Assessment through Role-play

Students usually have a tough time relating to earlier time periods such as the Victorian era. Most of the time, teachers usually succumb to stating facts about an era in hope that students make the connection. Instead of merely supplying students with facts, this lesson plan by Patricia E. Carbone enables students to become Sherlocks Holmes and to learn for themselves as to what it means to belong to an era. Her focus is on the Victorian era. Over a series of lessons, she gets students to research and learn about the Victorian era in order to gain entry to a Victorian party set in the modern classroom.

She begins by providing students with a WebQuest with information on the history, fashion, etiquette and entertainment in Victorian times. The students work in groups. Each student is assigned to research and become expert on one aspect. Later the students regroup to share their findings. 

Assessment 1

The group will be assessed on successful use of Internet to gather and document their findings and how they work collaboratively with the group to stay on task. See here for the rubric.

Next, she adds value to their research findings by giving students an invite a Victorian party that will take place in the class. However, the party invitation comes with a catch: students have to come up with a Victorian character sketch for themselves in order to gain entry. Using the information that they have researched, students have to fill up a character sketch worksheet. Students will work in groups to help one another out to come up with credible Victorian characters.

Assessment 2

In the written work, the teacher will assess if the students are able to apply their research to the writing task. She will look out for student's ability to incorporate Victorian elements to their fictional character. See here for the rubric.

Finally, on the day of the presentation, the students will turn up to class as the Victorian characters. On the part of the teacher, she will create a Victorian atmosphere in the classroom. The lesson plan suggests that the teacher provide hot spiced cider and cookies to lend a party atmosphere. However, given that our schools may not allow for food to be consumed in class, I suggest pre-packaged cookies as door gifts (a.k.a recess food) could be a welcome relief to our students too. Then the lesson ends with the teacher and students playing Victorian era games.

Assessment 3

The students will be assessed on how realistic and believable their Victorian characters are presented e.g. wigs, a certain pompous gait, how they speak to gain party entry etc. See here for the rubric.

Advantages of using this lesson plan to assess students' understanding of an era's society:

(i) It culminates into providing students with a semi-authentic situation of immersing themselves in a party set in the Victorian era

(ii) The assessment is staggered into 3 parts, giving students ample opportunities to understand the complexities of living as a member in the Victorian society. If we gave facts and assessed them on that, they may remember the numbers (e.g. a year) but not the story behind it. Role-playing allows them to engage in perspective taking (e.g. to be a high-society woman vs. a spinster etc.)

Disadvantages:

(i) This cannot be done in one lesson. Perhaps the teacher can use half the lesson for students to prepare for this project while using the other half to complete SOW.

(ii) Teacher needs to assess students carefully at the first stage so that they are learning from the research and not merely copying down information. She needs to scaffold their learning by asking questions to check their understanding.

Thanks to Ying Kai for sharing ReadWriteThink (: