TEKS REvisions

1^st Hearing of ELA/SLA Standards on Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Message from Pat Hardy:

I know this seems like a belated request, but this is the best time to contact board members to support my motion for the teachers’ recommended revisions to the experts’ draft of ELA TEKS. Here’s how the teachers’ recommendations were developed:

We began with the experts' document that received in December and posted on the TEA website. This is most important. This is not a separate document from that of the experts. The experts' document was the starting point and basis for this document.  

The final product reflects collaboration among individuals and organizations including the following:

• The original writing teams appointed by the board members
• Writing team subgroup called back by the TEA to check if the TEKS could be covered in a school year (whose work has been overlooked as far as I can tell)
• The eight ELAR organizations: CREST (Coalition of English and Reading Supervisors of Texas), TCTELA  (Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts), TALE (Texas Association for Literacy Education), TABE (Texas Association of Bilingual Education), TAIR (Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading), NWPT (National Writing Project of Texas), Texas ASCD (Texas Association of Curriculum Development), and TASA (Texas Association of School Administrators)
• The Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Report
• Victoria Young’s Report (on behalf of TCTELA)

Your help is needed to encourage SBOE members to vote for the teachers’ recommendations. The analysis and suggestions were developed by eight state organizations to improve the experts’ draft. (CREST (Coalition of English and Reading Supervisors of Texas), TCTELA (Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts), TALE (Texas Association for Literacy Education), TABE (Texas Association of Bilingual Education), TAIR (Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading), NWPT (National Writing Project of Texas), Texas ASCD (Texas Association of Curriculum Development), TASA (Texas Association of School Administrators). Additional suggestions were also integrated from reports by the Higher Education Coordinating Board and Victoria Young representing TCTELA.

Please send a succinct email and/or phone message in your own words to board members (see contact information below) stating your support for the teachers’ versus the experts’ version. The experts’ standards are posted on the TEA website (here) but are also presented in this document with  the teachers’ version highlighted in blue.

There will be a public hearing on Tuesday, January 31 with a preliminary vote on February 1, 2017, and a final vote for 1^st hearing on Friday, February 3, 2017. Pat Hardy will make a motion at the SBOE meeting on Wednesday for acceptance of the teacher’s annotation to the experts’ draft. Please compare both versions and share your support for the teachers’ recommendations before Tuesday. The version receiving the vote will be posted on the Texas Register for public commentary for 30 days. Second reading and final adoption will be April 18-21, 2017. You may sign up to present by 5:00 p.m., and you may watch webcasts of SBOE meetings (here).

Send an email to your SBOE representative and cc these two TEA email addresses: sboesupport@tea.texas.gov and to renee.jackson@tea.texas.gov. The first email will send your response to all board members; the second address will go to Renee Jackson at TEA who will keep a count of emails received regarding TEKS revisions. Her contact numbers are: SBOE office (512) 463-9007 and fax (512) 936-4319. Here’s the link to find your SBOE representative: (here).

Your brief response needs to be sent soon before the 1^st hearing to let board members know you support the teachers’ annotations to the experts’ draft.

Thanks so much for sharing your voice in behalf of teachers and students in Texas.

Pat Hardy

District	Name	Area	Phone	Email
1	Georgina Perez	El Paso and Southwest TX	915-261-8663	GeorginaPerezSBOE@gmail.com
2	Ruben Cortez	Corpus to Rio Grande Valley	956-639-9171	Rubencortezfortexas@gmail.com
3	Marisa Perez	San Antonio	512-422-9019	marisa@arisabperez.com
4	Lawrence Allen	Houston	713-203-1355	Lallen1@houstonisd.org
5	Ken Mercer	San Antonio	512-463-9007	kbamercer@sbcglobal.net
6	Donna Bahorich	Houston	832-303-9091	donna.bahorich@tea.texas.gov
7	David Bradley	Galveston-Beaumont	409-835-3808	sboesupport@tea.texas.gov
8	Barbara Cargill	North of Houston	512-463-9007	sboecargill@sbcglobal.net
9	Keven Ellis	Behind the Pine Curtain	512-710-7915	EllisSBOE@gmail.com
10	Tom Maynard	Austin	512-763-2801	tom@maynardfortexas.com
11	Pat Hardy	Fort Worth	817-598-2968	phardy@weatherfordisd.com
12	Tincy Miller	Dallas/Plano	214-522-1610	Tincymiller35@gmail.com
13	Erika Beltran	Dallas-FW	650-269-8544	ms.erika.beltran@gmail.com
14	Sue Melton	Central TX/Denton	254-749-0415	Smelton51@gmail.com
15	Marty Rowley	Panhandle	806-374-4600	marty@martyrowley.com

Explanation of the Teachers’ Annotations

Today I present the English Language Arts and Reading Texas Knowledge and Skills document begun by the teacher writing teams and further refined by five “experts” chosen by the State Board of Education. During the past year the teachers, the leaders of the nine literacy organizations (CREST, TCTELA, TABE, TALE, TASA, ASCD, TAIR, Texas Writing Project and TABE) worked together with many web-based meetings. The five “experts” met over the course of the last five months both in person and on webinars, and finally the literacy organizations met to align the document both vertically and horizontally across the K-12 grade levels. Additional feedback from the TCTELA forum under Victoria Young, Regions 4 and 6, Fort Bend County, Barbara Cargill, Collaborative for Children, and Chairperson Donna Bahorich are included.

Even though the “experts” met several times, there was still not enough time for the final development of full alignment and final checks for developmentally appropriate standards. We greatly appreciate the four pages of careful suggestions from Victoria Young as well as the contributions from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the bilingual community. Presented here is the most recent copy from the work of the writing committee and the five “experts” who further aligned and refined the ELAR document. Below each cell is carefully crafted wording suggested by the nine professional organizations and Victoria Young who further refine both wording and alignment. Outlined below are suggestions that explain this well-crafted document.

The Introduction remains generally consistent with the change of eight to seven strands that currently exist: Foundational Skills, Comprehension, Response, Multi Genres, Author’s Purpose and Craft, Composition and Speaking, and Inquiry and Research. The introduction outlines the philosophical thinking for standards in today’s English language art and reading classroom, with a heavy emphasis upon thinking. The introduction explains the structure of the seven strands and how it parallels and augments the teaching and learning of the language arts. Furthermore, there is explicit attention paid to the English Language Learner (ELL), and to culture and the historical context of language and literature.

Strand One, Foundational Skills sets the stage for the importance of self-selected texts and oral language as the foundation of the language arts followed by the skills involved in learning to identify words, vocabulary development, fluency, and collaborate in the learning of the language arts.

•     Self-selected text is placed at the beginning as per a request from nine members of the SBO.

•     Summarization is deleted because it is covered under comprehension.

•     Oral language is refined.            

•     Fluency wording is more carefully aligned.

Stand Two, Comprehension has very few suggested changes.

•     The word “revise” is added to the reading process.

•     The words “Self to Self, Self to Text and Self to Word” are added to the section on making connections because that is the language teachers and students know and use.

•     Other changes to strand two only help make the wording of the experts’ draft more concise and accurate.

Strand Three, Response adds very few changes with only a few language changes for conciseness and accuracy. These few changes in this area address the THECB comments to have thinking stressed across the genres and processes.

Strand Four, Multi Genres adds the words “American, British and World literature” to the Knowledge and Skills statement becauseK-12 teachers draw from many resources, rather than listing possible genres which limit possibilities. Broad categories (story, drama and poetry) are preferable.

•     The words “cultural and historical” are added.

•     Multimodal is re-introduced as per requests from nine members of the SBOE because this is what students are reading today from many types of reading modes.

•     Literary nonfiction is added to the Information section.

Strand Five, Author’s Purpose and Craft re-introduces the word “purpose” because purpose drives the reason for writing and reading, speaking, listening, and thinking.

•     Teachers request that literary devices not be introduced until 3rd or 4th grades.

•     There are over 160 rhetorical and literary devices used in literature, so teachers suggest that “such as” be used and no specific device required at particular grade levels. The readings dictate the literary devices to be studied and used in writing with mentor texts.

Strand Six, Composition and Presentation includes few changes.

•     As per the THECB some consolidation is made in the grammar section.

•     Presentation is placed back into the knowledge and skills because the same expectations are required for both composition and presentation.

•     Changes in this section are only for clarity.

•     Spelling is also entered here from K-12 with “adult assistance” in K-1. The encoding process is spelled out in the Foundation Strand One.

Strand Seven, Inquiry and Research includes only slight changes to align and clarify so that vocabulary is consistent across the grades.

Key Points about Teachers’ Annotations for Improvement

to the December Experts’ Draft

• The framework of the seven strands allow local school districts flexibility for local curriculum design by integrating student expectations from any or all strands into units of study to meet specific needs of students.

• It is important to develop curriculum from an aligned document since skills are recursive and progressive, with no need to repeat specifics across grades.

• Some rows are combined to keep topics on the same lines and to group items so that they span the grade levels (editing for semicolon use collapsed into punctuating with semicolons).

• Some suggestions to move rows are made to show developmental progression of skills.

• Skills are higher order as a result of verb changes (using “analyze” rather than “identify” and “revise” rather than “correct”) and more rigorous as a result of moving skills to lower grades where appropriate (starting complex sentences in fourth grade rather than sixth grade).

• Phrasing is clearer (“text to text” rather than “ideas found in other texts”).

• Phrasing provides greater flexibility in teacher choice of texts and materials (using “such as” rather than “including,” or in some standards, removing examples altogether).

• Terms are clarified (“informational text” defined as literary nonfiction, historical, scientific, and technical; “information” defined as “viewed, heard or read”).
• Terms are consistent (using “thesis” in K-12 rather than confusion with grade band-specific “main idea”/”controlling idea”/”thesis”).
• Terms are holistic, encompassing a range of elements (using the term “personal connections”; using the term “features” to encompass print, graphic, and digital features).

• A knowledge and skills statement and additional expectations for collaboration omitted by the experts are added to Strand 1 (1.6) to situate the student expectations in a context.

• Skills are clearer as a result of removing redundancy (“work productively with others” rather than “work collaboratively with others”).
• The Multi Genres strand’s knowledge and skills statement addresses the need for diverse texts and includes American, British, and world authors because they are studied not only in literary texts but also in informational and argumentative texts at all grade levels instead of designated for specific grades in high school.

• The Multiple Genres strand is preceded by expectation (A) focusing on how forms and structures are the same and different within and across genres. The subcommittee charged with determining if the TEKS could be reasonably taught in one year suggests that (A) be struck from the proposed standards. If Multiple Genres (A) remains, students would not be able to master the proposed standard in a year.

• The Multi Genres strand integrates the two separate sub strands for literary elements and literary genre in the experts’ draft into sub strand (B) literary texts. Because of this reorganization, the numbering of recommended sub strands out-of-order will be corrected before publication.

• Text forms and structures are also addressed in the student expectations in Multiple Genres (B-literary, C-informative, D-argumentative, and E-multimodal) K-12 and in Author’s Purpose and Craft (B) for K-12.

• Multimodal texts (omitted in the experts’ draft) is added to Strand 4 (E) in acknowledgment of how texts combine modes and ways in which modern texts have changed and will continue to change.

Educational Black Pots and Kettles

Remember the Facebook post about the poet who could not answer the STAAR questions about her own poem? Several educators tagged me in that post and shared it on their own pages. Danger, Will Robinson. Something caused my finger to hover over sharing it myself. Unsure of what it was, I didn't take action. The message sure sounded like a persuasive and powerful admonition of the evil testing machine.

This morning, I understand my hesitation.

We don't often have the luxury of asking the author about his meaning or intent. Think of our Constitution. As critical readers and citizens hoping to preserve our Republic, we must consider the author's purpose and intent without the benefit of how they might answer our dilemmas. We must consider other writings and supporting documents of our founding fathers. We must consider the cultural and historical realities of their time and place. All without a conversation with the authors or the ability to hear how they would answer our questions.

But even then, our responsibilities as critical thinkers and communicators remain unfinished. We must consider the current cultural and historical and global contexts.

But even then, our responsibilities as critical thinkers and communicators remain unfinished. We must consider the consequences of our response and the best way to present our thinking.

As educators, we certainly are charged with educating the populace, the citizenry. We teach people to reason through the logical fallacies in all arguments and click baits, even those designed to rally the voting masses. Discernment of the author's meaning and intent isn't something to be scorned or derided as unworthy for test items. Do we want people who make and disseminate information they have not digested and carefully considered? We are guilty. Do we want people to make decisions born of political machinations? We have played a role. Do we want people to accept compromises of truth voiced by experts of warring ideologies? The pot is black like the kettle.

At the heart of every great woe is a contraction...

People in the Panhandle complain about the wind all the time. Heck, I complain about the wind. When I moved to Dallas, the only thing I didn't miss was the wind. Did you ever think that when you complain about the wind, you are really explaining what it isn't? Weather in the Panhandle isn't calm. About the time I was having this thought - the wind buffetting my car into other lanes- I neared the wind turbines just outside of Dumas, Texas. The somebody who put those there didn't define the Panhandle wind in terms of what it could not do, but in terms of what it could. That brilliant somebody thought about what could be done differently. Sure, that somebody probably still gets their hair in her lipgloss and sand in her contacts...the reality of the wind didn't go away. But that different way of thinking led to innovation that is solving a lot of problems.

Education might not be any different.


At the heart of every great woe is a contraction: can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, isn’t. 

When describing a class overburdened with ESL students, the message is: My class isn’t white. My students can’t speak my native tongue. Explaining students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds hides the cacophony of realities in: my students don’t have money, food, or opportunities. Or perhaps a more sinister complaint: My students aren’t like me.

I just read a book called One Word that Can Transform Your Life. If the words that permeate our talk are contractions…what kind of changes do we perpetuate? What kind of changes to we ensure won’t occur?

Of course classes have too many ESL students. Of course diversity reigns more prominently than ever before. Of course students struggle with their economic and demographic realities. And of course, that ultimately means that in schools, these same kids can’t or won’t do what is expected.

We are surrounded by what we can’t change.

Teachers tell administrators that students don’t want to do what is required. They are right. Teachers are still right, even when the administrator admonishes them for making excuses.

Yet…

If administrators or society agreed, would it make the situation any better? Has anything changed for the better?

At the heart of every great solution lies innovation. 

Solutions come from asking, "How can I see or respond differently?" If all of these contractions are true - can’t, won’t, doesn’t - , we must revise our thinking to transform and modify the contractions with another kind of word, an adverb that defines the way we go about our work. 

My kids can’t, yet. 

My kids won’t, until… 

Solutions come from teachers who rightly recognize the realities and seek solutions as masters of their craft, creating new approaches to educate past and beyond the can’ts, won’ts, shouldn’ts, and isnts. 

Teaching Main Idea and Summary to the Right Rigor

Doing well on Main Idea Questions for STAAR is more than teaching a summarizing strategy. BME isn't going to work for you folks. Especially since that is a structure used for narrative texts. When you look at our released items and our TEKS - we need something that is going to work with EXPOSITORY text. Notice also that our TEKS tell us that the main idea and summary questions will also involve considerations of the overall purpose of the author as well as cultural, historical, and contemporary realities.

Teachers are told to just use good instructional practices and avoid test prep. But if the instructional practices never approach the rigor of the cognitive skill on the assessment, students will not be successful. I think we might actually be practicing the wrong thing. Being successful on STAAR summary questions isn't really about summarizing or identifying main idea at all.

It's about deciphering the logical fallacies that make all the other answers wrong.
It's about choosing the one that matches the text evidence, the author's purpose, and the main message of the expository passage.

Below, We'll analyze the cognitive process to understand the tasks students are expected to complete on the EOCI from 2016. Then we outline a sample instructional practice that you might attempt to resolve this disconnect.

Let us know what you think. Please share what your students do with this information. We'd love to hear from you and have examples that can contribute to the work we are all trying to accomplish.

Sally Heaton, Dumas ISD
Shona Rose, Region 16
______________________________________________________________________________

TEKS: "Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Culture and History: Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author’s purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary context and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students are expected to:

English I: 8A explain the controlling ideas and specific purpose of an expository text and distinguish the most important from the less important details that support the author’s purpose.

English II: 8A analyze the controlling idea and specific purpose of a passage and the textual elements that support and elaborate it, including both the most important details and the less important details." 

The Work of the PLC:

1.       Examine the item analysis for the state and for your district.

a.       State: 12% District: 15%

b.       State: 41% District: 45%

c.       State: 38% District: 27%

d.       State: 9%    District: 12%

What was happening? Most people say: Kids didn’t read the passage. But when you examine the other questions on this TEK for this same passage, you see that the kids in the sample district answered at 80% - even better than the state average. They read it. Something else is the problem.

Do the district’s scores differ greatly from the state average? This tells you that something is off – good or bad – from the way classrooms and students across the state are understanding this TEK. What’s causing the difference?

These data tell us that we really need to look carefully at why more kids in the sample district would choose B, a wrong answer, over the correct answer, C. Understanding the logical fallacies and text evidence realities will reveal what the students might have been thinking and lead us to the correct instructional response.

2.       Understand how questions are written.

Think of a three legged stool.

Miss any one of the legs and you'll be on the floor! 

     Questions have three parts too. Without any one of the parts, the stool will fall. Without considering any one of these parts, you will select the wrong answer.
Leg One: Conditions from the stem. Remember the knowledge and skills statement from above? The stem is written with a certain lens in mind “author’s purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary context.” The passage was chosen in light of that as well. This questions stem places the thinking inside a certain context that must be considered. And that context is directly related to the author’s purpose for writing the piece. This requires the student to understand the passage as a WHOLE.

Next, let’s examine the implications of academic language that house the conditions in the stem. The question is not necessarily written the way we talk as teachers. If kids are going to be successful on the test, they have to learn how tests pose and frame questions. The syntax and diction of test questions have advanced forms that we do not always use in speaking. We must start using these structures orally and in our benchmarks. We must also explicitly teach students how to diffuse the key conditions for which they will find text evidence.

“according to the author” – When looking for evidence in the passage, the students must look for what the author thinks based on their interpretation of the text as a whole. Later, you’ll see a place in the text that gives an answer that another person mentioned in the text things is the reason for Pat Summitt’s behavior.

“Pat Summitt” – Students must look for how Pat Summitt responded. The whole article is about her, so they must read, understand, and consider the whole article.

“learned important lessons” – When searching for text evidence, students should be looking for specific lessons Pat learned. If no lessons are listed in the text for a particular activity, then that can’t be the right answer.

“face difficult circumstances” – Students need to understand which difficult circumstances that author is focusing on as his/her purpose for writing. Many things can be difficult. Which one is the author focusing on overall?

“from her time spent” – Students need to be looking for which activities the author presents that directly impact Pat’s ability to face difficult circumstances. These two critical elements in the stem are directly connected and must be directly considered as related as the student determines the answer.

Leg Two: Text Evidence. Many of the problems students face in answering questions is that they rely on personal schema and experiences. I used to tell my students, “You are ____ years old. No one cares what you think. Get over it. This is a reading test not a Gallop survey about your feelings or opinions.” And really, it’s not fair to ask my Burmese student about the Olympics. You wouldn’t want the test makers to ask a student to rely on their experiences.

Leg Three: The Answer Choices. Here’s the game changer. The cognitive rigor from questions on STAAR comes from the logical, cognitive process the student uses in selecting from FOUR answer choices. One of the choices will represent an accurate path that considers the stem, the text, and the correct logical conclusion. Three of the choices will represent logical fallacies or inaccuracies that are not supported by the text or one of the conditions listed in the stem.

“A playing on the 1976 Olympic team” This is a reasonable, logical answer. Playing on an Olympic team in 1976 should be something that would help a person learn lessons that transfer to other difficult live circumstances. That meets the conditions of the stem. 15% of the kids in the sample district stopped there. It was a plausible answer based on what most of us know and have experienced. But, as an answer to a multiple choice test question, it’s wrong. Scan the text: can you find any lessons listed that Pat learned from playing on a team in the Olympics? No.

Some people might cite the evidence that Tara gave in a quote that sports gave Pat the background to deal with her illness. The conditions in the stem don’t ask what Tara thought. It asks about the author.

“B dealing with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis” This is the answer I chose before and after I read the passage. And in the sample, almost half of the kids did the same thing! All of us are using incorrect logical reasoning. Consider first, the conditions of the stem: it specifically asks about facing difficult circumstances. Overall, of what difficult circumstances does this author focus? Alzheimer’s.  Logically, it doesn’t make sense to say that Pat learned important lessons from dealing with Alzheimer’s to deal with Alzheimer’s. It has to be something else. In addition, the text does not list a single lesson Pat has learned from Alzheimer’s. Not one. She died. Pretty sure that’s not a lesson or the focus of the author.

In fact, the author gives us plenty of evidence that Pat approached her disease just like she approached everything else. Go back and read paragraph 10. She already had something in place about her character that gave her strength. Look at paragraphs 7 and 8 which talk about coaching. She already had the capacity to face these difficulties.

“C working on her family’s farm” Check out paragraph 6:

Even if students are not able to understand that the answer is specifically stated in the first sentence because of the vocabulary of “stoicism and determination”, they should be able to count the lessons she learned growing up on the farm:

• ·         “chopping tobacco” – sounds like hard work 
• ·         “bailing hay” – more work
• ·         “sunup to sundown” – working for a LONG time
• ·         “chores” – responsibilities
• ·         “while her father admonished” – dealing with criticism and someone pushing you while you are trying to work
• ·         “Cows don’t take the day off.”  - people are relying on you
• ·         “Basketball games were played at night” – having to delay gratification to have fun and play
• ·         “with three older brothers” – she’s a woman and her competition was from her male older brothers – that had to make her tougher than if her competition were her peers

“D Losing games as a new coach” When examining the text for the conditions mentioned in the stem, there is no mention in the text about what specific things Pat learned from losing games. In fact, quite the opposite – Pat already had what she needed to face that challenge.

   3.       Prepare instructional materials.

As a team, create a blank sentence stem that could be applied to another text. Remember, students need practice with the academic language and syntax of the questions.

“According to the author, ________ (person/character) learned ____________ about how to _______________ from ________________ -“

Now you are ready to name the logical fallacies that govern the way the answer choices are written.

Wrong: A. Lists an activity that the character/person completed but is not related to or causing the lesson the person learned about the topic.

Wrong: B. Lists an activity or reason related to the main conflict by does not reflect the character’s background, preparation, or solution.

Correct: C. Lists an activity or reason that directly influenced or changed the character; supported by text evidence; this question focuses on a sequence of events as well as a cause and effect relationship

Wrong: D. Lists an activity or reason that is reasonable, but not supported by text evidence

Now that the team has a clearly articulated understanding of how the question is structured, the correct steps for thinking, and the possible missteps, it’s time to prepare instructional activities.
   

4.    Prepare Instructional Activities:

Model: Prepare questions (with stems/choices) that you can ask orally for something that you are reading in class.  Model how you, as a proficient reader and THINKER, comes to the correct answer. Think aloud. Annotate the text. Make the evidence and thinking visible.

Shared: Prepare written questions (with stems/choices) that match what students are reading together. These are questions that you can discuss as a class.

Conduct the Class Activities: 

Model: Show student how you can compose a question like this for something you are reading.

Shared: With student help, compose a class questions like this for something students are reading as a class or in small groups.

Interactive: In small groups (or lit circles), have students compose a question like the model for the text they are reading. Have students switch and question other groups. (Note: Students may not match the sophistication of the STAAR test in their attempts. That’s ok. They are approximating a proficient model, as Brian Cambourne encourages. It’s not important for them to reach the complexity of items developed by psychometricians and seasoned teachers.)

Interactive: If the class is reading the same text, divide the class into groups and give each group a different question stem. Have them post the questions on chart paper and then rotate the groups to answer the questions of the other groups.

Debrief: Debrief the cognitive moves and thinking processes students discovered in writing the questions and in answering the questions of other groups. Discuss how they can be even more sophisticated next time.

Conference: Conference with groups that are on both ends of the spectrum: strugglers and those who excel. Move them forward.

Independent: Have students compose questions like this independently or for texts they are reading independently.  Have them switch with others reading the same material or discuss with partners.

By following this process, you have massed and distributed practice at the correct linguistic and cognitive rigor – all without a single test prep passage.

I should probably write a conclusion here, but I think you get the picture. I’ll add two more questions from the English I 2016 release for TEK 8A instead.

1.       Item Analysis:

f.        State: 18% District: 25%

g.       State: 4%   District: 4%

h.       State: 14% District: 20%

i.         State: 63% District: 51%

Looks like we need to focus on f, h, and j.  (f) discusses support from her team. High school students probably have a great deal of personal experience and schema about support from teams. That’s probably why they picked this one. (g) isn’t even mentioned I don’t think. (h) makes sense logically. Pat is a coach. She must be in shape. People who are in shape heal more quickly. However, there is absolutely no text evidence for this. (j) was directly stated in a quotation. Looks like students were simply answering from what seemed logical. When they landed on something that made sense, they plopped their graphite circle right down on the first one they came to that resonated with their experience. In this instance, they didn’t check the conditions from the stem that directly pointed to Tara, nor did they read all four answer choices. They stopped too early and didn’t vet the answer with text evidence.

2.       Prepare the materials:

________ (character/person) thinks __________ (another character/person) is equipped to ____________ (do what?) because of ________________?

Wrong: F. Lists an example that most people have experienced, but is not supported by the evidence

Wrong: G. Lists an example that makes sense, but is never a topic in the text

Wrong: H. Lists an example that makes sense with the character’s traits or life, but is not supported by evidence or attributed to the person requested by the stem.

Correct: J. Lists an example that is fully supported by text evidence AND attributed to the character/person identified in the stem

Lead4Ward didn’t have this one posted. Not sure why. Or I just couldn’t find it. That could happen too.

F: District: 8%

G: District: 3%

H: 10%

J: 80%

F – this article doesn’t mention luck; nor is the article all about the importance of finding success. Sounds like 8% were star struck by Hollywood.

G – actually, the text tells us that her parents think she is silly and will grow out of it

H – might be true, but is career opportunities the main focus of this article? I think not.

J – the last paragraph pretty much states this explicitly, but there are pieces of it in every paragraph as well as in the text box to the side

The selection is mainly about –

F – Lists a choice not mentioned or connected/supported by the text evidence or the main point and purpose of the author

G – Lists evidence that is actually the opposite of what the text says, appears only in one place in the text

H – Lists a reason that is true but not the main point of the article; could be an inference instead

J – explicitly stated and fully traceable throughout most of the paragraphs