ABSTRACT
English Language Arts (ELA) lesson focuses on teaching students the text structure of fiction and nonfiction stories. The students were provided with visuals of text features of fiction and nonfiction books. Scales are used to track student progress for the entire week, not just for one lesson. The students were very familiar with using a four-level scale that builds on simple tasks to achieve the learning objective. The students were given opportunities throughout the lesson to self-evaluate with the academic Progress Scale and performance checks. The lesson includes activities where students had to support their answers with text evidence, which builds lifelong learning skills. Each student is exposed to the learning goal, although some students may not reach mastery of the objective. The learning goal on the scale is used for the weekly grading rubric also. Points are added to the rubric for work completion and student engagement.
