Smart & Good High Schools - The Flippen Group

on at home. If I think something serious is happening that’sinterfering with their work, I’ll allow them to go back andredo an entry.Do you ever use models of excellence?If a student has done something that’sreally excellent, I’ll put their work up onthe overhead, and we’ll work throughthe rubrics together for that. Or wemight look at three different pieces—from students in their class or from previous years. We talka lot about voice—I want them to see that quality writinghas a distinctive voice.Do all students take to this system right away?Not all. I had a student last year who failed my class thefirst term. She did very little work and just wasn’t investedin the workshop. But by the end of the year she had an A.And this year she came back to me when she had to writea persuasive essay for her English class, and said, “I thoughtit would be a good idea to talk about what my opponentsmight think in response to my arguments and wonderedwhere I should bring that in.” I thought that was sophisticatedthinking and a measure of how much she had grownas a thinker and writer.The essence of this whole approach is to constantly pushstudents to go to higher levels—to think things throughmore carefully, to dig deeper into the text, to considersomething from yet another point of view. They begin totake real ownership of their notebooks. We’re creating aculture of thinking.OUTCOME 2:Diligent and Capable PerformerPromising Practice 5:2Use rubrics to help students selfassess,set performance goals, andmonitor their progress.Rubrics help students self-assess andset goals for improvement.A well-designed rubric can be an effective tool for helpingstudents become diligent and capable performers.Rubrics help students assess their work habits and otheraspects of their performance character, set goals forimprovement, and then assess their progress in meetingthose goals.CHAPTER 5: Fostering the 8 Strengths of Character—Outcome 2There is no easy way tolearn difficult things.An Effort and Achievement RubricIn Classroom Instruction that Works, Marzano and colleaguespresent an “effort and achievementrubric” that has helped students see therelationship between their effort andtheir achievement. With this rubric, studentsrate themselves on both effortand achievement for a particular task,using a 4-point scale where 4 = excellent,3 = good, 2 = needs improvement, and 1 = unacceptable.14—JOSEPH DE MAISTREEFFORT RUBRIC1. I put very little effort into the task.2. I put some effort into the task but stopped workingwhen difficulties arose.3. I worked hard on the task until it was completed. Ipushed myself to work on the task even when difficultiesarose and a solution was not immediatelyapparent.4. I worked on the task until it was completed. Ipushed myself to work on the task even when difficultiesarose and a solution was not immediatelyapparent. I viewed difficulties as opportunities tostrengthen my understanding.ACHIEVEMENT RUBRIC1. I did not meet the objectives of the task or lesson.2. I met a few of the objectives of the task or lesson,but I did not meet others.3. I met the objectives of the task or lesson.4. I exceeded the objectives of the task or lesson.Levels of Academic FunctioningKathy Beland’s Character Education: Providing a MeaningfulAcademic Curriculum (Book VI of the Eleven PrinciplesSourcebook) describes a rubric for assessing levels of acadmicfunctioning (see box on page 111) that was developedby a high school receiving a National School ofCharacter award. 15 Using a 5-point Leader to DetractorScale, students at this school can locate their level of functioningfor each of the rubric’s five performance areas—and then set goals for improvement.109Smart & Good High Schools