Ethical Test Prep: Critical Mind Frames for Teaching and Comprehension

Test prep. Yep. It's a thing. You can rail against teaching to the test, but should you? Imagine going to your driver's test, never knowing about the parallel parking exercise. Better yet, imagine going downtown for a concert, and the only places left to park require that backwards geometry and spatial reasoning. You'd better bet that teaching to that test is good for passing the exam and navigating real driving life. In the same way, preparing students for the type of thinking and item types they will encounter is the right thing to do. 

Marzano, Dodson, Simms, and Wipf just released a book of their research studies on assessment items from ACT, SAT, NAEP, PARCC, and SBAC. (They studied all content areas, but I'm just reporting on ELA findings.) In their text, Ethical Test Preparation in the Classroom, the authors reveal distinctions worth noting about how an additional layer of teaching beyond best ELAR practices is necessary for student success on large scale assessments. 

I was working with a group of students the other day when one of them slammed down his pencil and scowled. I asked why he was so angry. "Miss. Why didn't anyone tell me about this before?" Oh, honey, I'm not sure they haven't. Or perhaps we just didn't know. And now that you understand, you have a clearer path to success. 

Perhaps the following is an uncomfortable truth: Experience with the item types frames student thinking. 

Marzano, et al. (2021) give us some insight. In their study, 80 percent of items used selected response items. Why wouldn't we show kids how to be successful on 80 percent of the test? 20 percent of items in their study addressed short constructed-responses on reading, selected-response items on language, and extended-response items on writing. 

Furthermore, the researchers identified six basic structures, or thinking frames, necessary for successful completion of selected-response items. Big Idea, Detail, Meaning, Function, Purpose, Evidence. In this blog post, I'll focus on the insights I've garnered from reading about the Big Idea Frame. 

Big Idea Frame: 

23.36 percent of items in the study related to central idea, main idea and theme. Comprehension of the text as a whole forms a critical foundation to student success. Many of our test results come down to a critical factor: poverty. Yet, success with understanding  critical texts remains true regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or SES (ACT, 2006, pp. 16-17). If we could nail this big idea frame with our students, this type of test prep is certainly a worthy endeavor. 

Marzano, et al., (2021) share important distinctions that lead us to solutions for teaching the big idea frame. 

Rich, Complex Texts: First, our texts must be rich enough to qualify as complex texts. Here are the criteria: 

• "subtle, involved, or deeply embedded relationships among ideas or characters 
• richness in the amount and sophistication of information conveyed
• elaborate or unconventional structure
• intricate style
• demanding and highly context-dependent vocabulary
• implicit or ambiguous purpose" (Marzano, et al.,  2021, p. 26)
• embody a "relatively clear structure"
• include "formatting and linguistic clues regarding the structure of the text" (Marzano, et al., 2021, p. 29

Indeed, the ability to discern this type of nuanced meaning was critical to success on ELA as well as all other areas of the curriculum (Marzano, et al., 2021). Sounds like another reason to focus on the big idea frame for test prep. 

Close Reading: While the authors report that close reading wasn't much of a "thing" in research or instructional practice before the standards and assessment regime, it has clear support in the research for impacting the following: 

• comprehension and vocabulary (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012)
• syntax (Goff, Pratt, & Ong, 2005)
• fluency (National Reading Panel, 2000; Paige, 2011)
• deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, &Tecsch-Romer, 1993)
• high standard for coherence (Pearson & Liben, 2013)

(Marzano, et. al., 2021, p. 26). 

In a way, Marzano, et al., (2021) explain that our "Big Idea" items are the outcome, the children of close reading. Wouldn't it make sense to use close reading as a strategy for test prep? Close reading goes beyond "gist" and "summarizing" to help students "analyze sections of text" for "important details" that allow students to "parse those sections into granular detail" (Marzano, et al., 2021, p. 26). So our approach to these texts must go beyond a general understanding to more of a synthesis and use of text features and authorial purposes. I don't think anyone would argue that going beyond a surface understanding is a bad idea. 

Understanding the Subskills of the Big Idea Frame: As we will see with our new item types in Texas, our students will be reading texts and then answering two part items that require them to use evidence to support their deep understanding of a complex and nuanced text. Students will need to know how to do the following: And teachers will need to teach lessons about them - not only WHAT we are looking for, but HOW we accomplish that thinking:  

• select evidence that supports comprehension of the big idea frame
• explain the function of text or language elements that leads the reader to the big idea
• identify context that supports word and phrase meaning connected to the big idea 
• use details to support ideas (The Reporter Questions) that are salient in understanding and using the big idea
• clarify salient components that belong in an effective summary or theme statement to encapsulate the big idea
• explain the purpose and craft of textual elements (Marzano, et al., 2021: summary of Table 2.5 on page 28) that effectively lead to and support the nuances of the big idea.

This description of the subcomponents in the big idea reminds me much of the difference between predictive/elaborative inference and grounded inference discussed by Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro in Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension; A Handbook.  I wrote about that here. 

The Importance of Daily Practice: The section on big idea concludes by laying out a model for designing and crafting these types of experiences for daily reading practice. Frankly, simply reading text for comprehension is not enough. The rigor associated with these assessment items happens when readers synthesize and make decisions about the comprehension of the text as they  parse the multiple choice items and the associated text evidence. Reading and discussing the passage is simply not enough to replicate the type of cognitive activity students are expected to use on the assessment. NOT preparing to this level of text (test) prep would be unethical.