Formative Assessment
Throughout this suggested activity, you will support students in achieving the following skill that is the focus for assessment:
The following formative assessment opportunity is provided to help students unpack and develop the focus skill for assessment. Feedback prompts are also provided to help students enhance their demonstration of the focus skill for this activity. Formative assessment support is not intended to generate a grade or score.
Formative Assessment: Assessment for Learning Opportunity
State and Support a Position
Involve students in a peer review to provide and receive feedback on the persuasiveness of the support for their position. Use the feedback prompts below to provide structure in guiding students through this formative assessment opportunity.
Feedback Prompts:
- Have I stated a position, rather than simply restating previous information?
- Are the reasons supporting my position convincing?
- Have I provided specific examples?
- Is my information accurate?
- Do my examples support my position?
These feedback prompts can be posted on an interactive white board or bulletin board, or incorporated into a feedback tool that can be copied for student use. Samples of tools created for a similar skill within a different formative assessment context may be found in the Social Studies 10-4 Formative Assessment Summary 
.
Linking to the Summative Assessment Task
- As students state and support their position through the suggested activity What's Your Position, they will have completed the Summative Assessment Task: Perspectives on Alberta's Oil Industry
.
- Students should consult the assessment task and the assessment task rubric to ensure that they have provided the information required.
- Encourage students to review the feedback received during the formative assessment opportunity to consider enhancements they wish to make prior to submitting their final product.
- If necessary, continue to use the feedback prompts from the formative assessment opportunity to coach students toward completion of a quality product.
- If student performance does not yet fall within the three levels described in the summative assessment task rubric, work with the student to formulate a plan to address the student's learning needs.
Using the information gathered in the previous activity, students determine their personal response to the issue and prepare to defend their position and refute the counter-arguments of contending positions.
Instructional Support
A number of possible tasks are provided in this suggested activity. It is not intended that you work through all of the tasks, but rather select those tasks and resources that will best meet the learning needs of your students. The focus should be on ensuring that students have the background and support to be successful with the skill that is the focus for assessment (state and support a position).
State and Support a Position
- Remind students that this skill has been an important focus of the other summative assessment tasks in Related Issue 3. Refer to the list of qualities that students brainstormed previously regarding what constitutes strong reasons and evidence to support a position. Students may have suggested that strong reasons and evidence are:
- focused on the topic
- supportive of the stated position
- convincing
- accurate
- specific.
- Post the list of qualities of strong reasons and evidence in the classroom for students to use as a reference. If the brainstorming produces a different list than what has been suggested, incorporate the students' suggestions where applicable.
- After having listened to their classmates present differing perspectives on the issue, ask students to determine what their own personal position is regarding the issue.
- Remind students that the emphasis in the summative assessment task is not on the position they take, but rather on the quality of the reasons and examples they use to support the position that they have taken.
- Students should select a format to communicate their position, such as a personal response, a letter to the editor, a blog, a video recording or a podcast. Remind students to include reasons and examples that will support the position they have taken. Note: The technical details of the selected presentation format (personal response, letter, blog, video or podcast) are not graded in this assessment task.
Suggested Supporting Resources
Textbook References
Student Basic Resource—Oxford University Press, Living in a Globalizing World:
- Page 177 The Photographs: Benefits for Whom?
- Page 179 Conduct an Interview
- Pages 232–233 Key Terms and Chapter Issue Show more
- Pages 234–235 Assess a Position
- Pages 236–240 Resource Development and the Environment
- Pages 241–246 Resource Development in Canada
Student Basic Resource—McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Exploring Globalization:
- Pages 351–354 Alberta and Oil
Teaching Resource—Oxford University Press, Living in a Globalizing World:
- Pages 234–235 Activity 2: Perspectives on Resources
- Page 236 Voices: Perspectives on Oil Sands Development
- RM 0.3 Analyzing & Discussing Issues Show more
- RM 0.4 Recording Information
- RM 0.5 Fact, Opinion, and Bias Graphic Organizer
- RM 0.10 Paragraph Organizer
- RM 0.21 Analyzing an Issue
- RM 0.22 Organizer to Present an Informed Position
- RM 0.23 One Structure for Presenting a Position in Response to an Issue
- RM 14.1 Concerns about the Environment
- RM 14.2 My Ecological Footprint
- RM 14.3 Resource Development Note Taking Chart
- AM 1 Demonstrating Understanding Rubric
- AM 2 Generating & Organizing Ideas Rubric
- AM 3 Considering Multiple Perspectives Rating Scale
- AM 4 Considering Multiple Perspectives & Viewpoints Rubric
- AM 5 Evaluating Sources Checklist
- AM 13 Report Writing Rubric
- AM 14 Analyzing & Addressing Issues Rating Scale
Teaching Resource—Oxford University Press, Understandings of Ideologies:
- RM 5.2 Identifying Points of View and Perspectives
Teaching Resource—McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Exploring Globalization:
- Reproducible 4.15.4 Tar Sands Development 1788–Today
Teaching Resource—Duval House Publishing, Aboriginal Studies 10: Aboriginal Perspectives:
- Page 472 Appendix B: Interviews
Web Resources
Web Links for Online Sources:
Knowledge and Employability Studio (Social Studies):
Videos:
Distributed Learning/Tools4Teachers Resources:
Critical Challenges:
Stories and Other Media (e.g., films, stories/literature, nonfiction, graphic novels)
- Crude – The Incredible Journey of Oil (Documentary film, 2006)
- Erin Brockovich (film, 2000, Universal Pictures, Steven Soderbergh [Director], 131 minutes)
- Black Bonanza: Canada's Oil Sands and the Race to Secure North America's Energy Future, by Alastair Sweeny (nonfiction [for teachers], John Wiley & Sons, Canada)
