Eliot, T. S. “The Song of the Jellicles” Fleischman, Paul. “Fireflies” Sample Performance Tasks for Stories and Poetry • Students ask and answer questions regarding the plot of Patricia MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall, explicitly referring to the book to form the basis for their answers. [RL.3.1] • Students explain how Mark Teague’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed in Cynthia Rylant’s Poppleton in Winter to create the mood and emphasize aspects of characters and setting in the story. [RL.3.7] • Students read fables and folktales from diverse cultures that represent various origin tales, such as Rudyard Kipling’s “How the Camel Got His Hump” and Natalie Babbitt’s The Search for Delicious, and paraphrase their central message, lesson, or moral. [RL.2.2] • Students describe the overall story structure of The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber, describing how the interactions of the characters of the Duke and Princess Saralinda introduce the beginning of the story and how the suspenseful plot comes to an end. [RL.2.5] • When discussing E. B. White’s book Charlotte’s Web, students distinguish their own point of view regarding Wilbur the Pig from that of Fern Arable as well as from that of the narrator. [RL.3.6] • Students describe how the character of Bud in Christopher Paul Curtis’ story Bud, Not Buddy responds to a major event in his life of being placed in a foster home. [RL.2.3] • Students read Paul Fleischman’s poem “Fireflies,” determining the meaning of words and phrases in the poem, particularly focusing on identifying his use of nonliteral language (e.g., “light is the ink we use”) and talking about how it suggests meaning. [RL.3.4] Informational Texts Aliki. A Medieval Feast Gibbons, Gail. From Seed to Milton, Joyce. Bats: Creatures of the Night Beeler, Selby. Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions Around the World Leonard, Heather. Art Around the World Ruffin, Frances E. Martin Luther King and the March on Washington St. George, Judith. So You Want to Be President Einspruch, Andrew. Crittercam
Drama Fletcher, Louise. Sorry, Wrong Number Goodrich, Frances and Albert Hackett. The Diary of Anne Frank: A Play Poetry Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “Paul Revere’s Ride” Whitman, Walt. “O Captain! My Captain” Carroll, Lewis. “Jabberwocky” Navajo tradition. “Twelfth Song of Thunder” Dickinson, Emily. “The Railway Train” Yeats, William Butler. “The Song of Wandering Aengus” Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken” Sandburg, Carl. “Chicago” Hughes, Langston. “I, Too, Sing America” Neruda, Pablo. “The Book of Questions” Soto, Gary. “Oranges” Giovanni, Nikki. “A Poem for My Librarian, Mrs. Long” Sample Performance Tasks for Stories, Drama, and Poetry • Students summarize the development of the morality of Tom Sawyer in Mark Twain’s novel of the same name and analyze its connection to themes of accountability and authenticity by noting how it is conveyed through characters, setting, and plot. [RL.8.2] • Students compare and contrast Laurence Yep’s fictional portrayal of Chinese immigrants in turn-of-the-twentieth- century San Francisco in Dragonwings to historical accounts of the same period (using materials detailing the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) in order to glean a deeper understanding of how authors use or alter historical sources to create a sense of time and place as well as make fictional characters lifelike and real. [RL.7.9] • Students cite explicit textual evidence as well as draw inferences about the drake and the duck from Katherine Paterson’s The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks to support their analysis of the perils of vanity. [RL.6.1] • Students explain how Sandra Cisneros’s choice of develops the point of view of the young speaker in her story “Eleven.” [RL.6.6] • Students analyze how the playwright Louise Fletcher uses particular elements of drama (e.g., setting and dialogue) to create dramatic tension in her play Sorry, Wrong Number. [RL.7.3] • Students compare and contrast the effect Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” has on them to the effect they experience from a multimedia dramatization of the event
Smith, Margaret Chase. “Remarks to the Senate in Support of a Declaration of Conscience.” King, Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King, Jr., Martin Luther. “I Have a Dream: Address Delivered at the March on Washington, D.C., for Civil Rights on August 28, 1963” Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Wiesel, Elie. “Hope, Despair and Memory” Reagan, Ronald. “Address to Students at Moscow State University” Quindlen, Anna. “A Quilt of a Country” Sample Performance Tasks for Informational Texts: English Language Arts • Students compare George Washington’s Farewell Address to other foreign policy statements, such as the Monroe Doctrine, and analyze how both texts address similar themes and concepts regarding “entangling alliances.” [RI.9–10.9] • Students analyze how Abraham Lincoln in his “Second Inaugural Address” unfolds his examination of the ideas that led to the Civil War, paying particular attention to the order in which the points are made, how Lincoln introduces and develops his points, and the connections that are drawn between them. [RI.9–10.3] • Students evaluate the argument and specific claims about the “spirit of liberty” in Learned Hand’s “I Am an American Day Address,” assessing the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and the validity of his reasoning. [RI.9–10.8] • Students determine the purpose and point of view in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, “I Have a Dream” speech and analyze how King uses rhetoric to advance his position. [RI.9–10.6] Informational Texts: History/Social Studies Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Connell, Evan S. Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn Gombrich, E. H. The Story of Art, 16th Edition Kurlansky, Mark. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World Haskins, Jim. Black, Blue and Gray: African Americans in the Civil War Dash, Joan. The Longitude Prize Thompson, Wendy. The Illustrated Book of Great Composers Mann, Charles C. Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491 Informational Texts: Science, Mathematics, and Technical Subjects Euclid. Elements Cannon, Annie J. “Classifying the Stars”
• Students integrate the information provided by Mary C. Daly, vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, with the data presented visually in the FedViews report. In their analysis of these sources of information presented in diverse formats, students frame and address a question or solve a problem raised by their evaluation of the evidence. [RH.11–12.7] • Students analyze the hierarchical relationships between phrase searches and searches that use basic Boolean operators in Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest’s Google Hacks: Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching, 2nd Edition. [RST.11–12.5] • Students analyze the concept of mass based on their close reading of Gordon Kane’s “The Mysteries of Mass” and cite specific textual evidence from the text to answer the question of why elementary particles have mass at all. Students explain important distinctions the author makes regarding the Higgs field and the Higgs boson and their relationship to the concept of mass. [RST.11–12.1] • Students determine the meaning of key terms such as hydraulic, trajectory, and torque as well as other domain-specific words and phrases such as actuators, antilock brakes, and traction control used in Mark Fischetti’s “Working Knowledge: Electronic Stability Control.”