It is getting close to that time again, PARCC testing. As you know, in the classroom writing can take many forms, including both informal and formal. There are three forms of writing covered in the CCSSs. Students are expected to learn to establish and maintain a formal style  in both argument and informative/explanatory pieces. The balance of student writing should be 65 percent analytical (30 percent opinions and 35 percent to explain/inform) and 35 percent narrative with a mix of on-demand and review-and-revision writing assignments. 

If your state is among those using PARCC Assessments, then you probably already know about the PARCC Website and Practice Tests.  

Forms of Writing

Opinion Pieces-Convince others to think or act in a certain way, to encourage readers to share the writer’s point of view (POV), beliefs or position (I think, I believe, you should/should not). For example:

·        Book, movie, or TV and theater reviews

·        Editorials

·        Feature columns

·        Letters to the editor

Informative/Explanatory Texts-Inform the reader by giving fats, explanations, and other information. For example:

·        Biographies

·        Directions

·        How-to articles

·        Magazines

·        News article

·        Recipes

·        Reports

·        Textbooks

Narratives-To entertain, it gives an account or story, usually tells about something that happens over a period of time, can be true or imaginary. For example:

·        Anecdotes

·        Autobiographies

·        Fables

·        Fairy Tales

·        Folktales

·        Friendly letters

·        Memoirs

·        Mysteries

·        Science Fiction`

·        Short stories

·        Stories

Argument Pieces-Support claim and/or convince others to think or act in a certain way, to encourage reader to share the writer’s opinion, belief, or position (I think, the facts show, the evidence shows).

The CCSS do not specify how to teach any form of writing, I suggest that you follow the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model (GRRM): I Do It (Minilessons),  We Do It (Collaborative Engagement), You Do It (Independent Application).

By using the GRRM, you will have a framework for releasing responsibility to your students in a gradual way (this applies to all students prek-6).

The three modes of Common Core writing distributed by grade level. Students should practice all three modes of writing, but there should be a growing emphasis on persuasive writing and a decreasing emphasis on narrative.

	Argumentative	Informative/Explanatory	Narrative
4th grade	30%	35%	35%
8th grade	35%	35%	30%
12th grade	40%	40%	20%

Strategies for Success

·        Teach students how to analyze and critique by annotating text and asking text-dependent questions

·        Teach students how to summarize.

·        Teach students how to compare and contrast.

·        Use district writing prompts and create ones of your own that are like them.

Building Sentence Fluency

       

      Sentence framing

     I like                               .

     I like to                                       and                                                  .

     My                                   is                                                              .

     When I                                     ,  I like to                                           .

     She didn’t go to                                  because                                   .

      Sentence expanding

     The pony walks.

     The white pony walks.

     The white pony walks on the road.

     The energetic white pony walks on the road

     The energetic white pony walks on the road while his mother sleeps.

       Sentence combining     

          My cat is black.  My cat is little

          My black cat is little.

Common Core ELA

Instructional Shifts and

Higher Order Thinking

Shifts in ELA/ Literacy

Shift 1	Balancing Informational &  Literary Text	Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts.
Shift 2	Knowledge in the Disciplines	Students build knowledge about the world (domains/ content areas) through TEXT rather than the teacher or activities
Shift 3	Staircase of Complexity	Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered.  Teachers are patient, create more time and space and support in the curriculum for close reading.
Shift 4	Text-based Answers	Students engage in rich and rigorous evidence based conversations about text.
Shift 5	Writing from Sources	Writing emphasize use of evidence from sources to inform or make an argument

So What Does PARCC Look Like? It includes 2 parts in English Language Arts and 2 parts in math.

	English Langue Arts	Mathematics
PBA- Performance-Based Assessment (hand-scored)	Writing effectively Analyzing print and video texts	Solving multi-step problems Using abstract reasoning
	Reading comprehension	Understanding major grade-level appropriate math concepts

Students should be able  

 •      Identify the Main Idea and Theme

•      Identify the Setting

•      Analyze Characters

•      Identify Tone

•      Identify Main Idea and Theme

 •      Identify Point of View- Chiefly in literary texts, the narrative point of view as     in  first (I, me, we) or third person (he, she, they) narration; the position or perspective conveyed or represented by an author, narrator, speaker, or character.

•      Recognize Figurative Language

•      Identify Key Details

Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR)—

First question requires students to select one of at least four responses based on information from the test. (Part A usually tests content knowledge.)

The next question (Part B) requires students to choose evidence (EVIDENCE – Facts, figures, details, quotations, or other sources of data and information that provide support for claims or an analysis and that can be evaluated by others) from the text to support the selected answer to the first question.  

Part B usually tests the student’s ability to provide the correct evidence to support the answer to Part A. This type of item will be on both the Performance Based Assessment and the End of Year Assessment.

Evidence-based terms (examples)

For instance…

For example…

The author stated…

On page ____, it said…

From the reading, I know that…

It said on page…

According to the text…

Based on what I read…

Two different sources told me that…

Prose Constructed Response

•      A task that requires students to write in response to a text.

•      It may include a literary analysis, narrative, and research.

•      Allow students to demonstrate that they can communicate that understanding well both in terms of written expression and knowledge of language and conventions.

Three Kinds of Prose Constructed Responses

Literature Task	This task will ask students to carefully consider literature worthy of close study and compose an analytic essay
Narrative Task	In this task, students may be asked to write a story (or the next part of a story), detail a scientific process, write a historical account of important figures, or to describe an account of events, scenes or objects, for example.
Research Simulation Task	In this task, students will analyze an informational topic presented through articles or multimedia, the first text being an anchor text that introduces the topic. Students will engage with the texts by answering a series of questions and synthesizing information from multiple sources in order to write an analytic essay.

Analyzing Vocabulary

•      Highlight vocabulary in the PARCC practice test questions that you’d consider academic vocabulary.

•      Generate a list of vocabulary terms by grade level (forthcoming).

GENERAL ACADEMIC WORDS AND PHRASES/VOCABULARY – Vocabulary common to written texts but not commonly a part of speech. Common Core places general vocabulary into three tiers, defined as follows:

•      Tier One words are the words of everyday speech usually learned in the early grades, albeit not at the same rate by all children. While Tier One words are important, they are not the focus of Common Core/PARCC.

•      Tier Two words (general academic words) are far more likely to appear in written texts than in speech. They appear in all sorts of texts: informational texts (words such as relative, vary, formulate, specificity, and accumulate), technical texts (calibrate, itemize, periphery), and literary texts (misfortune, dignified, faltered, unabashedly).

•      Tier Three words (domain-specific words) are specific to a domain or field of study (lava, carburetor, legislature, circumference) and key to understanding a new concept within a text. Because of their specificity and close ties to content knowledge, Tier Three words are far more common in informational texts than in literature. Recognized as new and “hard” words for most readers (particularly student readers), they are often explicitly defined by the author of a text, repeatedly used, and otherwise heavily scaffolded (e.g., made a part of a glossary).

Strategies for Writing

Three Text Types- It is an instructional recommendation that elementary students write narrative 35% of the time and gradually decrease to 20% in high school.  Students should be prepared to write at any of the following levels.

Argument/Opinion

Informative/Explanatory

 Narrative

What is FAP?

FAP stands for FORM, AUDIENCE, and PURPOSE. 

—  FAP can be used to organize the information that you will see in the prompts. 

—  FAP is found in the writing task of the prompts.

F is for FORM (The two FORMS are letter and article.)

A is for AUDIENCE (The student will be able to find the AUDIENCE in the writing task of the prompts, such as

parents

friend

principal

teacher

site-based council

author

student(s)

neighbor(s)

board of education, and others

P is for PURPOSE (The PURPOSE can be found in the writing task of the prompts.)

—  

Use the R.A.P.P. Method

R (Restate the question)

A   (Answer the question)

P (Prove it with evidence)

P  (Proofread and edit)

Teachers, use authentic writing as models (Using documents, newspapers, children’s books, magazines, how-to books, etc.

Teachers, use visuals as springboards to writing (Paintings, drawings, and photos can be excellent springboards to writing.)