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Claim: GCCS students continue to demonstrate a thorough understanding of their community’s rich history through critical thinking and articulate communication in authentic and meaningful ways.
Claim: GCCS students continue to demonstrate a thorough understanding of their community’s rich history through critical thinking and articulate communication in authentic and meaningful ways.
Presentations of Learning require students to synthesize the knowledge and skills they have learned into one or more final products which they then present to the public at an Exhibition Night. Final products are purposefully designed to integrate content knowledge related to science and or history, with knowledge and skills in the area of language arts and often math. All final products and presentations are pre-planned with standards-aligned final product descriptors. Attendance at Exhibition Night is almost always 100%.
The Class 2020 is highlighted through the lens of Exhibition Nights and Final Products to support our claim that GCCS students understand their community’s rich history through critical thinking and articulate communication in authentic and meaningful ways. Evidence here includes teacher learning expeditions and product descriptors and final products.
Expeditions of the Class of 2020
Expeditions of the Class of 2020
As Kindergarteners (2015-16), these students learned a native-inspired story called “Grandmother Moon”, explaining a sequence of events from the prehistoric time period through the ice age. Students retold the story and were recorded for Exhibition Night. Through movement, they retold the story of Grandmother Moon to their recorded voices.
We're Digging In! K Exp Plan 2015
By second grade, students were able to create an entire play depicting a native story called “Pushing Up the Sky.”
While the framework for the play was already established, students helped to flesh out the production through composing music, creating dance sequences, and incorporating handmade staffs that they worked on throughout the expedition.
In addition, students wrote a comparison of a similar object between three different Native American regions and nations. These comparisons became the informational text included in the playbill.
By fourth grade, the class of 2020 continued to improve on their presentation and acting skills to become characters in the production, 1776. Through deep investigation of their character throughout the expedition, they synthesized their knowledge to perform 1776 for the Rochester community and for EL Education’s 2018 National Conference.
Through their years at GCCS, this class was able to improve in their understanding of Rochester’s history from Prehistory to the American Revolution by demonstrating their knowledge through speaking, writing, and performance.
4th Spring 2018 1776 Playbill.pdfWritten Final Products
Written Final Products
As a culmination of each Expedition, students across grade levels synthesize their understanding of our community’s rich history through a written piece that reflects both the historical content standards as well as the writing standards. These include opinion, narrative, and informational text. Teachers design these final writing products with the specific ELA standards and expedition content in mind.
Our evidence includes examples of final writing pieces from expeditions in several grades: First grade Opinion Writing (“Character Trait”), Second grade Informational Writing (The Flower City Important Book), Fourth grade Immigration Narrative Writing (“Choose Your Own Adventure), and Sixth grade Informational Writing ("Whose Renaissance Is It?") . These examples show the depth and breadth of written final products at GCCS and students' increasing knowledge and understanding of their community's history.
First Grade
First Grade
In the 2018 first grade expedition, students considered how change was a theme for the early settlers. They explored the following questions: Why did people leave their homes to come to this area? What did they do to survive and thrive? How did community play a role? Students then thought about the change ahead in their own lives as they would get ready to transition from their familiar grade loop to a new classroom and new teachers.
They reflected on themselves as learners and members of a community and wrote an opinion piece describing which character traits they exemplified and how those traits would help them build a community in their second grade classroom. Writers needed to have specific details from personal classroom experience to support their claim of which character trait they exemplified as well as specific examples of how that trait could be applied to their future second grade community.
Second Grade
Second Grade
Expansion into the Great Plains resulted in major economic change for Rochester. Rochester’s unique climate and growing conditions, paired with new ideas in industry (including printing and mail order), was reflected in the city’s nickname change from “Flour City” to “Flower City”. Through informational text, hands on experiences, and field studies, Second graders in 2015 studied: the water cycle and lake effect and how they influenced growing in Rochester, the parts of seeds and flowers, photosynthesis, and reproduction, and the people and industries (nursery and printing) involved in becoming the “Flower City”.
For the final writing product, students wrote informational text to be included in a “Flower City Important Book”. Each student identified a topic/element related to their learning throughout the expedition and wrote an informational piece to define it and describe its importance. Examples of the topics students wrote about include: soil, James Vick, lake effect, and lilacs. This writing required students to:
- research the topic
- write a focus statement and introductory paragraph defining and describing its importance
- providing facts and definitions to develop points
- provide a concluding statement
Fourth Grade
Fourth Grade
In the fourth grade narrative examples from the winter expedition 2018-2019, students studied historic immigration, industrialization and the labor movement. As they explored how a journey to America changed the lives of millions of people, students collaborated, researched and wrote narrative stories in the style of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. They made connections to identity, Rochester, and the world today.
The research was then developed into written narratives in the format of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. The writing required students to:
- Examine experiences of different groups of people who immigrated to the United States.
- Evaluate various reasons why someone might immigrate to the United States considering both the push and pull factors.
- Research character traits of people who left their homelands to settle in a new land.
- Describe the hardships of the homeland, journey as well as life in the new land.
- Use historical accuracy throughout the story.
- Use organization, fluency and voice in their writing.
During their study of immigration, students visited New York City and participated in an immigration simulation in Ellis Island's Great Hall.
Sixth Grade
Sixth Grade
The GCCS Class of 2018’s year-long focus was around the fledgling renaissance of their city, Rochester, NY. However, as the class looked more closely, it was clear it was only a renaissance for some and that more was needed to make it an equitable comeback for everyone. Their final product was an Adobe Spark page presentation titled “Whose Renaissance Is It?: A Closer Look at Rochester’s Renewal.” This digital product captured the year’s learning in an engaging and innovative way.
The work around race, poverty, equity, and urban planning was synthesized in this final piece - replacing the traditional written and bound reports GCCS sixth-graders are famous for. It was shared locally and nationally, receiving praise and provoking questions about what Rochester needs to do next and was even featured in the Rochester 2034 Comprehensive Plan.
The writing required students to:
- Interview experts and take detailed notes for use in their writing.
- Interpret graphs, tables, and charts and use quantitative data in support of the narrative they were crafting.
- Use multiple perspectives and compare/ contrast neighborhoods across the city and cities across the country.
- Use domain-specific vocabulary to communicate expert voice.
- Explore the connotative use of vocabulary to set the tone for the final piece.
- Attempt to be succinct in support of a digital product.
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