What to Expect on Test Day You will have 120 minutes (up to 4 hours) to read two to four passages, plan, write, revise, and edit your response. – 10 th ( words for the reading passages) You will read the passages on the computer, and you will type your response. You will receive an informative/explanatory prompt. You will use evidence from the passages to support your response. Brace yourself! The FSA is coming!

What to Expect on Test Day Possible Topics for Prompts and Reading Passages: – Essential Skills – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics – Health and Physical Education – Business Management and Administration – Social Studies – World Languages – Arts – Interests

What to Expect on Test Day

Informative/Explanatory Prompt The purpose of an informative/explanatory essay, sometimes called an expository essay, is to educate on a certain topic. It is not for giving an opinion or convincing someone to do something or change his beliefs. Which is great! You will read two to four passages that have a clear topical connection but may address diverse concepts and ideas. You will be required to synthesize and analyze ideas from the passages and support a controlling idea.

Informative/Explanatory Prompt Guidelines Write an informational/explanatory essay about...Your essay must be based on ideas and information that can be found in the “...” passage set. Manage your time carefully so that you can: – read the passages; – plan your response; – write your response; and – revise and edit your response. Type your response in the space provided. You have 120 minutes to read, plan, write, revise and edit your response.

Informative/Explanatory Rubric ScorePurpose, Focus, and Organization 4The response is fully sustained and consistently focused within the purpose, audience, and task; and it has a clear controlling idea and effective organizational structure creating coherence and completeness. The response includes most of the following: Strongly maintained controlling idea with little or no loosely related material Skillful use of a variety of transitional strategies to clarify the relationships between and among ideas. Logical progression of ideas from beginning to end with a satisfying introduction and conclusion. Appropriate style and objective tone established and maintained.

Purpose, Focus, and Organization—Informative/Explanatory Rubric fully sustained response: continuing for an extended period or without interruption. controlling idea: a controlling idea is the same as a "thesis statement“ (concise summary of the main point of the essay) of an essay. It's called a "controlling idea“ because this opening statement should "control" the rest of your writing. effective organizational structure: 10 th grade prompt from last year: Write an explanatory essay to inform fellow citizens about the advantages of limiting car usage. Your essay must be based on ideas and information that can be found in the passage set. The organizational structure for this essay might be three advantages of limiting car usage in order from best to “worst”. Prompt on FSA website: Write an informational essay about the relationship between clothing styles and development in clothing creation. Your essay must be based on ideas, concepts, and information from the “Clothing Over Time” passage set. The organizational structure for this essay might be a cause-effect structure. The development in clothing creation changed because of advancements in technology and studies of body size, but the style and quality of the clothing were often affected by these changes.

Purpose, Focus, and Organization—Informative/Explanatory Rubric variety of transitional strategies: transitions enhance logical organization and understandability and improve the connections between thoughts. They indicate relations, whether within a sentence or a paragraph. The readers of the essay are going to say your essay is “formulaic” if you use first, next, last, etc. As long as it is clear in your topic sentence that you have transitioned to a new idea, these words are unnecessary. satisfying introduction and conclusion: The author makes the reader want to continue reading the essay and provides closure to the essay. appropriate style: Use an academic voice. A wide range of vocabulary is important, but you must use the right word, and shorter ones are often better than longer ones. Try to avoid everyday, informal language, especially slang. Do not use fancy words. The readers will say, “attempts at more sophisticated vocabulary do not enhance the response.” In other words, you can’t blind them with your fancy language. objective tone: the essay should read as though the author hasn't let emotion influence the writing. Writers accomplish this level of objectivity by supporting all aspects of the thesis with evidence from the passages.

Informative/Explanatory Rubric ScoreEvidence and Elaboration 4The response provides thorough and convincing support, citing evidence for the controlling idea or main idea that includes the effective use of sources, facts, and details. The response includes most of the following: Smoothly integrated, thorough, and relevant evidence, including precise references to sources Effective use of a variety of elaborative techniques (including but not limited to definitions, quotations, and examples), demonstrating an understanding of the topic and text Clear and effective expression of ideas, using precise language Academic and domain-specific vocabulary clearly appropriate for the audience and purpose Varied sentence structure, demonstrating language facility

Informative/Explanatory Rubric Evidence and Elaboration smoothly integrated evidence: no quote dumps! According to Elizabeth Rosenthal, “70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars” (Source 1). elaborative techniques: techniques used to add details or expand According to Elizabeth Rosenthal, “70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars,” and the citizens are happier and less stressed without a vehicle because they experience the sights and sounds of nature instead of the noise and confusion of the highway. domain-specific vocabulary: content specific vocabulary. Examples would include words such as isotope, peninsula, refinery. Words common in informational text. varied sentence structure: a.k.a. syntax— the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. language facility: your sentence structure illustrates your writing skills. Chin up, soldier. Everybody quote dumps.

Informative/Explanatory Rubric ScoreConventions of Standard English 2The response demonstrates an adequate command of basic conventions. The response may include the following: Some minor errors in usage but no patterns of errors. Adequate use of punctuation, capitalization, sentence formation, and spelling

How to Approach the Essay Read the prompt first. Decide what it is the prompt is asking you to do. Rephrase what the prompt is asking you to do in the form of a question: – Write an explanatory essay to inform fellow citizens about the advantages of limiting car usage. Your essay must be based on ideas and information that can be found in the passage set. What are the advantages of limiting car usage? – Write an informational essay about the relationship between clothing styles and development in clothing creation. Your essay must be based on ideas, concepts, and information from the “Clothing Over Time” passage set. What is the relationship between clothing styles and development in clothing creation? Read all of the passages—always keeping the question in the back of your mind. Highlight/take notes on any information from the passages that helps to answer your question. Make sure to highlight/take notes on information in all of the sources. Once you’ve read the passages and highlighted/taken notes on information, take a moment to see what patterns you notice in the information—this will help you decide your organizational structure. – Is something being compared and contrasted? – Is something happening in chronological order? – Is there a cause/effect relationship between these ideas? – Is there an order of importance or something that seems more significant than other points made by the authors?

How to Approach the Essay Once you’ve decide your organizational structure. Write a thesis statement (you can always go back and make your introduction better later). This is the answer to the question!! – The advantages to limiting car usage are ___________________, ___________________, and ____________________. – The relationship between clothing styles and the development in clothing creation is ____________________________. Begin your body paragraphs. – If the only transitions you can use are first, next, last (the formulaic ones) then by all means use them. I would just start writing, and as I revised I would make sure that my reader will be able to see that I have transitioned to a different idea in each of my topic sentences. Also, make sure you hit enter and indent after each paragraph. Leaving yourself time to reread your essay and revise is critical. You need to read the prompt, create a question, read and take notes very quickly. If you take an hour and a half to do this part, you are not leaving yourself enough time minutes at the most. Give yourself 2 hours and 15 min. to write and revise. Remember that you need a satisfactory introduction and conclusion. Make the reader interested in what you have to say, and don’t leave them feeling like you could have said more.