1. EXEMPLARS IN THE CLASSROOM Karen Leitenberger Discovery PLC March 2014

2. WHAT IS AN EXEMPLAR?  Exemplars are examples of high quality student work. Combining rubrics and exemplars allow students not only to know the assessment criteria for a writing task, but also what a finished piece of writing looks like at the different levels. Rubrics tell, but exemplars show. This complementary rubric/exemplar combination allows students to use assessment criteria as well as examples to improve their own writing. That is the premise that Foster and Marasco present in Exemplars: Your Best Resource to Improve Student Writing.

3. Exemplars: Your Guide to Improve Student Writing

4. Exemplars can be used: To help instruct your students in problem solving and applying concepts in meaningful, real-life situations To explore how your class is performing in problem solving and give you an overall feel of your students’ skills

5. More Reasons to Use Exemplars: To diagnose the ability of particular students to apply concepts and solve problems To help students learn to self-assess their skills using the rubrics and anchor papers To help students communicate by sharing their thinking process verbally and in written form

6. Exemplars and Anchor Papers  In addition to rubrics, Exemplars performance material also includes annotated anchor papers for each assessment.  Samples of student work are provided at each of the four levels of the Exemplars rubric: Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner and Expert. The marked annotations identify important distinctions for teachers to look for when assessing students.  These visual examples can be useful in providing students with a concrete understanding of what works meets the standard (and why). Anchor papers can also be used as a basis for student peer- and self-assessment and in staff development.

7. ANCHOR PAPERS  Anchor papers are examples of student work at different levels of performance that, along with rubrics, guide formative and summative assessments. Schools and districts can either build their own collections of anchor papers over time or reference examples.

8. MAKING USE OF ERRORS.  By highlighting errors in anchor papers, teachers can create learning opportunities for their students. In Japanese classrooms, teachers use errors in student work as a teaching opportunity, whereas in American classrooms this is rarely done. In the U.S., teachers tend to continue polling students in search of the correct solution, generally ignoring errors.  Discussing errors helps to clarify misunderstandings, encourage argument and justification, and involve students in the exciting quest of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the various alternative solutions that have been proposed. The Learning Gap (Summit Books, 1992) p. 191

9. PROS to Using Exemplars:  1. It provides a clear example of what it is you are looking for. This means students have a clear idea of the target and know what they are aiming for.  2. They can be used to demonstrate what NOT to do as well as what is good to do.  3. They can be used as a comparison source for self evaluation. Is mine as good as the exemplar? Better? Not quite there yet?  4. If student created, it gives an idea of what past students have created and what would be age/grade appropriate at that level.

10. CONS to Using Exemplars:  1. Student’s might view the exemplar as completely out of their reach. It seems to them that it’s far better than anything they could ever come up with and so they give up before they even try. This is the peril of always showing the “best case” exemplar. You might be able to show some leveled exemplars, but then you run into this problem….  2. Students only aim for what the exemplar is providing. It stifles the creativity of the higher achievers who may have given you something even better. And likewise, the lower achievers aim for the “passable minimum” if they think that’s all they have to do.  3. You get twenty five copies of what you showed them. They aim to recreate the exemplar to this finest detail instead of infusing their own creativity.  4. Exemplars aren’t always available or appropriate, depending on your assignment.

11. RESOUCES http://cherraolthof.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/to-exemplar-or- not-to-exemplar http://www.exemplars.com/assets/files/the_guide.pdf