Creating High-Quality Classroom Assignments

To support teachers in developing, reflecting on, and fine-tuning the assignments they create, this book presents a series of dimensions (or rubrics) with benchmark examples from elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. The purpose of these rubrics is to serve as diagnostic tools to assess the strengths and weaknesses of an assignment, as well as to guide the creation of new assignments for students.

Lindsay Clare Matsumura is a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh.

Foreword: Steady Work and Continuous Progress

vii

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

xvii

1 Classroom Assignment Quality: An Introduction

1

(9)

2 Choosing the Right Text

10

(9)

3 What's the Point of the Assignment? Setting Goals for Student Learning

19

(10)

4 Challenging Students' Thinking: Analyzing and Interpreting a Text

29

(14)

5 Creating and Communicating the Criteria for Excellent Work

43

(20)

6 Written Directions: One Way to Let Students Know How to be Successful on an Assignment

63

(11)

7 Feedback That Improves Thinking and Writing

74

(13)

8 Are Students Learning What Was Intended? Aligning the Assignment Task With the Learning Goals

87

(11)

9 Did Students Receive Feedback on What They Were Supposed to Learn? Aligning the Learning Goals With the Grading Criteria

98

(10)

10 Putting It All Together: Assignment Quality Analysis in Action

108

(31)

Appendix: Rubrics and Questions to Guide Reflection and Analysis

139

References

47

(4)

Index

51

(4)

About the Author

55

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Creating High-Quality Classroom Assignments

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials