Writing Calibration English I Tuesday, September 2 nd, 2014

Goals and Outcomes  Collaborate with colleagues to calibrate written compositions for consistency in scoring across campuses, across the district, and in line with the state  Take away some exemplar pieces of student writing to be used in our classrooms to help guide instruction toward our goal of exemplar student writing.

Today’s Agenda  8:30- 9:00- Welcome/Goals and Outcomes/ New info. from TEA  9:00- 9:15- Review of Writing Rubric/ Scoring Guides  9:15- 10:15- Using state scored NISD Eng. II exemplars from 2013 (since you all used the same promt) to create current models of exemplar writing utilizing the different components of the rubric for this Diagnostic  10:15- 11:30- Begin Scoring Student Writing  11:30- 12:30- Lunch  12:30- 3:30- Scoring Student Writing, Picking out Exemplars, and Writing Commentary on these Exemplars to be used with students during Writer’s Workshop this week

Secondary ELA Focus for Learning/ Problem of Practice  NISD Secondary ELA teachers will provide students numerous opportunities to articulate critical thinking through high levels of expository, persuasive, and analytical writing.  Theory of Action  If numerous opportunities for writing calibration are provided and  If teachers are modeling critical thinking and writing through writing goals, writing notebooks, conferences, and specific and timely feedback and  If students are reading high levels of expository text to be utilized as good models for writing  Then higher levels of critical thinking will be demonstrated through higher levels of writing

STAAR TEST DESIGN ENGLISH I & II 2014 Reading & Writing combined into one test with one score -Tests administered in single day – 5 hours time limit -Reading & Writing Contribute equally to total score -30% - reading multiple choice -20% short answer questions -24%-writing multiple choice -26% essay Multiple Choice- 54% Performance-46% of total test score

STAAR TEST Design English I and II Changes for  TEA will maintain initial academic performance standards (Phase-In 1) for STAAR for the school year.  The new Phase-In 2 performance standards will be implemented beginning the school year.  Beginning in Spring 2015, the field test prompts will be removed from the operational grade 7, English I, and English II tests and will be field tested in a separate prompt study that will be administered every three years beginning in (Doesn’t mention field test items on SARs.)  Elimination of STAAR Modified Posted by TEA on 8/21/14

A Review of the Expository Rubric…  What do you notice about the 4 column? Highlight some key words/ phrases.  Look at the verbiage/ description of the 2’s and 3’s. With a different colored highlighter, highlight some key phrases/ words.  What changes do you notice? Discuss at your tables.

Expository Scoring Guides  Spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with both the Eng. I and Eng. II Expository Scoring Guides. For today’s purposes, the Eng. II Expository Scoring Guide will be the most useful since your students wrote their Diagnostic Essay over last year’s Eng. II Expository prompt, and the Eng. II Scoring Guide provides samples of each Score Point with Commentary as to why the essay received that particular score point. (The Eng. II ones are like comparing “apples to apples” since we used their prompt.)  At your tables, discuss what you notice from reading the papers from the Scoring Guides. These Scoring Guides will help provide assistance when you begin scoring your own essays.

State Scored NISD Exemplars  Each person will receive their own individual packet of some state scored NISD student exemplar Eng. II 8’s from (We haven’t yet received our NISD written compositions back from the state from the 2014 assessment.)  Take minutes, and silently read to yourself each of the exemplars, making brief notes about what you notice.  Your group will have 2 charges…  1. You will be assigned one “look for/ focus”, your group must come to a common agreement of which 2 exemplars out of the packet best fit your focus, and be prepared to write commentary on each of those two components to be shared out with the group.  2. Out of all the essays, your group must come to a consensus of 1 overall “BEST” Exemplar out of the packet of essays, and be able to write commentary as to why this one is the BEST out of the entire packet.

Look For’s/ Group Focus  1’s= Introductions/ Response to the Prompt: You are specifically looking for:  Strong controlling idea/ thesis statement  Strong Leads  How did they lead into the paper? Anecdote? Powerful quote?

Look For’s/ Group Focus  2’s= Transitions/ Transitional Phrases  How are they effectively moving the story along?

Look For’s/ Group Focus  3’s= Supporting Details: You are specifically looking for:  How do the details within each paragraph support the thesis statement/ controlling idea? Are there any details that are non- significant and need to be deleted from the composition?  Is each detail closely linked with the ones before and after it?

Look For’s/ Group Focus  4’s= Conclusions: You are specifically looking for:  How does the conclusion respond back to the prompt?  How does the conclusion enhance the effectiveness of the story?  Does the conclusion answer the question of: “So What?”

With your Overall Exemplar…  Write a brief commentary as to why that is your group’s top pick out of all the essays. Please include the following components in your commentary…  Introduction: Lead/ Thesis Statement  Transitions/ Transitional Phrases  Supporting Details  Conclusion

Gallery Walk  Every group will travel around with their state packet, highlighters, and marking components of exemplar pieces in your own packet to take back and use with kids to help guide instruction  On an index card, complete the following sentence stem, “I learned that essays that score 8’s __________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________.  Please give your index card to Brittnie.  You will now have the remainder of the day to score your own essays with the exemplars that you just created to help you.

Your goal by the end of the day is for each campus/ to be able to produce at least 2 exemplars with commentary as to how the piece of writing is an exemplar. These exemplars with the commentary will be placed onto the district’s Netschool page for all to use in your classrooms for instructional purposes!!!!