Humanities >> English >> Performance Indicators
A Suggested List of Performance Indicators (November 20, 2002):
WRITING
Informal Products:
1. Notes - notes about texts and about material covered in lectures
2. Annotations - marginal observations, summaries, and questions;
underlinings; highlightings; and cross references in texts
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3. Listing - brainstorming by producing lists of concepts, claims,
examples, evidence, etc.
4. Exploratory writing - writing in which one tries out ideas and
arguments or explores one’s tentative understanding of a text (often called
freewriting)
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5. Journals - ongoing writing in response to texts or prompts that
serves as a student’s personal dialogue with course material
6. Short in-class writing assignments - a wide variety of in-class
assignments, often used to prepare students for class discussion or evaluate
their understanding
7. E-mail messages - dialogue among students or between student and
teacher about points of clarification, struggles with concepts or texts,
etc.
8. Discussion boards (on-line) - dialogue primarily among students,
interpreting texts, discussing assignments, reflecting on class discussions,
exchanging drafts, brainstorming collectively
9. Student-generated discussion questions - questions about texts and
other course material used to stimulate full-class discussion
10. Close-reading exercises - exercises for individual students or
groups of students completed in or out of class that assist students in
practicing close reading: noticing significant details, patterns of
repetition, implications of words, etc.
11. Informal response papers
Formal Products:
12. Formal response papers
13. Close-reading papers - essays that present an argument based on
interpretive claims about the text itself, its significant details, patterns
of repetition, implications of words, etc.
14. Essays that make arguments about the relation between texts or
between texts and contexts by comparing and contrasting features of more
than one text or drawing connections between features of a text and the
circumstances of its production and/or reception
15. Essays that explain the meanings of a literary text by applying a
theoretical perspective, such as feminist, Marxist, or psychoanalytic
criticism
16. Summaries of critical essays - papers that present the interpretive
claims of published scholars in condensed form
17. Annotated bibliographies - papers that summarize and evaluate a set
of related critical articles or books in a very condensed form accompanied
by complete and accurate bibliographic information
18. Scholarly essays that make a sustained argument about a literary
topic after engaging with relevant criticism on the topic - after reading,
comparing, and synthesizing relevant criticism, the student develops an
interpretive claim that says something new by questioning, rejecting,
extending, or complicating existing interpretations
19. Answers to essay examinations - timed, structured, written responses
of varying length to specific questions about one or more texts and/or
contexts
20. Reviews of critical essays - essays about published scholarship that
evaluate the interpretive claims and their support
RESEARCH
1. Developed research questions - thoughtful questions to guide the
research process about a literary text; literary figures; literary texts;
literary movements or periods; critical theory; social, political, or
historical issues relevant to the interpretation of literary texts; or
theoretical and methodological issues having to do with any of the above
2. Collection of materials (primary and secondary) - collection of
texts and of published scholarship about those texts or about their contexts
3. Notation about materials - observations, summaries, questions,
underlinings, highlightings, and cross references (recorded directly in
materials the students own, on note cards or paper, or electronically)
4. Oral presentations - organized presentations in which one student or
a group of students formally or informally addresses other class members
or
larger groups; these include written essays that are orally delivered,
progress reports on research projects, and lectures that provide background
information on texts being studied.
5. Works Cited pages - lists of sources used in a student's work,
presented with complete and accurate bibliographic information in MLA
format.
6. Research exercises - exercises for individual students or groups of
students to familiarize them with research resources (for example, standard
reference works in the discipline, specialized resources suitable for
specific fields of study, and indexes and databases) and to assist them
in
practicing research skills (for example, using library catalogues to locate
books, using indexes to locate articles, using search engines to locate
online resources, using reference works to answer focused questions,
evaluating online and printed resources, avoiding plagiarism in paraphrases
and summaries, following the conventions for punctuation of quotations,
and
creating MLA parenthetical citations and works cited pages)
7. Working bibliographies - lists that are created and updated
throughout the research process that indicate sources (articles, books,
and
online materials) that a student has read or intends to read and for which
complete and accurate bibliographic information is provided.
8. Summaries of critical essays - papers that present the interpretive
claims of published scholars in condensed form
9. Reviews of critical essays - essays about published scholarship that
evaluate the interpretive claims and their support
10. Annotated bibliographies - papers that summarize and evaluate a set
of related critical articles or books in a very condensed form accompanied
by complete and accurate bibliographic information
11. Scholarly essays that make a sustained argument about a literary
topic after engaging with relevant criticism on the topic - after reading,
comparing, and synthesizing relevant criticism, the student develops an
interpretive claim that says something new by questioning, rejecting,
extending, or complicating existing interpretations.
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