ASSIGNMENT 1

A curator is an individual who organizes an exhibition by  selecting works and placing them within a particular context or  arrangement so as to create some kind of meaning.  In any art  exhibition, art is not randomly placed in a room.  A curator  intentionally placed each art piece in a meaningful order.  In addition,  a curator will write a curatorial essay explaining the value, purpose  and meaning of the exhibition.  Developing a context for an exhibition  can include the use of thematic, conceptual, or formal approaches.  Curators also write exhibiton essays for publications such as exhibition  catalogs as well as other material that will enhance the audience’s  experiences with the exhibition.

For our unit assessment, the curatorial essay is a great  opportunity to help a student communicate a position to an inquiry – or  in this case, addressing an essential question. A curatorial essay can  guide the way readers perceives your idea/position when using a  collection of work. It’s a chance to communicate directly with readers,  help them understand your point of view when addressing the essential  question.  In other words, the museum art pieces is all the  unit content.  And the student get’s to decide what is going to be in the essay that address the essential question.  

When writing the curated essay for this assessment, it’s good to keep some general guidelines in mind.

The essay should be a minimum 3-5 paragraphs. It  can be helpful to follow a basic essay structure—for example, using the  first paragraph to establish the overall answer and explanation to the  essential question.

The following paragraph should provide the range of unit  evidence that connect, and also should suggest the wider significance of  your perspective of the essential question. If there’s a particular  unit source that was especially instrumental in the way you thought  about the essential question, it might be interesting to describe that  work in depth to draw the reader into your thought process. 

You should also think about the style of the curatorial essay.   You want to be specific enough when articulating your answer to the  essential question to engage the readers, but avoid using personalized,  editorial opinions that might alienate a reader, for not everyone has  the same experience or prior knowledge of the unit. For instance, if  there is a specific term that’s essential to the theme of the unit, make  sure to define it in your curatorial essay. 

• As is the case in this example, a thoughtful consideration of  your readers can often help you articulate your ideas more clearly.
• The most important element here is that you are addressing the  essential question.  Therefore, the chosen evidence must be addressing  the essential question.  We are not summarizing.  We are addressing the  essential question.
• In general, you want an informative and persuasive tone,  somewhere in between an academic paper and a newspaper article. That  means no use of the word “I” or first-person observations. The samples  below should help you get a feel for the appropriate tone. 
• Unit 1 Essential Question
• According to the unit, why does the American master narrative limit the American identity?

Ideas?

What connections do you draw between the unit content that can address the essential question?

What shared ideas, themes, or positions can you bring our from the unit that address the essential question?

Here is a basic example – Curate: Sample of Curatorial Statement

Criteria Checklist

Essential question is clearly addressed.

There is a balance between student voice and unit content

Multiple sources from the unit are used as evidence to substantiate the answer to the essential question. 

• A minimum of one featured author should be applied to your creative project?
• Sources are clearly cited and clear to a reader not from the class.  There should be a minimum of three different sources from the unit.  Different sources represent different pages, different authors,  different media sources. We should not repeat our sources. This is a way  to diversify our evidence from the unit.  
• There should be a mimimum of 3 evidential sources from Unit 1.  This includes content from both weeks of unit 1. 

A minimum of one featured author should be applied to your creative project?

The final project is cohesive.  (A 5th grader would understand the answer to the essential question.)

ASSIGNMENT 2

Creative thinking is the ability to consider something in a new  way. It might be a new approach to answer a question. Teachers in all  levels want students who can think creatively and bring new perspectives  to the classroom. In addition, students might prefer to address a  question in a creative way versus writing a traditional essay.

1. In Unit 1 the essential question is: According to the unit, why does the American master narrative limit the American identity?
2. If you were address the essential question to another college student  from another college, how would you present your answer?  How would you  demonstrate scholastic evidence from the unit to substantiate your  answer?
3. Unit 1 Essential Question
4. According to the unit, why does the American master narrative limit the American identity?

Ideas?

1. Examples will be shared in the Week 3 Wednesday Message (With Assessment Guidance and Inspirations)
2. Other options (but not limited to) 
3. A Sketchnote Links to an external site.(drawing it out) 

There are multiple resources online on how to do sketchnotes.

1. Simply photograph the sketchnote/s, save it as a PDF and submit it as a PDF

If the logic of your sketchnote isn’t clear, I will simply give you a  chance to explain yourself in the Assignment Comments area of the  assignment. However, if you choose to add a written out explanation, you  can go for it.  It is important that your sketchnote can translate the  criteria.  

An InfographicLinks to an external site. 

Infographics can be saved as a pdf and submitted. (Canva is a great  source.  Search for inforgraphic templates.  They are super cool.

If the logic of your infographic isn’t clear, I will simply give you  a chance to explain yourself in the Assignment Comments area of the  assignment. However, if you choose to add a written out explanation, you  can go for it.  It is important that your infographic can translate the  criteria.  

A media project (You can use Adobe SparkLinks to an external site. web page project, Explain EverythingLinks to an external site. if you have a mobile tablet, Google products you are familiar with) 

Media projects can be submitted with the URL link.

Any proposed idea you might have, make sure to meet the criteria. 

Feel free to contact me if you need assistance in submitting the work.

Criteria Checklist

The essential question is clearly addressed.

There is a balance between student voice and unit content

Multiple sources from the unit are used as evidence to substantiate the answer to the essential question. 

A minimum of one featured author should be applied to your creative project?

Sources are clearly cited and clear to a reader, not from the class.  There should be a minimum of three different sources from the unit.  Different sources represent different pages, different authors,  and different media sources. We should not repeat our sources. This is a way  to diversify our evidence from the unit.  

There should be a minimum of 3 evidential sources from Unit 1.  This includes content from both weeks of unit 1. 

• A minimum of one featured author should be applied to your creative project?

The final project is cohesive.  (A 5th grader would understand the answer to the essential question.)

ASSIGNMENT 3

Collaboration is one of the 21st century skills employers look for in applicants.  The  goal of collaborative class projects is to enable students to learn how  to function in these modern, 21st century work environments. In many of  college courses, students perform research or solve problems as a team,  allowing students to learn the skills necessary to work together in an  efficient and productive manner. Through this assessment, students will  learn project management skills, how to share tasks, engage with each  other, and benefit from listening to others’ viewpoints and backgrounds.  (This enables you to get ready to transfer to your 4 year university and/or job market.)

• With this unit assessment choice, students can tap into their  Learning Squads.  Students can reach out to each other to form a team.   The team can decide if a creative project can be accomplished together  or a curation document.  However, if the team wants to propose a  collaborative solution in addressing the Unit Essential Question, the  team should communicate with the professor.

The collaboration assessment should be submitted in this assignment  page.  All names of the team members should be included in the final  submission.

Examples of CREATE and CURATE projects will be shared in the Week 3 Wednesday Message (With Assessment Guidance and Inspirations)

Here are the other 2 assessment options:

• ?Unit 1 Create

?Unit 1 Curate