They Failed the STAAR Essay. Now What?

I've been working with some teachers to figure out how we can help their kids be better writers for STAAR. Here's what we are learning: 

Teachers, 
This kind of feedback on student papers is called process level feedback. I am showing them where they are falling short for the task by naming where and what they are/are not doing.  Then I am showing them a process, strategy, or skill that they can use to do it right. I write a model for them so that they can see what it’s supposed to look like. Then I give them a revision charge to apply the strategy. And that’s just the beginning. Then we need to apply the concepts to the next writing charge/prompt.

From this analysis, I can tell what minilessons that should be taught during RTI/Academy as well as whole group lessons that the students have not mastered collectively. In this case, the kids don’t understand persuasive tone or how to develop their ideas with specificity. Those are specific lessons that I should re-teach in small groups after I have explicitly modeled them with the whole class.

ALL kids (English I and II) need more instruction on how to diffuse the prompt. In almost all cases of the essays I have read, the kids didn’t write about what they were asked to write about. They explained or gave advice. They told why happiness was important. That’s not persuasive. These kids don’t know how to do what we are asking them to do. Why? Not sure. But we need to explicitly and directly teach and reteach these skills. I’ll diffusing more prompts tomorrow during our hangout.

Shona 

Able

Beatrice

Chip

Freddie

Jamie

Mitchell

Pseudonyms have been used.

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