Do 4th graders need to know complex sentences for STAAR?

 Hi, I have a question about a fourth grade test question. The answer is H. We are being instructed to teach complex sentences because of this test question. However, from our research, we only see this TEK beginning in 5th grade. This is 2016 STAAR released test. Could you please give us some guidance? Thank you!

I LOVE questions like this. Get ready to geek out with me. 

First - Let's look at what's happening in the passage. We have two simple sentences that can be combined because they are connected conceptually. We are in the last paragraph of the essay. It is the climax of the passage. The sentences convey the ORDER of events at this high point. 

1. He made his way steadily down. 
2. He grins. 
3. He goes faster and faster. 
4. The last step is a jump. 
5. He realizes he is at the bottom.  

As we think of author's craft and how things happen in a story, we realize some important things. Sentence 23 is short. Sentence 24 is short. Sentence 24 is pretty short. So is sentence 25. A series of short sentences can bore the reader. 

We also realize that some things can happen at the same time. I think I'd be grinning the whole time.

Now, we look at what this TEK is assessing. When we look at the Assessed Curriculum Documents, we see that this standard was 15 C and now is associated with 11B and C. Your administration says that you must teach complex sentences, but this item really isn't about complex sentences, even though one is used to convey the right answer. Remember that this question is in the revising section. So we won't be looking at punctuation or grammar. We won't be looking for an "error" with sentence structure, mechanics, punctuation, etc. The problem is with coherence. The problem isn't about a complex sentence: the other ones are nonsense. 

RC1 - Composing

As noted in the description, the standard is focused on how writers improve structure, clarity, and coherence. No amount of teaching grammar is going to fix the ability to answer this question. It's not about grammar. Let's look at the question: 

F: Cause and effect misconceptions. Pronoun antecedent errors. So think about what this sentence is really saying. Making his way steadily down with a grin causes something to spread over his face? Going slow makes something spread? No it doesn't. He's smiling because he is successful. Not because he is going down slow with a grin. And what is it? Who is it? We don't know. F happens to be a correctly punctuated complex sentence, but it doesn't make sense logically. 

G: Cause and effect misconception again. What causes what? What happens first? In this sentence, the writer is saying that the boy's ability to go steadily down is caused by smiling. Good to know when rappelling. I just need to smile, and I won't fall. LOL. No! It's the other way around. I do a good job making my way down successfully. I realize I am not dying. It makes me happy. I smile. I smile because I am successful. Smiling doesn't make me successful. Backward logic. G happens to be a correctly punctuated complex sentence, but it doesn't make sense logically. 

H. As means that two things are happening at the same time. We can visualize this - he's making progress. It makes him happy. He smiles. H also happens to be a correctly punctuated complex sentence, but it is correct because of logic. And you don't know that if you aren't following the overarching structure of the climax in this anecdote. Our work is more than identifying two correctly combined sentences, but how those sentences accurately convey meaning. 

J. This is a runon. This one is about grammar. 

Knowing that FGH are complex sentences isn't the skill being assessed. They aren't assessing grammar. They are assessing whether something is written in a way that makes logical sense: COHERENCE and CLAIRTY through REVISION. 

This was a fun one to answer. I think what it really tells you is that you need to teach something completely different than complex sentences. Nothing wrong with teaching them complex sentences. But that's not going to move the needle on student performance. We need to teach them how to know when something is nonsense. Identifying correctly formed cause and effect sequences is the first step.