11th-12th grade ELA Assignment
Overview
Eleventh-grade students fill out a chart defining a series of literary terms. This task is not connected to any meaningful reading or writing. Students define terms in isolation, without applying them to text.
Why is this assignment weakly aligned?
The assignment includes no reading. Students are presented with a series of arbitrary literary terms and asked to define them in isolation.
The assignment includes no writing. Students jot down brief definitions for each literary term. They have no opportunity to engage in more substantive, analytical writing.
Students are not asked to build any meaningful content or cultural knowledge, and the questions do not provide opportunity to practice grade-appropriate reading or writing skills in context. Therefore, the assignment does not align to the intent of the grade-level standards.