Freshen Up Your Assessments

Tired of always giving an end-of-unit test and want to freshen things up?

Enter the Beyond Lesson, the final component of the EB Lesson Planning Framework!

Your main goal here is to create an opportunity for students to apply what they have learned during the unit.

A quality Beyond Lesson allows your students to demonstrate their knowledge of the standard(s) you have covered throughout your unit (remember, the Through Lessons!). 

A Beyond Lesson is typically one lesson that lasts 1-2 class periods, and while a test is fine, there are so many other options to choose from.

Here are four ideas to freshen up your assessments:

• Assign a one-pager project.
• Have students complete a graphic essay. (P.S. We’re hosting a free “Easy Week Experience” in April where we’ll be giving you our exact graphic essay template, so be sure to be on the lookout in early April for an invitation to join the experience with us!)
• Provide students with an Essential Question (which we suggest you provide them with at the beginning of a unit) and have them compose a Response to Literature.
• Ask students to create a music video that showcases all of the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired and refined throughout your unit study. (Our Romeo and Juliet Unit includes a Music Video as a culminating assessment, and year after year, students say it’s their favorite project they’ve ever done!)

What we love about Beyond Lessons is that they neatly wrap up a unit and give you clear data about where students are in terms of mastering the standards: approaching, proficient, mastery, etc.

When you strategically organize your ELA units as into, through, and beyond lessons, you are setting your students up for success by bringing engagement and rigor into your classroom.

This is exactly how we structure our lessons in the EB Teachers’ Club, and if you’re an EB Teacher, you know exactly what we’re talking about!

We’ll be back next week to finally dive into Batch Planning! It is imperative though that you have a solid understanding of into, through, and beyond lessons using our EB Lesson Planning Framework.

In the meantime, you can dive into Batch Planning now on the podcast by tuning into Episode 62.