Similarly, in the ninth- and tenth-grade ELA example, just locating or talking about figurative language is hardly noteworthy, but understanding how figurative language can intensify a narrative encourages students to have a dialogue and defend their examples with stimulating textual evidence.
Crafting a dynamic learning intention requires having success criteria that will support all students toward reaching the learning intention’s goal; therefore, determining those steps is vital to student comprehension.
Success Criteria: How Can Students Show They Know and Understand?
If a learning intention is the destination, then success criteria are the milestones necessary to reach the destination. Fisher and Frey (2018) define success criteria as “a means for teachers and students to utilize feedback specifically oriented to the learning intentions. They clarify how a task or assignment will be judged” (p. 83). This judgment illustrates to students what they specifically need to do to accomplish the learning intention.
When determining your success criteria, consider the goal of your learning intention and how your students will, via the milestones you have determined, demonstrate, apply, prove, or synthesize what they have learned to meet that goal. Your students want to share their hard work—give them every opportunity to do so. Teachers should identify the success criteria based on the learning intention and scaffold the success criteria using a series of learning progressions to help students reach a specific milestone (success criterion).
Identifying the Success Criteria
After the teacher has created the learning intention, the next step is to write a series of success criteria based on that intention. There is no recipe for success in identifying these criteria; rather, teachers must ask themselves, “What milestones must the student reach to meet the learning intention?” This is a process that improves with practice, but I will show you multiple examples in this section to help you think about how you would craft your own success criteria.
According to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (2015), “Success criteria are linked to learning intentions. They are developed by the teacher and/or the student and describe what the success looks like” (p. 5). As an example, if I want my third-grade students to learn to write an opinion paragraph, using reasons to support their point of view, my learning intention would look like the following.
• Learning intention: I can write an opinion paragraph that lists three reasons for my opinion.
• Success criteria: I know I am successful because—
1. I can brainstorm ideas about a topic in which I have a strong opinion
2. I can list reasons about the topic
3. I can explain why the reasons are important
4. I can write an opinion paragraph sharing my three reasons
There is no ideal number of success criteria to use, and the number of success criteria necessary to meet a learning intention is as variable as the possibilities for learning intentions themselves. After constructing the learning intention, the teacher needs to decide the necessary steps to achieve that goal. Some learning intentions may only need three or four criteria for students to meet them successfully. Others could require more. If a teacher can only come up with one or two success criteria, or if the number of them becomes unwieldy (for example, ten or more), that indicates a need to, respectively, broaden the scope of a learning intention to encompass more learning or break it up into multiple learning intentions to avoid overwhelming students. What is important is that the success criteria a teacher determines are numbered to show the progression needed to achieve the learning intention.
Using the same grade-specific learning intentions previously offered as examples in the Learning Intentions section (page 14), let’s look at some more examples of scaffolded success criteria.
• Second-grade mathematics:
♦ Learning intention—I can understand the place value of numbers up to 1,000.
♦ Success criteria—I know I am successful because …
1. I can explain the place value of digits in a number
2. I can read, write, and order numbers and explain my understanding of them
3. I can identify numbers before and after one thousand
4. I can expand and name numbers up to three digits
• Third-grade reading:
♦ Learning intention—I can find and tell the main idea of the texts read in class and share examples with my peers.
♦ Success criteria—I know I am successful because …
1. I can ask questions about the text
2. I can answer questions about the text
3. I can use my questions and answers about the text to find the main idea
• Sixth- to eighth-grade science and technical subjects:
♦ Learning intention—I can learn the differences among superstition, pseudoscience, and science.
♦ Success criteria—I know I am successful because …
1. I can define superstition, pseudoscience, and science
2. I can demonstrate the differences using a graphic organizer
3. I can find real-life examples of superstition, pseudoscience, and science and share them with the class
• Eighth-grade U.S. history:
♦ Learning intention—I can discuss, explain, and research the events leading to the American Revolution and their influence on the formation of the Constitution.
♦ Success criteria—I know I am successful because …
1. I can create a timeline of the events leading to the American Revolution
2. I can explain the impact of these events to a partner
3. I can show the connection among these important events and how they helped create the Constitution
• Ninth- and tenth-grade English language arts:
♦ Learning intention—I can understand the role and proper use of figurative language in a narrative.
♦ Success criteria—I know I am successful because …
1. I can identify imagery and symbolism in a passage from Jane Eyre (Brontë, 1997)
2. I can explain the impact that the use of imagery and symbolism has on the reader, using evidence from Jane Eyre to explain my reasoning
3. I can write a personal narrative using effective imagery and create a compelling symbol
• Eleventh- and twelfth-grade writing:
♦ Learning intention—I can write an argument to support a claim using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
♦ Success criteria—I know I am successful because …
1. I can brainstorm a variety of arguments to support my claim
2. I can locate key words and phrases to determine bias or prejudice in the various arguments I have created
3. I can point out the