Achievement Chart Task

Currently my students in grade eight are working on creating Career Reports using Adobe Photoshop.  These reports, when complete, will have covered all four dimensions of the Achievement Chart.  Using subheading, I will demonstrate how this assignment ties to each of the four categories.

Knowledge and Understanding

The main focus of this assignment will be to help students identify and explain how various text features and text forms help communicate meaning in a report (Reading: 2.1 and 2.3).   Students will need to be able to explain why and when to use features such as sidebars, captions, subtitles, graphs, tables, webs, etc…  They will be asked to complete this task in Photoshop.  They will be using different programs to help them with different parts.  For instance, they might use Excel to make their graphs and Smart Ideas to make their webs.  In Photoshop, they will create a template (logo, header, slogan) and whatever text features they feel makes this final project look professional.  At the end they will need to justify the features they used and explain why.

Thinking

Throughout the unit, students will be researching different careers they are interested in using Career Cruising and other sites.  They will be taking online career aptitude and skill tests to help guide them in the right path.   Once they have selected their career, they will research the ten dimensions of a careers discussed in class (income, holidays, pension, benefits, safety, etc…) and present their findings in their report.  They will also create a monthly budget to see if they will make enough to live how they would like to.  To complete this students will need to do research to complete the areas of their budget (housing, transportation, wants, needs and savings).  

Communication

There focus will be communication and organization of ideas.  They will be assessed on how well they organize and communicate what they have learned throughout the unit.  Their audience will be other students their age wanting to figure out more about this career.   They will also present the findings of their report in a short Prezi presentation at the end of the unit. 

Application

They will be asked to apply their knowledge of different text forms and feature to a professional looking career report.  The text forms and features they will explore will be from a variety of text and students will be asked to select and apply they ones that they feel best convey their message.  As well, they will be applying their knowledge of Photoshop, developed in their logo assignment, to help them create this report using a variety of different tools in Photoshop.