CASI Results

The results are tabulated and averaged.

Overall class average: 66%

Knowledge & Understanding: 2.5/4
Thinking: 2.3/4
Communication: 3.5/4
Application: 2.1/4

Target Areas for Growth:

a) Difference between main idea and summary. We will further develop our "Identify the Main Idea" skills is our second and third novel studies.

A summary recounts a story in chronological order, highlights key moments, characters, and the resolution of the story's central conflict.

The main idea is a theme which the author is writing about. To successfully answer a main idea question, you need to include examples from the text.

For example...

      The main idea of Star Wars franchise is that your destiny can not be changed. The first trilogy, containing stories 4 to 6, focus on Luke Skywalker, and his destiny to bring balance to the force by defeating the Dark Side. He doubts his importance and over-estimates his capabilities in episodes 4 and 5, however in episode 6 he realizes that his life's journey brings him to face Vader and the Emperor. Obi Wan and Yoda help guide Luke down this path each in their own way, and they knew that the destiny of Luke's character was to defeat the Dark Side. The idea that your destiny can not be changed is further reinforced in episodes 1 to 3, where the viewer is drawn into Anakin's positive characteristics and determinations through hardships (in 1 and 2) only to view his demise to the Vader persona in episode 3. I would probably write an entire essay on this topic, however here we see that I've established what I think the main idea is, and use examples from the movies. I would write an essay rather than a paragraph because I am trying to capture the main idea of 6 movies, rather than a short story from CASI.

b) The structure of a narrative. We will use the short story A Monkey's Paw to emphasize the characteristics of:

- plot, setting, and characters
- identification of a conflict/problem
- rising action
- climax
- resolution

We will also use a creative writing unit to practice developing the basic structure of short stories.

c) Answering the infamous question of "what does this story remind you of? Explain your thinking."

This question almost seems like a loaded question. It requires students to make one of 3 types of connections:

Text to Self

Text to Text

Text to World

The scoring of this question requires the student to take the general theme of the story and connection to a general theme that could be identified in our everyday lives (Text to world). Thus text to self is the weakest of the quality responses a student could provide. Evidently it is also the most frequent, and arguably easiest response a student gives.

The focus on making text to world connections will be reinforced throughout the entire year.

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As this is a programmed assessment, half marks are at the discretion of the evaluator. These assessment tools are designed to provide an unbiased critique of students performance. We will continue to use the CASI assessment packages as a third-party critique to gauge our performance as part of the entire Literacy program.