Performance Tasks

Grades K-1
Sample Performance Tasks for Stories and Poetry

• Students (with prompting and support from the teacher) describe the relationship between key events of the overall story of Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik to the corresponding scenes illustrated by Maurice Sendak. [RL.K.7]
• Students retell Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Together while demonstrating their understanding of a central message or lesson of the story (e.g., how friends are able to solve problems together or how hard work pays off). [RL.1.2]
• Students (with prompting and support from the teacher) compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of the owl in Arnold Lobel’s Owl at Home to those of the owl in Edward Lear’s poem “The Owl and the Pussycat.” [RL.K.9]
• Students read two texts on the topic of pancakes (Tomie DePaola’s Pancakes for Breakfast and Christina Rossetti’s “Mix a Pancake”) and distinguish between the text that is a storybook and the text that is a poem. [RL.K.5]
• After listening to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, students describe the characters of Dorothy, Auntie Em, and Uncle Henry, the setting of Kansan prairie, and major events such as the arrival of the cyclone. [RL.1.3]
• Students (with prompting and support from the teacher) when listening to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods ask questions about the events that occur (such as the encounter with the bear) and answer by offering key details drawn from the text. [RL.1.1]
• Students identify the points at which different characters are telling the story in the Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson. [RL.1.6]
• Students identify words and phrases within Molly Bang’s The Paper Crane that appeal to the senses and suggest the feelings of happiness experienced by the owner of the restaurant (e.g., clapped, played, loved, overjoyed). [RL.1.4]

Grades K-1
Sample Performance Tasks for Informational Texts

• Students identify the reasons Clyde Robert Bulla gives in his book A Tree Is a Plant in support of his point about the function of roots in germination. [RI.1.8]
• Students identify Edith Thacher Hurd as the author of Starfish and Robin Brickman as the illustrator of the text and define the role and materials each contributes to the text. [RI.K.6]
• Students (with prompting and support from the teacher) read “Garden Helpers” in National Geographic Young Explorers and demonstrate their understanding of the main idea of the text—not all bugs are bad—by retelling key details. [RI.K.2]
• After listening to Gail Gibbons’ Fire! Fire!, students ask questions about how firefighters respond to a fire and answer using key details from the text. [RI.1.1]
• Students locate key facts or information in Claire Llewellyn’s Earthworms by using various text features (headings, table of contents, glossary) found in the text. [RI.1.5]
• Students ask and answer questions about animals (e.g., hyena, alligator, platypus, scorpion) they encounter in Steve Jenkins and Robin Page’s What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? [RI.K.4]
• Students use the illustrations along with textual details in Wendy Pfeffer’s From Seed to Pumpkin to describe the key idea of how a pumpkin grows. [RI.1.7]
• Students (with prompting and support from the teacher) describe the connection between drag and flying in Fran Hodgkins and True Kelley’s How People Learned to Fly by performing the

Constructing a Performance Task Scenario Using GRASPS Example : Math Goal:  The goal (within the scenario) is to minimize costs for shipping bulk quantities of M&M’s. Role:  You are an engineer in the packaging department of the M&M’s candy company. Audience:  The target audience is non-engineer company executives. Situation:  You need to convince penny-pinching company officers that your container design will provide cost-effective use of the given materials, maximize shipping volume of bulk quantities of M&M’s, and be safe to transport. Product Performance and Purpose:  You need to design a shipping container from given materials for the safe and cost-effective shipping of the M&M’s. Then you will prepare a written proposal in which you include a diagram and show mathematically how your container design provides effective use of the given materials and maximizes the shipping volume of the M&M’s. Standards and Criteria for Success:  Your container proposal should… o Provide cost-effective use of the given materials. o Maximize shipping volume of bulk quantities of M&M’s. o Be safe to transport.  Your models must make the mathematical case.

Performance Tasks:

GRASPS: Model – Early Childhood Example

 

G: Goal: Your goal is to create a larger than life model of a butterfly and

write/illustrate a book with a fiction and nonfiction section about your butterfly.

R: Role: You are the teacher. Your job is to teach the preschoolers about

butterflies.

A: Audience: You will invite the preschool class to come to your classroom

to learn about butterflies.

S: Situation: Your challenge is to teach preschoolers about butterflies by

performing your book.

P: Product: You will act out your book with your butterfly model.

S: Standards for Success: Your book and performance will be judged by you,

your teacher, and two of your peers using the student rubric.

 

Teacher-Made:

Performance Task(s) (summary in GRASPS form-See Reference):

• Students will participate in discussions.
• Students will follow rules of discussion when discussing a topic.
• Students will complete worksheet on vocabulary and sight words.
• Students will complete a four square writing graphic organizer.
• Students will use knowledge and skills to brainstorm ideas and begin writing sentences using a graphic organizer.
• Students will be assessed by a rubric.

 

 

A performance tasks is a complex scenario that provides students an opportunity to demonstrate what they know and are able to do when given a certain concept. It is goal directed. The teachers come up with their own performance tasks on what they want their students to achieve in the end. Rate: 5