My Favorite Alternative Assessment

My favorite alternative assessment would have to be a project that I did while I was in eighth grade Social Studies class. In fact, I think that I have used this assessment as a basis for many of my own assessments in school as well as during interviews to explain who/which teacher inspired me the most.
My eighth grade social studies teacher was named Mr. Corey. I can remember several lessons he taught us while in his class, but my most favorite assessment would have to be the final project for his unit on the Holocaust. The project was a interdisciplinary project dealing with families of the Holocaust that lived under harsh conditions. In ELA we read The Diary of Anne Frank. In Social Studies, we learned about what happened to families, how they lived in hiding and what they did to escape.
The final assessment was a combination of both “Paper and Pencil” tasks as well as a “Simulation or Contrived Situation.” In the project we had to take on the role of a person who would have been persecuted against during the Holocaust. We had to create a character and essentially become that character through the use of a diary or memory box. To complete the project, we had to somehow display the life of our character and the things he or she may have had to go through during the time of the Holocaust. Of course, we had to use relevant historical information, such as dates, or people, to make our simulated life more realistic. The writing aspect (that applied to both ELA and Social Studies) proved to be a worthwhile activity. First, it tested our writing abilities. At the same time, it tested our knowledge and ability to use information relating to the Holocaust. I believe that this assessment was worthwhile for many of the students. It helped us to see exactly what someone would have had to go through during that horrible time. It also provided us with something we could be proud of, something we could present to the class and our parents. The project instilled pride in our work while at the same time helped my teacher to assess whether or not we had learned what he wanted us to learn about the Holocaust.
As I said before, this assessment has helped me to develop similar assessments within my classroom. I feel like make the students’ right side of the brain work (through creative expression) helps them to think differently about what they are being taught in school. It is not all tests! This is especially important in ELA in the high school because I feel that is the goal of the HS ELA teacher to instill good values or help to build strong morale within students. These types of assessments do a good job at that.