The CCSS Reading/Writing Connection Lisa Shirley Camp, M.Ed., NBCT

A LOT! Recently released information includes:  A testing blueprint  Item specifications  Phase 1 items and task prototypes Stay informed by regularly checking the website:

1. Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language. 2. Evidence: Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text, literary and informational. 3. Knowledge: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction. prototypes 3

Nine Specific Advances in the PARCC ELA/Literacy Assessment Demanded by the Three Core Shifts... 5

1. PARCC builds a staircase of text complexity to ensure students are on track each year for college and career reading. 2. PARCC rewards careful, close reading rather than racing through passages. 3. PARCC systematically focuses on the words that matter most— not obscure vocabulary, but the academic language that pervades complex texts. 6

4. PARCC focuses on students rigorously citing evidence from texts throughout the assessment (including selected-response items). 5. PARCC includes questions with more than one right answer to allow students to generate a range of rich insights that are substantiated by evidence from text(s). 6. PARCC requires writing to sources rather than writing to de-contextualized expository prompts. 7. PARCC also includes rigorous expectations for narrative writing, including accuracy and precision in writing in later grades. 7

8. PARCC assesses not just ELA but a full range of reading and writing across the disciplines of science and social studies. 9. PARCC simulates research on the assessment, including the comparison and synthesis of ideas across a range of informational sources. 8

SO... Two standards are always in play—whether they be reading or writing items, selected- response or constructed-response items on any one of the four components of PARCC. They are:  Reading Standard One (Use of Evidence)  Reading Standard Ten (Complex Texts) 9

Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR)—Combines a traditional selected-response question with a second selected-response question that asks students to show evidence from the text that supports the answer they provided to the first question. Underscores the importance of Reading Anchor Standard 1 for implementation of the CCSS. Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR)—Uses technology to capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways that have been difficult to score by machine for large scale assessments (e.g., drag and drop, cut and paste, shade text, move items to show relationships). Range of Prose Constructed Responses (PCR)—Elicits evidence that students have understood a text or texts they have read and can communicate that understanding well both in terms of written expression and knowledge of language and conventions. There are four of these items of varying types on each annual performance- based assessment. 10

English Language Arts Science, Social Studies, and Technical Subjects  Students must grapple with works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries.  Reading is critical to building knowledge in history/social studies as well as in science and technical subjects. College and career ready reading in these fields requires an appreciation of the norms and conventions of each discipline.

English Language Arts Science, Social Studies, and Technical Subjects  Along with high- quality contemporary works, student texts should be chosen from among seminal U.S. documents, the classics of American literature, and the timeless dramas of Shakespeare.  The vast majority of reading in college and workforce training programs will be sophisticated nonfiction.

English Language Arts Science, Social Studies, and Technical Subjects  Students gain a reservoir of literary and cultural knowledge, references, and images; the ability to evaluate intricate arguments; and the capacity to surmount the challenges posed by complex texts.  Students pay attention to precise details; they develop the capacity to evaluate intricate arguments, synthesize complex information, and follow detailed descriptions of events and concepts.

English Language Arts Science, Social Studies, and Technical Subjects  Student writing is a key means of asserting and defending claims, showing what they know about a subject, and conveying what they have experienced, imagined, thought, and felt.

English Language Arts Science, Social Studies, and Technical Subjects  Students must take task, purpose, and audience into careful consideration, choosing words, information, structures, and formats deliberately, combining elements of different kinds of writing to produce complex and nuanced writing.  Students must take task, purpose, and audience into careful consideration, choosing words, information, structures, and formats deliberately. They need to be able to use technology strategically when creating, refining, and collaborating on writing.

English Language Arts Science, Social Studies, and Technical Subjects  Students have to become adept at gathering information, evaluating sources, and citing material accurately, reporting findings from their research and analysis of sources in a clear and cogent manner.

In Reading:  building knowledge  ability to evaluate intricate arguments  the capacity to surmount the challenges posed by complex texts In Writing:  asserting and defending claims, showing what they know about a subject, and conveying what they have experienced, imagined, thought, and felt  take task, purpose, and audience into careful consideration, choosing words, information, structures, and formats deliberately  become adept at gathering information, evaluating sources, and citing material accurately, reporting findings from their research and analysis of sources in a clear and cogent manner

PARCC RUBRIC

 Using a highlighter, note the changes in scoring criteria from 4 to 0 for each writing trait.  Take a moment to compare this writing rubric to rubrics you may have used in the past to score student writing (a 6 traits rubric, etc.). Make a t-chart of similarities and differences in order to discuss your observations with your table group.  Choose a person to share your group’s observations with the whole group.

Those documents describe complex ideas with these words and phrases:  Quality, substance, critical, evaluative, self-directed  Diverse perspectives, multidimensional, multiple levels of meaning, multiple ideas that intersect, possibly from multiple texts  Ambiguous or considers ambiguity, not literal, nuanced, subtle, abstract  Depth/breadth, developed over the course of a text  Express new language/knowledge/mode of thought

Look at the passage “Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address,” part of a unit that uses Walden as its central text. In the unit Lincoln’s speech is paired with “Civil Disobedience.”  Examine the close reading questions for that text. Using three different colors, highlight questions that:  Probe for comprehension  Ask students to analyze ideas from the text  Ask students to analyze author’s craft and its impact on meaning and tone

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PARCC Redefines the Narrative:  Includes weaving details from the source text accurately into an original narrative story (students must draw evidence from the text—character traits and the events of the story—and apply that understanding to create a story).  For students who struggle to create original stories, the source text provides ideas from which to begin; for those students who readily create imaginative experiences, the source provides a means to “jump off” and innovate.  Focuses on students applying their knowledge of language and conventions when writing (an expectation for both college and careers).

 RSI.2. Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another (in order) to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.  Make notes on how this text develops ideas related to:  The rightful role of government in society  The responsibility of man to address injustice

 Analyze Lincoln’s treatment of these two ideas: How are they developed separately? How do they interact and build on one another: are they interdependent?  Your essay should state and support a thesis that considers how Lincoln uses words and phrases to deliver a message about these two ideas. Be sure to support your ideas with evidence from the text, including noting places where the text leaves matters uncertain or unstated.

 Working with your table group, brainstorm ideas for a narrative prompt matched to this text: review the PARCC guidelines for narrative essays.  Working with your table group, brainstorm ideas for a research task matched to this text: what other sources might you pair with Lincoln’s speech?

Read the excerpt of “The Memory Place” by Barbara Kingsolver.  In your table groups, construct close reading questions that:  Probe for comprehension  Ask students to analyze ideas from the text  Ask students to analyze author’s craft and its impact on meaning and tone * Kingsolver, Barbara. “The Memory Place.” Of Woods and Waters: A Kentucky Outdoor Reader, edited by Ron Ellis. University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY), 2005.

 Using Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and/or the Kingsolver excerpt, work in your table groups to create writing prompts of the three types:  Narrative  Literary analysis  Research-based analysis: what sources could you pair with one or the other of these texts?  Check your prompts against the PARCC Rubric and the CCSS for reading informational texts.  Write your prompts on chart paper and post them for a gallery walk.

 Using sticky notes, read the other groups’ prompts and provide feedback:  As you make your comments, consider these questions:  Does the prompt demand a deep understanding of the text?  Does the prompt give students a chance to meet the PARCC Rubric criteria? Does it require development of complex ideas requiring deep inferences?  Does the prompt appear to connect with at least ONE of the CCSS for reading informational texts?

 Take a moment to reflect on our session. Jot down your thoughts and prepare to share them. When making notes, consider:  Realizations  Plans to shift instruction  Celebrations of effective current practice  Unanswered questions