English Department Coordinators

English Department Coordinators

December 3, 2012

Calendar of Events for English

December 10-21Benchmark Testing Window—High Schools

January 7-18Benchmark Testing Window—Middle Schools

March 11-22Writing SOL Testing Window

April 8-19M.S. NWEA Testing Window

April 8-19H.S. SOL Simulation Testing Window

April 22-May 3M.S. SOL Simulation Testing Window

April 22-May 3HSHS NWEA Testing Window

May 9 (8am)AP Literature and Composition Exam

May 10 (8am)AP Language and Composition Exam

May 20-June 7SOL Testing Window

4:00—Middle school meeting

Spelling Bee

All items for the spelling be are on the blog site
Due to winter break, all school spelling bees must be completed by Tuesday, December 18, 2012
School winners must be entered into the Google Docs form by Thursday, December 20, 2012
Division-wide Spelling Bee will be held on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at Hungary Creek Middle School

HAT essays and Specialty Centers

The HAT direct writing scores given to teachers will not be sent to specialty centers (as the papers were scored on a new rubric)
The student essays (without any type of score) will be sent to the specialty centers to be scored using the old rubric—thus improving students’ scores on the center applications
Note: During the training session, there was a question brought up by the high school teachers about the scoring guide and the argument format. I believe that many of the middle school teachers listened to the high school conversation and did not score any paper without an opposition over a “2” even though this is not an element of the 8th grade scoring guide. Keep this in mind as you are evaluating student progress from the HAT to current assessments

Teacher evaluation items

All English and Reading teachers should be using the NWEA and SOL Growth Reports as their measures
For the NWEA, teachers should be looking at the class breakdown reports and the DesCartes to focus teaching. Ideally, teachers should take the NWEA scores to create laddered groups.
Take the Class Breakdown by Goal Report and turn in on its side to see how to group students
Then, look at the DesCartes Chart and place students in the appropriate learning groups
You want to teach them both where they are plus the next level up
You can select articles, stories, activities at different levels
Set up groupings in School Space and have students work on topics at levels in accordance with their tested level.
RTI Reading should be using the NWEA and the Achieve 3000 Lexile Change report
Also, because of the discrepancies in HAT scores, your 8th grade teachers are allowed to use just the NWEA and SOL growth reports as their teacher evaluation measures this year.

Middle Bridge curriculum (do we continue this program?)

Reading curriculum

Started setting up a new reading curriculum this summer—Itis on the blog!
Reading teachers should be using the items on the blog or creating similar units and submitting them for inclusion on the blog next year

English Department Coordinators

December 3, 2012

4:30—All (Middle and High)

SOL updates

The SOL Writing Prompts were posted on Friday English SOL page . Please note that additional prompts may be added if they become available. The 8 will be expository or persuasive; end-of-course will be persuasive.

Board of Education accepted for first review the cut scores on the SOL end-of-course reading assessment setting the scores at: (31 out of 55 for Pass/Proficient; 49 out of 55 for Advanced/College Path)

The Board will take final action setting the cut scores at their January 2013 meeting.

VDOE is seeking nominations for the Content Assessment Committees that will meet next summer. For English, this means we need representatives for grades 3-8 and end-of-course reading, and grades 5, 8, and end-of-course writing. Committee members who served last year will need to reapply. Additional information and the summer meeting schedule is available in Supt’s Memo #309-12.
10 additional items for SOL EOC reading have been added. These items are based on a nonfiction passage and include vocabulary, Venn diagram, and “not” questions.
Those students who failed the EOC Reading assessment aligned with the 2002 English SOL will be retested using a test still aligned to the 2002 SOL.
Additional practice TEI items for 3-8 reading will be published this spring.No additional practice items for writing will be released.
Assessment notes
Late fall 2012 – Paired passage demonstration released
Spring 2015 – English SOL tests will be released
15% of the reading/writing tests will be TEI
Emphasis words (most, main, best) will not be emphasized on any SOL test
NOT and EXCEPT will continue to be emphasized
Direct Writing is online; students MAY use scratch paper
EOC Writing Rubric is mode specific –persuasive
Testing Manuals are posted 4 weeks prior to the test window opening
Anchor papers will also be released in early winter. These papers are comprised of the SOL Writing Field test papers. Eventually they will be uploaded into Understanding Scoring.

Instruction Reminders
Review Vertical Alignment
Teach Nonfiction
Pair Passages
Teach Roots and Affixes
Teach Composing Online
Offer Students Choices (reading & writing)
Integrate All Strands
Formative Assessment Ideas
Pull passages from content texts
Punctuate the text
Ask reading comprehension questions
Include vocabulary
Include short essay/constructed response questions

Teacher Direct announced September 7, 2012 includes SOL News, SOL Library, and SOL Events.

Teacher Evaluation and Student Growth Percentiles information is available on the VDOE website

English Department Coordinators

December 3, 2012

Benchmark exams

Reading 6, 7, 8, EOC
Multiple choice, 20-25 questions
Two passages (one narrative and one non-fiction)
No study guide. Please don't try to review.
It's a cold reading like the SOLs using the previously released SOL tests, an Achieve 3000 nonfiction article and question stems from my blog.

Writing 8, EOC
Multiple choice, 20 questions, some multiple answer questions
One student’s journey from brainstorm to edit
No study guide. Please don't try to review.
It's a cold reading like the SOLs using the previously released SOL tests and question stems from my blog.

The Benchmark Objectives(these are the SOL objectives that must be taught first semester–before benchmark exams) have been on the blog with the pacing documents since the beginning of the school year.

Please DON'T allow teachers to review/use/preview previous SOL tests (2010/2011/2012)—these will be used for both benchmarks and simulations for the next few years—the state will not release a test again until 2015.

Resources for SOL prep

Achieve 3000:
State updates (with all the links to the state practice items):
State Practice items page:
Question stems:
Roots:

Student Teachers

Please make sure to take the student teacher information packet with you, have it completed and signed by your principal and put on the “pony” for me by Thursday of this week!

English Department Coordinators

December 3, 2012

Achieve Usage

Fidelity!!!! All English and reading teachers should be using this program in some form!

Here are our usage numbers for RTI/Sped classes as of this month:

Students completing level set and working in program
Brookland Middle School / 98
Deep Run High School / 7
Douglas Freeman High School / 0
Elko Middle School / 189
Fairfield Middle School / 79
George H Moody Middle School / 119
Glen Allen High School / 26
Harry F Byrd Middle School / 155
Henrico High School / 149
Hermitage High School / 70
Highland Springs High School / 46
Holman Middle School / 46
Hungary Creek Middle School / 123
J R Tucker High School / 89
John Rolfe Middle School / 117
L Douglas Wilder Middle School / 639
Mills Godwin High School / 29
Pocahontas Middle School / 74
Short Pump Middle School / 21
Tuckahoe Middle School / 44
Varina High School / 24
Virginia Randolph / 167
2311

Please refer to and distribute the following Achieve in various ELA sheet

Achieve in Various English/Reading Settings

Achieve in the English Classroom

Teachers pull the stories they have always pulled in the past as the core text. i.e. “The Landlady,” “Monkey’s Paw,” and “Pit and Pendulum” for a unit on horror and suspense.

Teachers pull non-fiction articles from Achieve or any other source to expand the study of the themes and ideas presented in the reading. i.e. An article about taxidermy (“The Landlady”), articles on customs associated with superstitions or the dead in different cultures (“Monkey’s Paw”) and instruction manual on how to create a simple pendulum (“Pit and Pendulum”).

Why? Biographies and Autobiographies are now counted under the Fictional Strand on the State SOLs, thus do not count toward the more rigorous non-fiction instruction needed with the majority of the new tests being traditional non-fiction and functional texts.

Achieve in the Regular Reading Classroom (Teens Read)

Teachers pull units from the blog or create similar units. i.e. the blog unit on “What is the role of a hero or “shero” in a culture”

Teachers create non-fiction units in Achieve to expand the study of the themes and ideas presented in the reading. i.e. My Achieve Hero Unit with the following articles:

A Hudson River Hero—When pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger realized that his plane could no longer fly, he made a quick decision to land it on a river.
A Soldier's Message of Hope—The life of a World War 2 prisoner of war is providing inspiration to veterans today.
Saying Thank You to Heroes—A Jewish organization recently held an event to honor and express gratitude to 60 people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.
Superman? No—Mailman!—An Ohio mailman's heroic acts have saved the lives of three people.
Three War Heroes—In honor of Veterans Day, here is the story of three men who risked their lives in World War II.

Why? Reading skills and literature study are not the same! Students must learn, practice, and internalize both fiction and non-fiction strategies that are essential life-long learning skills. The process of attacking and understanding non-fiction is much more difficult, but the information is much more accessible and accepted by students.

Achieve in the RTI Reading Classroom

Teachers preview the Achieve stories for the coming week or create their own units and pull the curriculum keys as their lesson plans

Teachers provide direct instruction on reading strategies using the Achieve curriculum keys on Mondays

Teachers conduct guided, whole group lessons—teachers have students answer the first poll and respond to the email; teachers pull students responses up and go over email/letter structures (heading, body, closing), and details to support student opinions

Teachers conduct guided, whole group lessons—teachers have students pull up the stretch article so all students have the same item on their screen and does a think aloud to help students annotate the article in the program

Students pull up the article on their own level, annotate as they read, complete the multiple choice activity and re-answer the poll

Teachers conduct whole class discussion on polls

Students work through the steps (poll, email, article, activity, poll) on their own for two articles

Teachers repeat steps (adding in novel study from time to time)

Teachers regularly go to student portfolios to monitor email responses and success with the program

Teacher uses the stretch article questions as their 4 ½ or 9 week assessment

Why? Achieve 3000 is an on-line program that targets students who have trouble “focusing-in” while reading. It provides the annotation stops, m.c. activities and extension thinking and writing activities to bring students up to grade level.

Achieve in the RTI Pullout/Tutoring Setting

*It is the hope that students are getting the strategies and practice in their regular Reading and English classrooms. Achieve is only successful if students are in the program, doing the strategies for a minimum of 90 minutes, twice a week.

Teachers preview the Achieve stories and curriculum keys for the coming week

Teachers work with English/Reading department to ensure that direct instruction on reading strategies and writing detailed expository is being done in the regular classroom

Students pull up the article on their own level, answer the poll, annotate as they read, complete the multiple choice activity and re-answer the poll

Teachers conduct whole class discussion on polls and themes

Students work through the steps (poll, email, article, activity, poll) on their own for two articles

Teachers regularly go to student portfolios to monitor email responses and success with the program

English Department Coordinators

December 3, 2012

Calendar of Events for English

December 10-21Benchmark Testing Window—High Schools

January 7-18Benchmark Testing Window—Middle Schools

March 11-22Writing SOL Testing Window

April 8-19M.S. NWEA Testing Window

April 8-19H.S. SOL Simulation Testing Window

April 22-May 3M.S. SOL Simulation Testing Window

April 22-May 3HSHS NWEA Testing Window

May 9 (8am)AP Literature and Composition Exam

May 10 (8am)AP Language and Composition Exam

May 20-June 7SOL Testing Window

5:00—High school meeting

Teacher evaluation items

All teachers must conduct growth assessments and collect data! The goal is that teachers come to you with three years of data to show their effectiveness in the classroom.

9, 11, 12th grade must do both the oral reading assessment and lesson assessment

10th grade must do the HAT and oral reading or lesson assessment

All pre-assessments (oral and lesson) should be scored by December 7
16 is the highest score for both
Students scoring an 8 or lower are underperforming (did not pass and need interventions charted)
Remember you are grading to a rubric, you can tell after the first two or so paragraphs of the oral reading where the child is scoring!

The intervention activities for the oral reading will be the one lesson on the blog plus any oral reading you do in class (any time you have kids read aloud a passage)

Likewise, your intervention activities for the lesson will be any annotation activities you do in class

We want data—please enter all students on the sheet initially—we need data of how many score above 8 as we work to improve the assessment and set goal numbers for next year
The lesson assessment and that score is most important because we want to see if our students are annotating and thinking on that more rigorous, higher level
We also want to compare the data to see if we have any cases where students do perfect oral assessments, but have very weak annotation and writing skills

Google form will be coming to teachers in January for feedback. Please make sure all teachers participate. They can’t complain about the target and measures that will be made permanent this summer if they don’t lend a voice!

We will administer a post-assessment during the second semester
We must agree on a window today (between March 25-April 19—data due May 10)
The spring score will be based on a new passage (also on technology)—I’ll post them 2nd semester.