Leveling Up in Writing: Tools & Strategies to Help Students Develop as Writers

Rita & John Rita Platt is a Nationally Board Certified teacher. Her experience includes teaching learners of all levels from kindergarten to graduate student. She currently is a Library Media & Reading Specialist for the St. Croix Falls SD in Wisconsin, teaches graduate courses for the Professional Development Institute, and consults with local school districts. John Wolfe is a teacher on special assignment for the Multilingual Department at the Minneapolis Public School District. He has worked with students at all levels as well as provided professional development to fellow teachers. His areas of expertise include English Language Learners, literacy, and integrated technology.

Relax … Everything (and more) is on The Wiki

Leveling Up: Ground to Cover 1. Why it’s okay to Hack the ACCESS Writing Test Success Criteria & Visible Learning Discrepant scores WIDA’s “theory of language development” Deliberate Practice and mastery Deliberate Practice and “chameleon pedagogy” 2. How to Hack the ACCESS Writing Test Understanding the scoring (hacking the anchor papers) Developing Practice Prompts Helping student focus Meaningful Peer Editing 3. WIDER than WIDA: Where from here? Combining WIDA with Six Traits or other Learning Schemes The Converging Research: The Daily, Separate ELD at ALL Proficiency Levels

“Leveling Up on the WIDA ACCESS test.”

Why it’s okay.

John Hattie on … 1. Success Criteria Success criteria relate to knowledge of end points – that is, how do we know when we arrive? “Just Drive.” Imagine if I were simply to ask to get in your car and drive; at some unspecified time, I’ll let you know when you’ve arrived (if you arrive at all). For too many students, this is what learning feels like.

2. Discrepant Scores (Writing as a Lever for Leveling Up) Think of this as the Iron Law of High-Stakes Testing : What’s tested is taught; what isn’t tested is neglected.

Basic Law of Learning: 4. Deliberate Practice Visible teaching and learning occurs when there is deliberate practice aimed at attaining mastery of the goal, when there is feedback given and sought, and when there are active, passionate, and engaging people (teacher, students, peers) participating in the act of learning.

5. Avoiding “Chameleon Pedagogy”

Part II: How to Hack the Writing Test

1. Understanding the Scoring (study the anchor papers) If sample responses clarify expectations for us, isn’t it reasonable to provide similar guidance to the students?

Complexity

Vocabulary

Control (Correctness)

Cohesion

Step 2: Provide practice opportunities

The WIDA Prompt We know what the prompt looks like … a one-page writing task on a bizarre academic challenge. How often do students have a chance to practice this over the course of the year? Would it be useful to them to do similar, content-related tasks? Download all the W-APT stuff at the ELL2 Google Apps Site

Anatomy of a WIDA Prompt Academic Language A “solved problem” Often a “narrative frame” (the task will “ride on a story” to avoid the huge syntactic complexity of decontext- ualized language) Graphic & visual supports Note: In WIDA, “graphic” means “written information radically stripped down” Vocabulary box (which Level 1 to lower 3 will ignore – as they should. ) Prompt supports language about thinking, reasoning

Is this harder than a WIDA prompt? Maybe … because this was designed to do “double- duty” as a content assessment.

Anatomy of a WIDA Prompt Academic Language A “solved problem” Often a “narrative frame” (to avoid the huge syntactic complexity of decontext- ualized language) Graphic & visual supports Note: In WIDA, “graphic” means “written information radically stripped down” Vocabulary box Prompt supports language about thinking, reasoning

Anatomy of a WIDA Prompt

Teachers say they need multiple prompts …

3. Help students focus

Bonus: Meaningful Peer Editing!

WIDER than WIDA: Taking it further

Combined with ELD

Leveling Up: Ground to Cover 1. Why it’s okay to Hack the ACCESS Writing Test Success Criteria & Visible Learning Discrepant scores WIDA’s “theory of language development” Deliberate Practice and mastery Deliberate Practice and “chameleon pedagogy” 2. How to Hack the ACCESS Writing Test Understanding the scoring (hacking the anchor papers) Developing Practice Prompts Helping student focus Meaningful Peer Editing 3. WIDER than WIDA: Where from here? Combining WIDA with Six Traits or other Learning Schemes The Converging Research: The Daily, Separate ELD at ALL Proficiency Levels

Hack or not? You decide

Hack the test? Pro … Con One reason is On the other hand, Then again, However,