The two major forms of assessment during this unit were the weekly performances (scaffolded throughout the week) and the final unit essay.

Weekly Performances

Students worked throughout the week to prepare for roles for in-class performances of A Streetcar Named Desire. I wanted to play into different student strengths, and so I made some roles more writing-intensive, some more artistic/visualize, and others about acting and moving around. On the other hand, to push students out of their comfort zones, I required that they try out at least three different roles during the six weeks of reading. Here are my English instructions:

See the students “in action” in the Video & Commentary section.

Final Unit Essay

I originally planned for students to spend more time with the text set and expand some philosophical ideas into the play, but we ran out of time. Mrs. Carlson and I determined that all the junior classes could benefit from more thesis-inspired essay writing, and so I had my juniors write another thesis paper. This time I provided more scaffolding during in-class workshops.