New ITEM Types for ELAR STAAR

As most of you know, HB 3 states that there can only be 75% of test questions on STAAR that will be multiple choice. What will that mean for ELAR? 

I attended a webinar with TEA and other Regional Service Centers to learn what this may look like for us. Then, I wrote some of the sample items for a text set that my local folks are using.  

We are reading Marigolds by Eugenia Collier and a drama Shad Tyra and I developed from Thank-You Ma'am by Langston Hughes. (It's hard to find dramas, y'all. I don't have any trouble finding drama itself, but, one to read with my kids? Different kind of drama.) 

Don't panic. You will see sample items this year. They won't be on the 2020-2021 test at all. All item types are in development. In 2021-2022, you will see them on the field test. In 2022-2023, we expect the items to be operational. And no, we don't have any rubrics yet. Still lots of time for that.

These types of items are in development: 

• Multi-Select - Basically multiple choice, but you pick more than one. 
• Multi-Part - Questions that have two parts. For example, you choose a multiple choice answer for the first part. Then a second part asks you to highlight the evidence that you used to select the answer in the first part. 
• Text Entry - You type stuff in a box. A root, affix, word, phrase. 
• Short Answer - You know what this is, folks. "Read the question carefully. Then enter your answer in the space provided. (1000 characters)"
• Grid Completion - The example I saw was for a paired text or sections of a text. Has three columns with text evidence.  You make an x in the next two columns where the ideas apply. 
• Long Response - You know what this is. It's the essay. No word about length or rubrics yet. Still time for that. Right now everything stays the same. 

Below are the documents I created to play with how we could start thinking like this. It was hard to do, and none of what I have done is for sure what things will look like, nor psychometrically sound. But I thought it was important to start thinking this way. As I reviewed the questions, I think these are good ways to assess critical thought and will be good practices for instruction. I like it! 

Assessing Marigolds

Assessing Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones 

Assessing both Marigolds and Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones 

What are you thinking and creating along these lines? 

 

 

Cards against Humanity and Reading

 Last night, I played Cards against Humanity with four AirB&B guests. Don't judge me for having an AirB&B during COVID or for playing that vilely funny game. One young man and his father simply could not read the cards. They didn't know the words when someone read them aloud. Now, I didn't know who Cardi B. was either. But there was a different reason. Dyslexia. 

I was asked to write a response to TCTELA's Position Statement on the NEW ELAR TEKS. The memory of this game was in the back of my mind as I wrote the following: 

Thoughts from Educators

“The 2017 ELAR TEKS represent what is right for teachers and students.” What is right. Indeed. The organizing structure and design of the standards were purposefully grown from sound research about what practices help people become readers and writers capable of participation and contribution as joyfully literate citizens. Too often… well, too often, our ill-informed pedagogy and selection of a small range of  WASP texts from a list that hasn’t changed since the Industrial Revolution have produced mindless robots who might be able to regurgitate content if they are forced.

By incorporating knowledge of the people and the art of teaching as well as the science of that impact, the ELAR standards represent a tremendous opportunity to shift paradigms that will

• invigorate and include instead of prompting apathy, inaction, and disenfranchisement
• spur creativity and solutions as opposed to avoidance and retreat
• empower instead of oppress

As such, teachers will need significant advancements in building and refining their knowledge, skills, and repertoire of textual knowledge, forming a pedagogy of promise that leads to advanced learning outcomes for the very ones we choose to serve: our students.

RTI, Fluency, and High School

 

Yesterday, Kasey and I divided our groups into quintiles and talked about the need for fluency exercises to build the speed and accuracy for the lowest two quintiles. Many of our lowest students struggle because they don’t read fast enough to finish the exam and make too many decoding mistakes. The upper three quintiles need practice with prosody and expression. I designed the following materials to meet those needs. I think this would cover activities for at least 12 weeks.

 

TAGGING TEKS: (Personal Reflection – I’m SHOCKED at how many TEKS this covers. This will be a high yield approach.)

1. Developing and Sustaining Foundational Language skills: listening, speaking, discussion, and thinking – oral language. The student develops oral language through listening, speaking, and discussion. The student is expected to: 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D
2. Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking – vocabulary. The student uses newly acquired vocabulary expressively. The student is expected to: 2A, 2B
3. REMEDIAL: Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking -fluency. The student is expected to: 8A – adjust fluency when reading grade level text based on the reading purpose.
4. Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking – self-sustained reading. The student is expected to 3A self-select text and read independently for a sustained period of time.
5. Comprehension Skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension skills of increasingly complex texts. The student is expected to: 4A, B, C, D, E, F, F, I
6. Response: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed. The student is expected to: 5B, C, E, F, G, H
7. Inquiry and Research: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student engages in both short term and sustained recursive process for a variety of purposes. The student is expected to: 1A, E, F, I

 

Explanation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEtPkn6_zHc-hYhYFLKmhp8VM8sW9VH5/view

Resources: https://www.bulbapp.com/u/systems-for-fluency

 

Recap: (I think I need to work on subdividing these activities to chunk them for the teachers. I “get” the process, but I’m finding that dividing things by day is what folks need most.)

RTI for Lowest Two Quintiles/Retesters

1. Model Process and teach components with “Middle School Me” pausing at each phase to let students complete a, b, and c below as you model each component and phase.
2. Fluency Check One – Three Readings
1. First reading:

                                                               i.      Read, record, and time.

                                                             ii.      Chart.

                                                           iii.      Rate performance and comprehension.

                                                           iv.      Record Questions.

2. Second reading:

                                                               i.      Read, Record, and Time.

                                                             ii.      Chart

                                                           iii.      Rate performance and comprehension.

                                                           iv.      Check accuracy.

                                                             v.      Record Questions and answers.

                                                           vi.      Meet with group to discuss and research

3. Third reading

                                                               i.      Read, Record, and Time

                                                             ii.      Chart

                                                           iii.      Rate performance and comprehension.

                                                           iv.      Check accuracy.

                                                             v.      Evaluate performance

RTI for Upper Three Quintiles (And perhaps the lower two? I dunno)

1. Assign fluency project.

The Hero’s Journey of a Paper

 

The Hero’s Journey of a Paper 

Once upon a time, there was a paper, full of its own purpose, promise, and potential. Raw and partially misunderstood by most: its possible contributions hidden by flaws of living life and wounds obtained in the complexities of schooling. A wise mentor clearly saw the flaws, but her discerning wisdom and focus guided the paper through trials and tasks to reach its purpose, promise, and potential. All while the gods of education, assessment regimes, and society sought to disrupt the paper’s transformation. Three trials awaited the paper along its journey. First, unseen by the paper, the mentor’s preparation, lens of meaning and process, and focus for planning the paper’s future. Second, the mentor’s careful design and mapping of the paper’s revelation and steps through the tasks on the revisional journey it must take alone. And finally, the characteristic design and providence of tools and insight that would serve the paper through the fires of evaluation hell and toward a higher version of itself, and ready for the next journey.  

But alas, there was another paper full of someone else’s design for purpose but strove valiantly to reach the promise and potential chosen for it. Raw and partially misunderstood by most: its possible contributions hidden by flaws of living life and wounds obtained in the complexities of schooling. A wise mentor clearly saw the flaws, but her discerning wisdom and focus guided the paper through trials and tasks that would allow the paper to appear flawless and emulate the meaning and form chosen for its success. All while the gods of education, assessment regimes, and society sought to disrupt the paper’s transformation. Three trials awaited the paper along its journey. First, unseen by the paper: the mentor’s preparation, assessment lens, and myriad of foci for the paper’s future. Second: the mentor’s careful design and mapping of where the paper failed to meet the standards of the assessment rubric and rationale for why it should be corrected during the revisional tasks on the journey it must take alone. And finally: the characteristic advice and reminders of instruction would serve the paper poorly through the fires of evaluation hell and toward a cycle of ineffectiveness and textual poverty the paper had been doomed to repeat from birth.  

 The way we give feedback to students guides the journey. Where are we leading students?