For my post this week I chose to illustrate and put to use the GRASPS acronym provided by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). The acronym stands for a six-step checklist of aspects that authentic performance tasks have. Here, I considered a common assessment for middle and high school students: a vocabulary quiz. Typically, teachers assign students to memorize definitions of words out of context and reproduce the definitions on a multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank quiz--not an authentic assessment. Below is my idea for a different vocabulary assessment. It would be based on a list of vocabulary words that students had come across in assigned reading, so they would have seen them in context before. They would have been required  to look them up if they did not know them already. I am assuming the students already know how to write formal letters and are familiar with persuasive writing.

Goal

The goal is to get a job interview with the Oxford English Dictionary for a newly open position--that of an editor who writes definitions and selects new words for the dictionary.

Role

You are a job applicant in a large pool of impressive applicants.

Audience

Your target audience is the selection committee for the position. The committee is a group of educated men and women who are experts in their field.

Situation

For this competitive job application process, you will need to show the committee your facility with difficult vocabulary words, as one of their criteria is, of course, an extensive knowledge of and ability to (correctly) use challenging vocabulary.

Product

You will write a cover letter using each of this week's vocabulary words in order to demonstrate your knowledge of and ability to use them. You must not only use the words correctly, but also use them to convince the employee selection committee that you are the best candidate for the job.

Standards

It is important that your word usage be correct and natural. Remember to follow the conventions of formal letter writing, and highlight the qualities and experience you have that make you suited for the job. (You may be creative--this letter does not need to stick to the truth.)