Our Pilgrimage: A Summative Writing Assessment

As I have seen the senioritis settling across our on-level Brit lit classroom like dust, I welcomed this challenge. Senioritis gets a bad wrap. I knew that if I could give our class more meaningful assignments they would be 10 times more likely to be present. As we began our Middle Ages unit, I wanted to take a different approach. To me, I wasn’t as concerned with whether or not my kids could rattle off significant dates and works from this time period. I wanted my kids to see the bigger picture. Our bigger picture, or EQ, for this unit was, “what are our stories, our myths, and our truths?” We explored this through Chaucer and King Arthur, but what really allowed us to excavate this question was our summative assessment.

Instead of a test or essay, we went on our own pilgrimage. We were the pilgrims and it was our stories we shared, encouraged, and celebrated. Students had creative freedom in how they wanted to share their story: creative fiction, personal narrative, a poem or song, or a collage. The purpose of this project was to answer our essential question that I introduced at the beginning of the unit. I took on the role of “Chaucer” and wrote the prologue for our pilgrimage. I introduced each student, or “pilgrim,” by name and described their character. With over 55 students, I thought this might be difficult, but I soon realized how much I had come to know about my starry-eyed and wild-hearted seniors. After my prologue, we began our pilgrimage around campus to the places that mattered most to our class.

This was a meaningful experience for all of us. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get teary eyed. It was beautiful and raw; kids standing in front of each other sharing what matters to them most. After our pilgrimage ended, I sent a feedback form that asked questions about their thoughts on the unit and my teaching style in general. The first question asked, “what was your biggest takeaway from this unit?” Answers varied from “our stories matter and deserve to be shared” to “we are all more alike than I thought” to “everyone’s voices are worthy of being heard.” Not one mentioned anything about the Middle Ages. In that moment, I knew that that bigger picture I wanted them to see turned out to be a complex and beautiful mosaic that they all contributed to. This approach to writing standards allowed us to all see how identities not only have a place in our classroom, but are the essence of it.

Attached below is the rubric each student received for this project. It is an assessment I hope to recreate in the future.

Pilgrimage Project Summative Assessment .

Download • 74KB