Sacraments lesson planning, Part 5: Assessments

The second of the UbD book on assessments is thankfully brief--just two chapters--so we will see what assessments emerge from the previous work here.



What previous work? First, we sketched and prioritized the various subject matter of the first unit.

Outer: Worth Being Familiar With

• Divergent beliefs of Catholics and Protestants about Christian
  fundamentals


• Alternate theories of Soteriology


• Avery Dulles' Models of the Church


• Importance of Paul's letters for Christian theology.

Middle: Important to Know and Do

• Terms: agape, eros, incarnation, grace, paschal, pentecost, mystical


• Look up passages from Scripture; read for understanding


• Look up passages from the Catechism; read for understanding

Center: Big Ideas and Core Concepts

Big ideas: authentic love, incarnation, Paschal Mystery, atonement, participation, Pentecost, Church

Big ideas framed as understandings:

• To call God "Love" both respects God's mysteriousness and summarizes his self-revelation to human beings.


• The Paschal Mystery is the linchpin of God's love and of Christian
  salvation.


• The Church is the visible continuation of the presence of Christ and the Paschal Mystery throught the power of the Holy Spirit.

Core tasks:

• Critically examine uses of the word "love" in popular discourse and in theology.


• Explain how the Paschal Mystery fulfills Jesus' promise of eternal life.


• Interpret data about the Catholic Church according to the distinction between its human and divine dimensions.

Then, we took the "answers" from the textbooks and turned them into a small group of "essential questions":

• 
  

  
  

  (Topical, Open) How exactly does the Paschal Mystery "work"? What does the
  political execution of a 1st century Palestinian Jew by the Roman Empire have to do with me?

  
  

  (Overarching, Open) What do God's actions reveal about love? What does love
  look like for Catholics?

  
  

  (Topical, Guiding) Why is a Church necessary? What are the alternatives? Why
  didn't Jesus simply stay on Earth?

  
  

  (Overarching, Guiding) What is the best way to represent ("re-present") the
  person, love, and saving power of Jesus of Nazareth in an accessible way to
  people today?

(I am axing the whole issue of "mysteries and paradoxes" because of time constraints and audience limits).

Next, operating from the "Essential Questions" and the criteria for "Understandings," we established the basic understandings that the students should come away with in the end (these have been greatly reworked).

• 
  

  
  

  (Overarching) For Christians, Jesus embodies God's love for particular human
  beings and his desire to lift humanity to himself.

  
  

  (Topical) Two of the most prominent soteriologies of Jesus Christ are the
  soteriology of "atonement" and the soteriology of "participation".

  
  

  (Overarching) The Church is a visible, organic community of graced sinners
  that embodies Jesus' presence, love, and salvation on Earth.

  
  

  (Topical) The Church has a human and divine dimension.

  
  

  (Topical) The Biblical names for the Church--Body of Christ, Bride of
  Christ, People of God--reveal its role in salvation.

Now I am in Stage 2 (finally!) - Assessments.

Step 1 & 2: Consider evidence of the understandings in Stage 1; Use the six facets to identify needed evidence of understanding.

The basic question: What kind of evidence do we need?

UbD offers a list of types of evidence:

• Performance Tasks


• Academic Prompts


• Quiz and Test Items


• Informal Checks for Understanding

UbD strongly emphasizes performance tasks as the creme-de-la-creme for assessing understanding--other assessments are important for basic concepts and skills. It also offers a helpful graphic organizer that aligns understandings and questions with measurable skills.

IF the desired result is for learners to...

UNDERSTAND that:

• For Christians, Jesus embodies God's love for particular human beings and his desire to lift humanity to himself.


• Two of the most prominent soteriologies of Jesus Christ are the soteriology of "atonement" and the soteriology of "participation".


• The Church is a visible, organic community of graced sinners that embodies Jesus' presence, love, and salvation on Earth.


• The Church has a human and divine dimension.


• The Biblical names for the Church--Body of Christ, Bride of Christ, People of God--reveal its role in salvation.

And thoughtfully consider the QUESTIONS:

• How exactly does the Paschal Mystery "work"? What does the political execution of a 1st century Palestinian Jew by the Roman Empire have to do with me?


• What do God's actions reveal about love? What does love look like for Catholics?


• Why is a Church necessary? What are the alternatives? Why didn't Jesus simply stay on Earth?


• What is the best way to represent ("re-present") the person, love, and saving power of Jesus of Nazareth in an accessible way to people today?

Then, you need evidence of the student's ability to...

EXPLAIN

• Aspects of God's love


• The Paschal Mystery


• The nature of the Church

INTERPRET

• Passages from Scripture


• News articles about the Catholic Church

APPLY, BY

• Designing/presenting a creative way for people to experience the Paschal Mystery today


• Evaluating these relative to the experience of going to Mass

SEE FROM THE POINTS OF VIEW OF

• The first Christians


• Various kinds of "lovers" (i.e., parents, old couples, small children, pets, new marriages, troubled marriages).

EMPATHIZE WITH

• Good people who suffer

REFLECT ON

• Personal participation in the Paschal Mystery


• Attitude toward, and behavior as regards love

So the assessments need to require something like...

• Develop a lesson capable of giving 3rd graders an idea of how God's love works in the Paschal Mystery.


• Create a venn diagram listing statements from Scripture and other texts in either the "divine", "human" or "both" sections.


• Design and evaluate creative ways to experience the Paschal Mystery for the purpose of sharing with Christians who are unable (health) or unwilling (belief) to go to Mass.


• Compare student stories of human love, Scripture passages, and writings of saints to answer the question, "What is love?"


• Interview someone who is disavantaged or vulnerable to learn their story; write a modern "Paschal Mystery" story in which this person's suffering becomes God's instrument to save the world.


• Reflect: To what extent do you share in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ? Evaluate your skill as a lover of human beings.

Step 3: Use the GRASPS elements to design authentic performance tasks.

In doing so, I will also organize the above items to reflect a realistic progression of understanding through the first two weeks.

"What is Love? (Baby Don't Hurt Me)"; Your task is to write song lyrics that answer Haddaway's question. ROLE: You are a group of singer/songwriters that like to answer other songwriter's questions in your lyrics. But your "thing" is that your answers are based on real stories. Your audience is the record label, so keep your lyrics cool and hip while still referencing story details to back up your intelligent mojo. The challenge involves describing love as some combination of actions and choices from your story sources, in order to provide an inspiring and accurate piece of music. You will produce lyrics to a song integrating parts of both your stories and Biblical passages that have been handed to you. You work will be judged by the consistency of its message, your incorporation of actions and choices from multiple (including Biblical) texts, and an oral presentation of the meaning of your song and the reasons for your decisions in the creative process.

"What's Love Got to Do With It?"; Your task is to teach 3rd graders about the Paschal Mystery. You are the newly hired Sunday School teacher at St. Joseph's Church in Tucson, AZ. You are taking over a 3rd grade class in the middle of the year because the previous teacher quit suddenly. The students were supposed to be learning about the Paschal Mystery and the love of God, but you quickly find out they don't know anything. The challenge involves helping 3rd graders connect three ideas: God's love, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and salvation. You will create a lesson, activity, or visual aid (or a combination of these) no longer than 7 minutes in order to help the 3rd graders understand a correct relationship between these things. Your lesson will be graded on the age-appropriateness of the lesson, the adequacy of the connections made, and remaining within the time limit.

"What if God Was One of Us?"; You have been commissioned to contribute to a project called "The Modern Bible," a book that takes Bible stories and rewrites them using real modern images and contexts. Your task is to learn the story of someone who is truly disadvantaged or vulnerable, and then write a modern "Paschal Mystery" in which that person is the Christ, whose suffering becomes God's instrument for salvation. Your audience is the editor of the book who is evaluating your contribution . The challenge involves telling the story of a real person in a way that their suffering becomes redemptive, not only for themselves, but for others. You will write a short fictional story based on a real person you have interviewed, in which his/her problems come to bring "new life" (however you interpret this) to him/herself and to others as well. Your work will be judged by its portrayal of a real person that you have interviewed, your style and word choice, and your faithfulness to the spirit of the actual Paschal Mystery.

"Paschal Mystery for the Unchurched";

"People are Talking"

"Where You At?"