Creative Writing 1 1
Reporting Category / WritingStandard / Text Types & Purposes
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.W.1.3.a
Benchmark / Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation, establishing one or multiple point(s) of view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events.
Also Assesses / LACC.910.W.1.3; LACC910.W.1.3.e; LACC.910.W.1.3c; LACC.910.W.1.3.d; LACC.910.W.2.4
Item Types / Performance Assessment
Benchmark Clarification / The student will essentially write a story - fiction or non-fiction - but will show that he/she understands the necessary components of a story through this writing (identifying a problem, using point of view, introducing a narrator and characters, using a smooth progression of events, etc.)
Content Focus / Text structure, point of view, characterization, theme development, plot elements and development.
Content Limits / A simple idea or prompt should be provided as a springboard for students. The benchmark itself could even be used as the prompt.
Text Attributes / None specified
Distractor Attributes / None specified
Sample Item / Write a short story between 1200-3000 words. This story can be fiction or non-fiction but must be of your own creation. While writing, exhibit your craftsmanship by:
-Creating a plot that includes a problem, smoothly develops, and includes well-chosen details and structured even sequences (LACC910.W.1.3)
-Creating an establish narrator(s) (LACC910.W.1.3.a)
-Using a clear point of view, either singular or multiple (LACC910.W.1.3.a)
-Using several, but not necessarily all, narrative techniques such as
- Dialogue
- Pacing
- Description
- Reflection
- Multiple plot lines
- (LACC910.W.1.3e)
-Utilize precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experience, event, setting, and/or character (LACC.910.W.1.3.d)
-Providing a conclusion that logically concludes and reflects on what has been experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narrative ((LACC910.W.1.3.e)
-Demonstrating command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, including capitalization, punctuation, and spelling (LACC.910.L.1.1, LACC.910.L.1.2, LACC.910.L.1.2.c)
The short story should result in a piece that is coherent, insightful, and interesting.
Reporting Category / Reading: Literature
Standard / Craft & Structure
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.RL.2.4
Benchmark / Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
Also Assesses / LACC.910.L.2.3
Item Types / Multiple Choice
Benchmark Clarification / The student will be asked to reference a specific word(s) and determine the meaning (connotative or denotative), in addition to identifying how the use of a particular word affects the tone and mood of a selection.
Content Focus / Connotation and denotation of specific word(s) and/or the effect on the tone and mood.
Content Limits / Grade-level appropriate texts should be used which contain word(s) that can be grouped or identified as having a specific effect and connotation as a whole. Clichés and colloquialisms should not be used in these items.
Items should focus on one of two things: the students' ability to analyze the connotation of a particular word of group of words and also the students' ability to use this connotation to aide them in analyzing how the word choice effects the tone and/or mood of the piece.
Text Attributes / Text could be fiction or non-fiction.
Texts could include graphics such as political cartoons, but these must have enough words included to accurately assess the students' ability.
Distractor Attributes / For questions focused on the connotation of words, distractors should include: answer choices that are the wrong connotation for a word, but a plausible connotation in another use; the denotation of the word; other denotations of a particular word, but which are inappropriate for the selection; reference emotions from the text, which are incorrect/disconnected to the connotation of a specific word.
For questions focused on the effect on the tone or mood, distractors should include: tone words that are inappropriate for the selection; tone words that are simply emotions mentioned in the passage; words that describe the characters' emotions and not the author's tone; connotations of specific words instead of the author's tone; words that describe the setting, but not the tone or mood.
Sample Item / In the following sentence from Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, which answer choice accurately describes the connotation of words such as "crippled," "manacles," and "chains”?
"One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination."
A) African Americans are saddened about their current position in society
B) King is angry about the treatment of African Americans in the
United States
C) African Americans have not merely been treated unfairly, but have
been forced to be inferior and have had little to no options for making
their lives better because of this treatment
*D) African Americans have been imprisoned in their own country
Reporting Category / Reading: Literature
Standard / Craft & Structure
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.RL.2.5
Benchmark / Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
Also Assesses
Item Types / Multiple Choice
Benchmark Clarification / The student will be asked to identify structural elements of a text and then analyze how these elements effect the text as a whole, specifically mystery, tension, or surprise.
Content Focus / Structural elements, such as parallel plots, pacing, flashbacks, repetition, anaphora and the effect of these.
Content Limits / Grade-level appropriate texts should be used which include in them unique structural elements such as fast paced dialogue, flashbacks, or parallel plots or characters, repetition, and anaphora.
The selection must be long enough for the student to see how a structural choice changes the text.
Text Attributes / Texts would likely be fiction; although nonfiction could work as well (an example might be King's "I Have a Dream" speech).
The structural choices must be clearly identifiable or pointed out in the question.
Distractor Attributes / Distractors could include: incorrect identification of the text structure element, and incorrect effects of the text structure element.
Sample Item / Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech excerpt:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!"
1. What is the effect of King’s use of anaphora/repetition in this selection of his speech?
*A) Tension and excitement builds until the short culminating restatement of
the last line, “I have a dream today!” creating a sense of urgency
and immediacy for the audience members.
B) The repetition of “I have a dream” over and over simplifies the message
for the audience so they will remember it.
C) The use of imagery in the selection helps audience members
visualize different parts of the country.
D) The repetition makes the words sound lyrical and therefore memorable.
Reporting Category / Reading: Informational Text
Standard / Key Ideas & Details
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.RI.1.3
Benchmark / Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.
Also Assesses
Item Types / Multiple Choice
Benchmark Clarification / The student will be identifying how a text is structured and specifically how the choices the author makes in regards to how information is divulged effects the text.
Content Focus / Text organization and structure.
Content Limits / Grade-level appropriate texts should be used.
Questions should be limited to identifying the organization of a selection, the effect of this organization, or questions about the connections between the events described.
These could include questions about a character's mental state as evidenced by the order of events.
Text Attributes / Text selection could be fiction or non-fiction.
The text should include a portion in which the author unfolds analysis or a series of ideas of events.
These could be reasoning through something, like which choice a character should make (for example, a character choosing to move away from his/her hometown).
Distractor Attributes / Distractors could include: incorrect identification of an organizational pattern, incorrect descriptions of how ideas are introduced or developed, incorrect descriptions of the connections between each idea in a series (including references to a character's state of mind at the time as evidenced by the order of events revealed), simple restating of the action of a selection.
Sample Item / An excerpt from Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”:
“She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.”
Which of the following best describes the effect of Chopin’s description of Louise Mallard’s actions?
*A) Chopin’s step-by-step description of Louise Mallard’s physical actions builds the sense of triumph and achievement which is destroyed with the simple revelation that Brently Mallard is still alive. The simplicity of the passage makes Louise’s death even more shocking.
B) Chopin’s simple description of the actions Louise Mallard makes while descending the stairs with her sister makes her following death seem unimportant and trivial.
C) Louise Mallard’s actions reveal that she had accepted the idea that her husband was dead and when he walks through the door, she is overjoyed to the point that her heart cannot bear it and she dies.
D) The subtle descriptions and inferences the reader must make about Louise Mallard’s state of mind and actions make the end of this text more mysterious.
Reporting Category / Reading: Literature
Standard / Integration of Knowledge & Ideas
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.RL.3.7
Benchmark / Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”).
Also Assesses
Item Types / Multiple Choice; Extended Response
Benchmark Clarification / The student will be connecting two different texts in two different mediums (poetry, short story, painting, graphic, speech, etc.).
He/she must identify the content and effect of the two pieces in relation to each other, while identifying what is emphasized and also what is omitted.
Content Focus / Analyzing text organization/structure - how different mediums can address the same idea with the same or different emphasis.
Compare/contrast the two texts.
Content Limits / Grade level appropriate texts should be used.
In the case of artistic mediums, a short explanation should be included where needed for the student to understand the piece.
Questions should be limited to questions that can be answered solely on the two texts with no outside information needed about the method of creation or historical context.
Questions could range from identifying similarities and differences between the two texts to analyzing how different emphasis or medium creates a different tone.
Text Attributes / Texts must be different mediums but could be a short story and poem, poem and painting, graph and poem, etc.
The type of text is unlimited and could include non-fiction and fiction.
The two texts do not need to both be fiction or non-fiction.
For example, a short essay describing a historical event could be paired with a fictionalized painting of that same event.
Distractor Attributes / Distractors could include: incorrect connections between the two texts; summaries of the two texts; incorrect identification of points of emphasis or omission; statements that show little or no connection between the texts at all; invalid assumptions about the author's choice in emphasizing or omitting something.
Sample Item / In Breughel’s painting, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” and Auden’s poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” how does the lack of emphasis on Icarus’ death contribute to the theme of both works?
A) The lack of emphasis shows that Icarus was not an important person and
his death is unimportant.
B) The lack of emphasis shows that Greek Mythology is no longer
important in society.
*C) The lack of emphasis mimics how significant things, like someone’s
death, are unimportant to the rest of society because they are too busy
with their own lives.
D) The lack of emphasis shows that neither author was a believer in
Greek Mythology and thought that it was not something worth focusing
on and that people should be focused instead on their own lives
and troubles.
Sample Item 2: Extended Response
Analyze how the depiction of Icarus' death in both texts contributes to the theme of each work.
Sample Item 3: See Performance-Based Sample Item
Reporting Category / Reading: Literature
Standard / Key Ideas & Details
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.RL.1.2
Benchmark / Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
Also Assesses
Item Types / Extended Response or Performance.
Benchmark Clarification / The student will summarize the text, identify the theme or central idea, and analyze how this theme or idea is developed throughout the text, including specific details that contribute to the theme directly.
Content Focus / Summarizing, identifying important details, identifying theme/central idea, identifying and analyzing how the theme is developed over the course of an entire text, choosing details to support this analysis including elements of plot and characterization.
Content Limits / Grade-level appropriate texts should be used.
This benchmark asks students to complete a task that is several steps, and a text that provides enough substance is important.
The themes analyzed/used in the chosen text should be universal and not culturally specific.
Text Attributes / Texts must be of significant length and substance, enough to trace the development of a theme.
This could become cumbersome on a standardized test, and might be better assessed in a portfolio because of it.
Texts would most likely be fiction, but could be non-fiction as well (memoir, for example).
Texts should not include pictures or graphs as these are not necessary and a theme cannot be traced developmentally in an image or graph.
Distractor Attributes / Not Applicable - benchmark is being assessed with extended response (prompts) questions only.
Sample Item / In Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour," how does Chopin address the idea of the oppression of women?
In your response, include an objective summary, an accurate theme relating to the oppression of women, how this theme is developed over the course of the text, and which significant details contribute specifically to this theme.
Reporting Category / Reading: Informational Text
Standard / Craft & Structure
Benchmark Number / LACC.910.RI.2.6
Benchmark / Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.
Also Assesses
Item Types / Multiple Choice; Extended Response.