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Chapter 29. EVALUATION
Introduction
Basics
Advanced
Samples
Activities
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Activities Using
Evaluation
See also "Activities
& Groups." ---
SPECIAL ACTIVITIES
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DIRTY POLITICS:
Pretend you are a team of speechwriters
for an important political candidate. As a group or in pairs, write an
unfair political speech which uses promises, threats, guilt, emotional
persuasion, and other non-logical techniques. However, be subtle: try to
use these without being too obvious or sounding outrageously ridiculous.
Play on people's fears and hopes, lack of logic and jumps to conclusions.
Then trade these written speeches. Respond as a group or pair to the speech
in front of you: list a fair but complete evaluation, examining its structure,
lies, prejudices, and weak points. Also evaluate your evaluation--what
might your own group or pair's point of view and prejudices be?
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HERE COMES THE JUDGE: Imagine you are the judge in a courtroom. Make up a
crime or dispute between two people. Then write a description of how each
person is right in some ways but wrong in others, arrive at a decision, and
explain why you have arrived logically and/or fairly at this decision.
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EVALUATING A JOB APPLICANT: In
a small group, make up a business or professional situation
in which you are on a committee of job interviewers. Develop two lists of five
or more judgments each. In one list, write down the kinds of questions
you would ask a job applicant to determine whether he or she could do the
job well. In a second list, write down the kinds of questions that you
do not need to answer about the applicant's personal life, beliefs,
habits, and background. Then interview someone from a different group
who knows what the job is; as you interview, be sure to avoid any hint of
asking questions from the second list. Finally, hire the person, but
first work out a description of how well he or she meets the qualifications
on the first list.
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HAVING A BABY: (Note--This exercise may
take two to three periods.) Divide into at least four groups. This
exercise may take two to four class periods. In your group, consider the
following situation: You are a family, almost all of who are adults (father
and/or mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and/or children 21 or older.
You are a close family. In your family also is the youngest member: a sixteen-year-old
daughter or son who has become pregnant or gotten someone else pregnant.
The other responsible party also is sixteen, has a reputation among school
and juvenile authorities for being quite wild, and lives with only one
parent who is poor in a dirty, run-down, two-bedroom apartment.
(A) SUMMARY/DESCRIPTION: Your first job as a group is to summarize,
briefly, factually, and meaningfully in 50-100 words, your situation: your
family, the son or daughter, the pregnancy, the other party and his/her
reputation, the other parent, and the living conditions of both your child
and of the other child.
(B) RESPONSE #1: Next, react to the situation for 50-100
words. Give, as a family, your intellectual, emotional, and physical reactions.
Then pass your two writings (A and B) to another group.
(C) RESPONSE #2: Pretend that as a group you are now
the teenager in the family. You have come home late and discovered the
sheet of paper from A-B lying on the kitchen table where your family accidentally
forgot it. React to what you read: give your intellectual, emotional, and
physical reactions for 50-100 words. Then pass the writings to another
group.
(D) EVALUATION #1: Now pretend you are a group of friends
of the family described in the writings in front of you. Write your evaluations
or judgements of what you think the family should do. Give evidence of what you know
about the family to support your suggestions. Pass the writings to another
group.
(E) EVALUATION #2: Now pretend that you are a group of
tough but fair psychologists or psychiatrists. The writings before you
have been sent to you by the family named in them. You have therapeutically
counseled both the family members and the teenager in question, and you
are ready to make evaluations and recommendations. Write an evaluatory comment
about the situation for each of five evaluatory categories from this chapter,
and a recommendation (what should be done) for each evaluatory category.
You will not need to show your evaluatory comments to anyone in the family--they
are just for your own diagnosis and treatment.
(F) Finally, evaluate in writing, individually
and privately, your group's work. Write one sentence for each evaluatory
category listed earlier in this chapter. Share your evaluations with each
other, and then compile a group evaluation with one or two sentences per
category.
(G) Read all of your results to the class.
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ROUND-ROBIN EVALUATION GAME: (A) As a
class, you should move into a circle formation. Each person then should
take out a standard sheet of writing paper. Then read this evaluative
system from the "Basics" part of this chapter:
GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATING
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Inconsistencies,
contradictions, or untruths?
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Strong, weak, or missing
ideas, examples, or supporting details?
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Strong, weak, or missing
organization, style, or tone?
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Bias or unspoken assumptions
that need clarification?
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Negative or positive
comparisons/contrasts with similar texts?
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Negative or positive
emotional impact?
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Negative or positive
actions/responses by readers?
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Ethical considerations?
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(B) Each person then write the following
sentence on a piece of paper, filling in the blanks:
"1. A strange person might
believe about ___________________ [choose any belief about politics, religion, sex,
abortion, or anything else controversial] that everyone should ___________________."
(C) Pass this paper one person to your left.
(D) Read the paper now in front of you and
add to it the following sentence, filling in the blank as you do so using one of
the evaluative categories above. Be respectful and logical:
"2. Evaluation of this belief
shows that it is ____________________ [use one of the evaluative categories
above] because _______________________________."
(E) Pass this paper one person to your left.
(F) Read the paper now in front of you, add
another about the paper's subject as follows, and fill in the blanks using a
separate evaluative category from above. Again, be respectful and
logical:
"3. Evaluation of this belief shows that it is
____________________ [use a second evaluative category
above] because _______________________________."
(G) Pass this paper to your left.
(H) Continue until a number of categories have
been used. Choose the most interesting several papers and read them aloud.
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OTHER ACTIVITIES
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THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CHAPTER:
As an individual or a group, read the chapter and take
notes about it using one or more of the methods in "General
Study Questions."
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ROUGH DRAFT: As an individual or a group, write
a paper as described in this chapter. Use the subtitles
shown in the "Introduction" or the "Basics" section as
subtitles of your rough draft, and write at least 50+ words in each body
section. If you are working as a group, you may, if your instructor
allows, develop a fictional and fanciful background and subject for your
rough draft.
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GROUP MAPPING & PLANNING: Divide into
small groups of 3-4 people randomly. In each group, one person each should
volunteer to be
(i) the facilitator (the person helping everyone to do the
work),
(ii) the writer/recorder (who does the writing for the group),
(iii) the reader/announcer (who reports
the group's works to the class), and
(iv) if there is a fourth, the timekeeper, the observer taking notes about the group's way of working,
and/or the "social encourager"--someone who finds questions to encourage quieter
members of the group.
The group should then follow these steps using a
timetable given by the instructor, either in a small, close circle with the
writer using pen or laptop, or at a segment of the whiteboard with the
writer using a marker:
(A) What is the key or essence of this type of paper? Brainstorm an
interesting, fun idea (serious or silly) to write about.
(B) Then look at the "map" or blocks of how to build this type of paper,
from introduction through the body sections to the conclusion. The
instructor can either project it on a screen or draw it on the board.
Then fill in the parts with 50-100 words for each main body section, and
20-50 for the intro and conclusion (depending on the instructor's
directions).
(C) If your instructor suggests this, add a good made up illustration,
graphic, or quotation or two to each section from an "expert" and give
credit to your made-up expert. (Note: Never add made-up detail or
experts to a real paper.)
(D) Have your reader/announcer read your result to the entire class.
(E) After all groups have gone, then the "observer" in each group--or the
facilitator--should answer three brief comments on how the group process
happened: "What worked well," "What didn't," and "How could it be changed?"
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GROUP CRITIQUE OF A
LATER DRAFT:
If your class has a paper all of you are preparing for grading, gather in a group to
critique each other's developed drafts:
(A) Simply pass the papers to each other;
your paper preferably should be checked by three other people. (Some
instructors prefer that you make several copies, distribute them to your
group members, take the copies home that you receive, and comment on them
there.)
(B) Write comments for each other.
To do so, use a a
set of grading guidelines (or "rubric"):
for example, "How are the contents,"
"How is the organization of parts," "Do paragraphs work
well," and "How well have editing errors been corrected?"
Preferably, you can use the guidelines your instructor applies when grading.
(C) For each question or requirement in your guidelines, write one or more
comments. Your comments should be substantial and specific (more like a
complete sentence, and more specific than just "Nice!" or "Needs
work"). Your comments also should be positive or helpfully
constructive: when positive, they should offer specific praise of a particular part, detail, or
method; when constructive, they should offer specific advice about what to add or do to make
the paper better.
(D) Add a final positive or constructive comment about how you think the
average reader of this paper might respond to it, and/or how the paper could
be changed or fixed for a stronger or more positive response from its
audience.
(E) After
receiving your comments from others, take them home. Review
what they have written. Remember
that your readers are not commenting on you as a person, but rather on how
easily (or poorly) they have been able to read your paper as its audience
members. Pay attention in particular to comments that may have
been repeated by more than one of your readers.
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For a wide variety of other activities and
exercises, go to "Activities
& Groups."
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Section E.
Responding to Reading
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Related Chapters/Pages:
Critical Thinking
Research Writing
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Related
Links in
OnlineGrammar.org:
3.
Thinking & Reading
12. Types of Papers
14. Online Readings
16. Research Writing
In 16: "Evaluating
Web Sites"
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