1. New Tech Network Literacy Series CREATING HIGH QUALITY TASKS Writing High Quality Prompts as Individual Written Assessments of Knowledge and Thinking (IAKTs)

2. This slide deck was developed by New Tech Network to support the implementation of professional development workshops. It is one of a three part series on best practices for improving teachers’ ability to meet the goals articulated in the Common Core State Standards for literacy. Use of this slide deck and accompanying materials is subject to Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license which means that people can use our materials, must give appropriate credit, and indicate if any changes have been made. You may not use the material for any commercial purpose. And you must re-share any adaptations under the same kind of license. We invite you to edit this resource as appropriate to meet your needs as long as appropriate attribution is provided.

3. College Readiness Defined

4. Literacy Goals of Common Core Standards 1.Grappling with Complex Texts - Ensuring students are prepared to handle the growing complexity of text found in college, career, and daily life. 2.Using Text as Evidence - Ensuring students can cite evidence to support positions and present careful analyses, well- defended claims, and clear information. 3.Building Knowledge Through Text - Ensuring students can build content knowledge through text from different disciplines and develop the reading and writing skills needed to learn independently.

5. How do we ensure our students are “prepared” using Project Based Learning? Focus Question

6. How do we ensure our students are “prepared” using Project Based Learning? Focus Question

7. Three Essential Components Individual Written Assessments of Knowledge Rigorous, External Standards Looking at Student Work

8. Performance Assessment BEFORE (Practice) DURING (Testing) AFTER (Life)

9. Performance Assessments Are…Are not… Open Ended/Constructed Response Require students to articulate their thinking or apply their knowledge Often curriculum-embedded Closed/Selected Response, e.g. multiple choice Require students to regurgitate memorized information Require that curriculum “stops”

10. Individual Assessments of Knowledge & Thinking IAKTs are individual, project-embedded performance assessments that require students to articulate and apply their knowledge through writing. IAKTs assess students’ content knowledge and literacy skills.

11. Individual Assessments of Knowledge & Thinking Ensuring rigor by inserting an individual assessment of knowledge and thinking IAKT

12. Two Types of IAKTs College Readiness Assessments Literacy Task Literacy Tasks College Readiness Assessments (CRAs) Smaller, more formative in nature Significant scaffolding and opportunities for iteration Focus on a few targeted writing skills “Graded” Assessed against selections of the Written Communication rubric and the Knowledge and Thinking rubrics Larger, more summative in nature Less support because we want to see what student can do on their own “Scored” Assessed against the entire Written Communication rubric and the Knowledge and Thinking rubrics

13. Task Quality Checklist What makes a task high quality? What makes the task more likely to assess the kinds of skills exemplified in the Common Core?

14. Task Quality Checklist

15. Quality Sort Using the NTN Task Quality Checklist as a guide, sort the tasks in high, medium, and low. If the checklist feels a bit overwhelming, focus just on the first section.

16. Templates to Help You Create Your Own Task LDC is a national community of educators providing a teacher-designed and research-proven framework, online tools, and resources for creating literacy- rich assignments and courses across content areas.

17. LDC College Readiness Templates Is the American Dream a reality, a promise, or an illusion? After reading The Great Gatsby, foundational American documents and essays, and the poetry of Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes, write an essay in which you explain how these texts illustrate the American Dream. Support your discussion with evidence from the texts. Be sure to address the author’s perspective on the American Dream and rhetorical choices in your analysis. What conclusions can you draw? [Insert optional question] After reading/viewing/solving ________ (word problem/data/chart/etc.), write a/an ________ (authentic product) that explains ________ (content). What conclusions or implications can you draw? Support your discussion with evidence from _________. Be sure to address themes/central ideas/author’s point of view/author’s purpose and/or author’s choices in your analysis. What connections/conclusions can you draw? LDC College Readiness Prompt Template #19 (Informational or Explanatory/Synthesis) Subject Specific Created College Readiness Prompt

18. Your Turn! Now you try! Craft a task, keeping in mind: IAKT Task Checklist Templates, if they’re helpful The essential content you want to cover

19. Your Turn! (Step 2) Already have an IAKT? Outline an ideal response to your task Re-evaluate your task - does it elicit your ideal response as written? Plan scaffolding, based on what you’d like to see in an ideal response Do a quick Critical Friends session with a buddy using the IAKT Checklist

20. NTN Academic Formula CULTURE Establishing a professional culture of trust, respect and responsibility to set the stage for building agency. PBL IAKTs Engaging students to see the relevance and make meaning of what they are learning while developing critical skills. Raising academic rigor through complex writing tasks supported by scaffolding and iteration. + + College and Career Ready

21. Share Out and Reflect Share the task you created and how it might fit into a project. How does your task help students develop and help you assess college readiness skills such as the Common Core Standards? What are your take-aways?