The task
Students were asked to write a reflective essay.
| Circumstances of performance This sample of student work was produced under the following conditions: | |
| alone | in a group |
| in class | as homework |
| with teacher feedback | with peer feedback |
| timed | opportunity for revision |
What the work shows
 f
Writing: The student produces
a reflective essay that: |
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| • | engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona, and otherwise developing reader interest; | |
| • | analyzes a condition or situation of significance; | |
| • | develops a commonplace, concrete occasion as the basis for the reflection, e.g., personal observation or experience; | |
| • | creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose and audience; | |
| • | uses a variety of writing strategies, such as concrete details, comparing and contrasting, naming, describing, creating a scenario; | |
| • | provides a sense of closure to the writing. | |
The student produced an essay that is at once personal and reflective
and yet universal and affirmative. The work describes a moment in a school
hallway using Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing,”
as a controlling metaphor. The result is an overall optimistic vision
of the dynamic processes of immigration and assimilation in America. The
work celebrates that which is uniquely individual as necessary to an emerging
communal harmony.
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 Click to Enlarge |
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 The student
underscored the significance of our need to respect individual talents
by referring to the essential foundations of our nation. The student
used the everyday, commonplace occurrence of hearing students’
voices in the halls of the school to elevate that momentary perception
to an insight into the historical processes that have shaped our nation.
The student demonstrates fluency with the conventions of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, syntax, grammar, and usage throughout the work, with only one lapse (“to” for “two”). This error does not detract from the quality of the work. |
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f
a
The student
invoked Walt Whitman in the first sentence to create the persona
of a careful listener to the sounds of America. The rest of the
paragraph is used to develop the concept of the student’s school
as a microcosm of our nation. The last sentence identifies the student’s
school as “a community…where students learn by creating.”
The work implies that America, too, is a dynamic community to the
extent that it learns to evolve through its creativity.
The student
organized the essay by moving from the general to the specific,
from “…the carols are more varied…,” to “…Gianmarco,
who sings….” The work expands again into the universal
with “…and continue to sing in one harmonic chorus of
a new age in a New World….”
creating
scenarios, e.g., the stories of Lena and Joya;
the use
of metaphors of growth and abundance;
the incorporation
of an appropriate quotation from Whitman;
the use
of parallel structure and repetition to rhythmically reinforce the
theme; and
the selection
of words that reinforce a vision of growth and evolution, e.g.,
“infuse,” “rich,” “contributes,” “flourish,”
“rooted.”
a
