________________________________ Date of Task Administration ____________________________________________________

Age appropriate grade level activity (specify curriculum based)______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Tester ________________________________________________

Scoring Key_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Materials needed (must be age appropriate) ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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Activity (for planning purposes) Students “become” one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives.

Steps w/in the Learning Activity	Benchmark/Target Skill	Script for Each Step	Student Performance Indicators	Student Response
Step 1: Identify adjectives in a paragraph.
Step 2: Brainstorm a list of character traits or provide a short list on the board, to provide a sample for students.
Step 3: Compose a class definition of the literary term.
Step 4: Participate in a class demonstration of compiling a list of character traits, using a variety of resources.
Step 5: Compile the data for the character in a chart which includes the book which includes the character.
Step 6: In small groups compile a list of traits and support from the novel on a character.
Step 7: On butcher paper, list the traits of the selected character without identifying the character.
Step 8: Post the charts and have groups guess which character the other groups’ lists are describing.

* Instructional activities retrieved from the web: www.readwritethink.org/lesson

Elementary Math Sample Task

CCSB: D. Students can interpret data presented in a variety of ways.

1. Students can use tables and graphs to locate and read information.

Student Name _________________________________________ Date of Task Administration ____________________________________________________

Age appropriate grade level activity (specify curriculum based)______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Tester ________________________________________________

Scoring Key_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Materials needed (must be age appropriate) ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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Activity (for planning purposes) Using graphs to compare two categories of information and identify number patterns.<