Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

Writing Curricular Calendar, Grades 6-8, 2015

Test Preparation

Unit Five B - Test Preparation for the Writing Demands of the NYS ELA (Grades 6-8)

Late Feb/March

This version of the test preparation unit was created by the TCRWP in January and February of 2015.

The unit was developed based on the most up-to-date information we have on the 2015 tests, including the New York State Educator Guides 2015 at each grade level, released and annotated questions and answers from the 2014 NYS ELA, and 2014 student performance data from TCRWP schools.

This version of the test preparation unit was created by the TCRWP in January and February of 2015.

The unit was developed based on the most up-to-date information we have on the 2015 tests, including the New York State Educator Guides 2015 at each grade level, released and annotated questions and answers from the 2014 NYS ELA, and 2014 student performance data from TCRWP schools.

Extended response questions and scored student responses from previous years, can be found on the New York State Testing Site: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/english/samplers/ela.html (though it is important to note that these tests have become increasingly difficult since 2013). Sample questions for 2013 can be found at: http://engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-common-core-sample-questions, and the annotated, released questions from the 2014 ELA are available at

http://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-common-core-sample-questions.

Before addressing the plan for the unit and delving into the instructional decisions you will need to make, it is important to remember that the ELA is primarily a reading test. While students are asked to write on the test, it is always writing in response to reading. That is, the tasks of the exam are designed to assess students’ ability to write from sources. While spelling and grammar factor into a student’s score, the content of the response is more heavily weighted. Students are expected to demonstrate that they have understood and analyzed the given passage(s), read and understood the prompt, and clearly incorporated evidence from the passages in their responses.

We suggest that you organize this unit into three bends, as described below and throughout the document. For each bend of the unit you will need to collect and study student data, group your students according to their most essential needs, and organize the materials you will use with your students.

Bend: / Focus:
Bend One
Week One / Short Response Questions
Bend Two
Weeks Two and Three / Extended Response -- Studying and Practicing Extended Response Writing with Literary Texts
Bend Three
Weeks Four (and Five) / Extended Response -- Building Automaticity, Stamina, and Fluency in Extended Response Writing with Informational Texts (and More Complicated Prompts)

Collect Your Data

As with any unit of study, you will need to begin your planning with assessment. In this document we lay out a possible plan for the unit, but ultimately, you‘ll need to make decisions about the overall level, experience, and needs of your writers. You may decide you don‘t need to spend as much time in one part of the unit, based on how students are responding to the prompts and the work of each day. You might decide to cut some sessions out, and expand others. Let your data inform the choices you make here to ensure the unit most matches your students’ needs. This means that just as it is important for students to practice writing responses to short and extended prompts, it is perhaps even more important for you to study their responses and adjust your instruction for your whole class as well as small groups accordingly.

Be sure you are using current data to make these decisions. If you don’t have current data, you could give a prompt from a read aloud, or from a test prep assessment. **Note, if you are using Ready NY, only give the first assessment from the “Assessment” book - the rest we have included as possible practice prompts so that you can continue assessing in more targeted ways throughout the unit.

Some predictable kinds of data that will help you make decisions about grouping students:

●  Student practice tests from Ready NY or other test prep assessment

●  MoSL essays if you did the NYC DOE’s performance writing tasks/SLO assessments.

●  On-demand or flash-draft writing from essay, literary essay, baby literary essay or argument units

Group Your Students

You will probably want to begin each bend of the unit by sorting your students into three basic groups: students for whom this test poses the most challenges - and who are ready to push for 2’s - students who are on the cusp of meeting standards and are ready to push for 3’s, and students who are already demonstrating some mastery of this kind of writing and are ready to push for 4’s. We’ve provided some possible factors that could help you sort students into these groups so that you can provide the most effective coaching. Of course, the work within these groups will also need to be targeted to individual needs. Writing checklists for each group will help identify specific areas of strength and need. **Note - these groups are flexible! If you see students mastering a level of work (successfully working independently at the level of that group’s checklist and incorporating minilessons and small group work into their responses), move the student into the next grouping so they are challenged and have the opportunity to improve. See Bend One for recommendations of teaching to address issues for each group.

Students ready to push for 2’s:

●  Written response demonstrates confusion about prompt and/or reading passages

●  Student responses include mostly or all retell of part or all of the passages

●  Student responses are too short to fully respond to prompt

●  Student responses are illogical with few or no transitions that make sense

●  Use of evidence is random or very sparse

Students ready to push for 3’s:

●  Written responses are not fully developed

●  Student loses focus, includes tangential or irrelevant information

●  Details are not explained, and/or may not all truly match claims in the essay or answer the prompt

●  Organization lacks coherence and clarity - transitions are weak and/or structure is lacking

●  Doesn’t fully answer every part of the question, though there may be volume in writing

Students ready to push for 4’s:

●  Demonstrate ability to respond fully to a prompt

●  Could explain use of details with more insight and specificity

●  May have voice, but lack connection of voice to the actual prompt

●  Need to continue to include many text references in each section - not get too carried away with analysis and not have time or space for citing specific examples

Suggested Materials Flow Across the Unit:

We recommend starting each bend with students working from passages they have read already, so that their focus is on understanding the prompts and responding as writers. One way to do this is to use passages they have seen and worked on in Reading Workshop at the start of each bend. On Treasure Chest, in folders titled Short and Extended Response, you will find suggested passages from Ready New York that prompt for these kinds of responses – we have created the list to align with the bends of the Reading Unit so that you can incorporate some of these passages as reading work first. You can also find passages on the TCRWP Treasure Chest that can serve as both reading/multiple choice and writing/short and extended response items.

Bend One: Short Response / ●  3-4 model short response prompts from familiar passages
●  Additional passages from Ready NY or other source with short response prompts – See Treasure Chest for Ready NY and other suggested passages.
Bend Two: Extended Response/Literary / ●  Many examples of extended response prompts across genres for launch lesson
●  2 examples of extended response prompts from familiar passages (these will be literary if using from Reading Unit) for modeling and student practice
●  Additional passages and prompts from Ready NY or other source with extended response prompts - See Treasure Chest for Ready NY and other suggested passages.
Bend Three: Extended Response/Informational and Working with Automaticity / ●  1 example of informational extended response from a familiar set of passages
●  Additional passages and prompts from Ready NY or other source with short and extended response prompts - See Treasure Chest for Ready NY and other suggested passages.
Bend 1 – Short Responses

Students will be asked to respond to eight short response prompts across the second and third days of the ELA. Though each individual question is only worth two points, taken together these questions represent a significant opportunity for students to earn points on the test. Therefore, we recommend beginning the writing unit of study with a close look at answering short responses. Further practice on short response is then shifted to the reading unit, as this writing unit moves on to consider extended response prompts. We suggest beginning with a focus on short responses for two main reasons. First, we believe that beginning with short responses will provide the instructional space to teach student to focus on the question and what is required to provide a complete answer. If students learn to focus on prompts at the beginning of this unit, they will be in a better position across the entire unit and on the actual ELA exam. Second, if students learn to answer the short response questions effectively, they will not give up points on the exam that should be relatively easy to accumulate.

You’ll want to start out by working with a familiar text - perhaps one that you have already used in Jeopardy games, or one that was shared during reading workshop. You will need several possible short response questions off that text. You’ll teach students that the first job of a writer approaching a writing prompt is to understand what the prompt is asking. You might suggest that students read a prompt, then ask themselves the predictable questions: what is this question really asking? What evidence will I need to find to answer it?

For example, a seventh grade short response prompt might look like:

“Explain why the author of the article “Race to the Klondike” included the section entitled “A HEAVY LOAD.” Use two details from the article to support your answer.

The level of reading work required is much higher here than in earlier grades, but the process of answering the short response is the same: figure out what the question is really asking, then decide on relevant evidence. Here, the question is asking not just for a summary of the referenced section, but for the student to explain its significance to the rest of the article. Noticing that this task requires thinking about the whole article in addition to this one part is important.

Across the next couple of days, you might give students plenty of opportunities to work with short response questions - these could continue to be off of passages they have read before in reading workshop or they could be new, single or paired passages. You might teach them to re-read the prompt, underlining key words that give directions. By the second or third day, depending on readiness, partners may answer independently, then check their responses with each other and decide what the most complete and accurate response would sound like. You can look at the rubric put out by the state for short responses and work with your students to revise this into student-friendly language. Alternatively, there is a sample short response checklist available on Treasure Chest. In addition, the following can serve as a process checklist for kids to monitor their work and make sure they are completing each part of the task: (See a checklist version of this on Treasure Chest in the Short Response folders).

Guidelines for Answering Short Responses:

●  Read the question carefully.

●  Ask: ‘What is the question asking me to do?’

●  Mark up the question to highlight key words and phrases.

●  Answer the question, making sure to address all parts.

●  Use details from the text to support your answer. Make sure these are specific details and that they clearly reference the text (either by quoting or using the precise vocabulary from the text). You will probably write a sentence that answers the question, then a sentence with specific text-details giving evidence to support one part, then another sentence with specific text-details giving evidence to support another part, and a final sentence about how the evidence connects with your answer.

●  Write in complete sentences.

●  Your response is not a full essay--it is just 3-5 sentences. Do not restate the question or attempt a fancy introduction or conclusion.

For students who struggle with these questions, know that they will get the full two points by providing two text-based details, from different parts of the text, and they do not need to worry about crafting a beautiful introductory or concluding statement. In fact, sometimes students get lost in restating the prompt or elaborating and forget to include a second detail - which will mean only one versus two points of credit. Pacing is also an issue, as the extended response prompts will take time to process, plan and write - writers who get bogged down in the short responses might find themselves short on time for the longer essay. They do, however, need to be sure to write in complete sentences.