You wrote it, now what? Learners take their writing to the next level when they perform it for classmates. They then engage in a self-reflection and assessment of their work to determine how well they hit targets, such as identifying...

Scholars read their poems to their research teams as their final performance task. The teams listen and give feedback on the flow between the two poems. Writers then take the feedback from their teams and revise their poems before...

This word or that, this picture or that. Individuals dive into the lives of The Little Rock Nine and the connotation used in the book A Mighty Long Way as they begin the performance task. The task scenario establishes literature lovers...

Use a performance task to assess third graders' ability to read informational text. After they plan a lemonade stand business, young entrepreneurs implement that plan through informational writing. The task assumes learners can...

Get an idea of how your class members might perform on the Common Core tests with a comprehensive practice test. The assessment includes literary and informational passages for learners to read an analyze. Pupils respond to a series of...

The presentation is the thing. Learners combine all their skills by creating a pitch for their films about the Little Rock Nine. They explain to classmates why they selected the images and songs using self-created prompt cards. The end...

Are American young people prepared to become tomorrow's leaders in technological innovation, or does an obsession with being cool sidetrack essential skills? That is the question freshmen and sophomores must address in a performance...

Keep an eye on the growth of your sixth graders' reading and writing skills with the help of this practice Common Core assessment. Working their way through the six included fiction and nonfiction reading passages, learners answer a...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

Prove it! In the end-of-unit assessment, scholars write a commentary and provide evidence to justify the connection between their reader's theater scripts and To Kill A Mockingbird. After completing the assessment, they practice...

Looking for a performance assessment that asks individuals to demonstrate their competency in writing about informational text? Use Frederick Douglass' essay "On the Dred Scott Decision," and an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's 1857 speech...

How do you assess whether pupils have mastered certain concepts and skills? Designing a performance task that asks learners to demonstrate their skills and providing writers with a rubric that identifies these skills and provides...

Letter by letter, sound by sound, monitor the growth of your emergent readers with these assessment templates. Adaptable to the needs of individual students, these one-on-one assessments focus on children's ability to identify...

A performance task challenges scholars to read an informational text then respond with an explanatory essay. The exam begins with an independent reading of Seeing Eye to Eye by Leslie Hall. A second reading follows with the...

Three options offer young writers the opportunity to read a short story, answer questions, and write a response. A handy language arts resource focuses on reading comprehension and analyziing the story's lesson: look before you leap. 

As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...

An assessment takes a close look at the story, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, and tests writing abilities. Over the course of two days, scholars read an excerpt, answer questions on a learning exercise pertaining to the...

An assessment challenges scholars to read an informative text then respond with an explanatory essay. The exam begins as participants read a text passage twice then take notes, making sure to jot down key details. Following the...

An assessment designed to examine scholars' reading comprehension skills takes place over three days. Starting with a read-aloud of My Five Senses by Aliki, learners then take notes and discuss their most memorable moments with...

William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

Should the work of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences be funded by the government? Middle schoolers weigh in on the status of federal funding for programs that protect the environment with three text passages...

It is difficult to articulate how growing up feels as accurately and beautifully as Sandra Cisneros does in her short story "Eleven." After seventh graders read the story and note the author's use of figurative language, they respond to...

Young geometers and biologists investigate the math of nature in an activity that is just the bee's knees. Participants will study the tessellations of hexagons in a beehive, along with the natural rationale behind the specific shape....

Ready your pupils for Common Core testing by providing them with practice. For this assessment, learners read and respond to a variety of different passages in both multiple-choice and essay format. An online version is also included.