1. Write a letter to your teacher explaining why you have to miss class this Thursday due to the chocolate festival in San Francisco. Use pathos.
2. Write a letter to your teacher explaining why you have to miss class this Thursday due to the chocolate festival in San Francisco. Use ethos.
3. Write a letter to your teacher explaining why you have to miss class this Thursday due to the chocolate festival in San Francisco. Use logos.

One of my students, Lauren, had this quiz a few weeks ago in her ninth grade English class. Given the pointless quizzes she had last year (e.g. quizzes that tested whether she remembered minute details in Jane Eyre), we expected something similar. I was pleasantly surprised to see that her teacher this year gives more worthwhile assessments.
This is aligned with UbD in that one "facet of understanding" is application.

"To understand is to be able to use knowledge...We show our understanding of something by using it, adapting it, and customizing it" (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 93). 

For homework in the weeks before the quiz, the class was assigned reading from a packet that explained persuasive speaking. In class leading up the the quiz, the students and teacher discussed rhetorical strategies in depth.



It is clear that her teacher considers application an important skill.

I am happy to report that Lauren got an A- on the quiz. :)


After the quiz, the students began papers on Twelve Angry Men, a play they had read over the summer.


The assignment required them to analyze the viewpoint of one juror in particular (Juror Two in Lauren's case), evaluating what rhetorical strategies made him decide the defendant was guilty in the beginning, and then what strategies made him change his mind.




[Side note: Juror Two is a bank teller. Lauren needed someone to explain to her what that is because she is too young to remember a time when you actually had to go into the bank.]



This writing assignment is aligned with UbD's fourth facet of understanding: perspective. Lauren had to consider Juror Two's perspective--what made him initially believe the prosecution's case? and what persuaded him to change his verdict to not guilty?

Lauren got an A- on that, too. :)