The Problem with Making Decisions with STAAR ELAR Data

Pull the data. Reporting Category and SE Performance.

Here you go. English One for Region 16.

Reporting Categories for English I: 

 

Interpretation: Lots of red.  How does that help me know what and how to teach? It doesn't.

SE Performance: 
Let's take Reporting category number 5. We need help here. Right? So, Kids need to know how to revise. And 13C has been tested a lot. That could really help us.

So what's 13C? 

 "13C: revise drafts to improve style, word choice, figurative language, sentence variety, and subtlety of meaning after rethinking how well questions of purpose, audience, and genre have been assessed" 

Interpretation During Data Dialogue: Ok. So I need to teach lessons on style, word choice, figurative language, sentence variety, subtlety of meaning, author's purpose, audience, and genre. 

Why that's silly and won't work: That's EIGHT different types of lessons. And have you ever looked up how many different figurative language elements there are in the world? Don't even bother. There's too many to count. 

This heat map actually tells me nothing about what students need to master. 13C could be just about anything.

The  problem with data analysis in ELAR is that what works for most content areas won't work for us. Looking at the heat maps is only the beginning. You have to keep digging to find what you actually have to teach - 'cuz it's probably not listed in the TEKS. The item analysis from the Lead4Ward website helps. That way you can see all the questions of the same type and see where the distractors are for the state.

The Reality: What they are actually testing is placement of the adverb, parallel structure of items in a series, noun phrases, or verb tenses, comparative conjunctions, placement of prepositional phrases near the actor, etc. What I just described doesn't sound anything like what that 13C TEK, does it? Yes. It's still the same concept, but that descriptive language is how we help kids KNOW HOW to improve style and all that other stuff in the TEK.

Here's an example from 2015, Q1, #1. Kids are supposed to revise this sentence: "They enjoyed playing video games, bowling, and watched movies together." 

The problem here is with style. But - the problem specifically is with the word "watched." The past tense form of that verb does not follow  the tense of "playing" and "bowling" in the items in a series. The TEK doesn't actually tell us to teach kids to look for parallel verbs as an element of style.  It's only when you examine the errors conceptually within each answer choice that you really understand what you're supposed to teach. 

Solutions: 

I've been putting together some resources that help you know and name what you really need to be doing for review. 

So, here's a chart for you for revising: https://www.bulbapp.com/u/revising-skills-tested-in-english-i

And one for editing: https://www.bulbapp.com/u/editing-english-i

Still working on the Reading part.