STAAR WRITING: What will it be called for 4 and 7 during transition years?

Question:

Here’s a question I received: When Tyson Kane was talking about proceeding forward with expository/informational, did he give a specific answer regarding the language that will be used on the test, specifically composition, during the overlap years? The people sitting around me were certain we would see “informational” rather than “expository” on composition this year, but then a group behind me heard the exact opposite. 

Answer from Shelly Ramos: 

Hi Shona,

Thanks again for inviting us out to CREST. It was a pleasure to attend and present. In answer to your question below, when we asked our teacher committees they responded that informational and expository are closely aligned for both reading and writing. As a result, our plan is to identify the written composition on Grades 4 and 7 as informational/expository during the two transition years. For English I and II, we do not yet have final answers on writing genres. As you can imagine, we are trying to determine what should be done with English II, were the genre has changed from persuasive to argumentative. We are working on a final decision and hope to have that soon. Once we know more, we’ll include that information on the Assessed Curriculum documents on the webpage.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Shelly Ramos