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Secondary Curriculum
Standards
As a district we have agreed upon what each student will be able to do in terms of the listed areas, and we call these performance standards. The standard or performance level for writing competency, for example, is level 3 on the Domain scale. Similarly, sets of evaluation criteria and tasks have been developed to determine whether or not a student meets the district performance standard. While I would not claim this to be a perfect system, the language arts department makes a consistent effort in this kind of quality assurance. This effort can be seen in curricular design, programmatic assessment, materials, and interventions.
In grades 9 and 11, benchmark assessments have been developed to determine student performance levels in these important listed areas.
In grade 11 the following benchmark tasks address our standards:
| Standards |
Benchmarks |
| Learning to Read Independently |
Logs, conferences, written responses, or orals on Self-selected outside reading |
| Reading Critically |
Department Assessment and PSSA |
| Literature Study |
Written response to Hamlet |
| Writing Competency |
Domain assessment |
| Types of Writing |
Writing folder |
| Group Discussion |
Socratic Seminar |
| Oral Presentation |
Professional Interview Oral presentation |
| Research Skills |
Post Secondary Experience Research paper |
| Critical Thinking |
Integrated Media/lit/social studies assessment |
Students who do not know and are not able to do what is expected in terms of these standards and benchmarks should receive extra help. Consistent poor achievement (D's and F's) indicates a need for extra help. The instructor will certainly be able to help design an improvement plan and/or make recommendations for available resources.
The graduation project is the ultimate demonstration of standards. The graduation project requires strong communication skills as well as content and skill in the subject areas. Note that while students are not necessarily retained for failure to meet benchmark standards, they will be deprived of their diplomas if they are unable to meet the graduation project performance standard.
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