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9-12 Grade Level Illinois Alternative Assessment Program Scoring Rubric ITEM: Home, Sweet Home? This item presents the lyrics of two western folk songs that describe different perceptions of life on the Great Plains in the latter half of the 1800s. Students are asked to analyze the lyrics of each song, to identify the time period and place referenced in the songs, to discuss differences in the songwriters' environmental perceptions, and to identify factors that might account for these differences. Students are expected to use their knowledge of the history and physical geography of the United States to answer the question. Level Four Performance At this level, the student correctly identifies the time period as the late 1800s and knows that the location is the Great Plains of the U.S., e.g., South Dakota, Nebraska. Students readily recognize the two songwriters' different environmental perceptions of the place, one being very positive and optimistic, the other being very negative and discouraging. Students explain that these differences in perception probably derive from the amount of direct experience each songwriter has had with the Great Plains environment, e.g., "The first could have been written when not actually living there, just hearing about it. The second is someone who has lived there for years and knows the truth." The more precocious students of history will mention that the optimistic viewpoint may have been expressed by promoters who wanted to reap economic benefit from people settling the Great Plains and that the negative viewpoint comes from a "sodbuster" who agreed to purchase land and settle it. Student responses are well organized and include all information requested in the directions. Level Three Performance At this level, students know that the time period is the 1800s. And, although they may refer to the place using different terms, they know that the location is the Great Plains, e.g., "The songs refer to the great open ranges of the west." As in a Level Four response, students pick up on the difference in the songwriters’ perceptions of the place. Explanations of these differences tend to be more speculative than in a Level Four response indicating that students at this level have less knowledge of the factors contributing to the settlement of the Great Plains. Students use terms, such as "may be" and "probably" in their explanations. Responses include all the requested information, but they are not as well organized as in a Level Four response. Level Two Performance At Level Two, students are uncertain of the time period, e.g., "Referring to the Okies time period and the great west," "the time period is before the industrial revolution...," "...maybe the early and middle nineteen hundreds." They are equally uncertain about the place, e.g., "Probably somewhere in North America," or appear to be guessing, e.g., "The desert in the western United States." Students recognize the perceptual differences of the songwriters, but tend to explain them as functions of how much money each songwriter has, or the result of the places in each song being located at different ends of a state, e.g., Nebraska, or changes in the weather and climate at the time the song was written. Responses include all the requested information, but they are not as well organized as in a Level Three response. Level One Performance At this level, students do not know either the time period, e.g.,"cowboy times," "prairie times," "the Great Depression," or the location, e.g., "dust bowl," "midwest," "agricultural place," referenced in the songs. They recognize that the songwriters held different perceptions of the environment, but usually listed lyrics from the songs, rather than attempting to identify specific perceptions. In some cases, brief references are made, e.g., "better, worse." Often, student explanations focus on seasonal differences, human attitude toward nature, or made no sense, e.g., "the profession of the songwriter." Responses are poorly organized, often containing only just one or two word listings for the different parts of the question.