Writing and the Common Core Utilizing Different Lenses to Maximize Student Learning

Start with the end in mind The Common Core Anchor Standards are designed to get our students college and career ready. Regardless of the student’s grade, they are all shooting for the same ultimate target. The materials presented today are tools to use when measuring student work against those goals. 5

History of the docs CCSS Anchors Standards Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Rubrics CCSS Progressions and Grade Level Standards Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop Guidance Documents 8 The documents being presenting today were developed to align with the CCSS requirements and the SBAC assessment rubrics. Over this past year the Writing Committee analyzed and discussed the following documents in great detail in order to create guidance documents for GAPS. The following is a look at the documents and resources we reviewed.

Multiple Vantage Points CCSS Anchor Standards SBAC Meets Grade Level Lucy Calkins We found these documents were each useful for viewing the new expectations from different vantage points. First from the most broad level we have the anchor standard At this time please take out your legal sized paper title Narrative and turn to the 3 column side.

Anchor Standards 1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. 2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. 3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences. 1 The nationally recognized CC AS give the broad and final expectation for students. As you can see here, as well as at the top of your document AS 1-3 cover the modes of writing. 1.Argument/Opinion Writing, 2. Informative/ Explanatory Writing, and 3. Narrative Writing.

Multiple Vantage Points CCSS AS SBAC “Meets” CCSS- Grade Level Lucy Calkins Next, we have the SBAC rubric level three. The level three is considered “meets” for the Smarter Balanced Writing Performance-Task Rubric. We have included the criterion for a level 3 on the SBAC Rubric on the left hand column of your document.

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Rubric 1 The SBAC level three is what is represented in the left column of your document. This information comes directly from the “meets” level of the SBAC 4 point rubric which will be used for assessing students on their Smarter Balanced assessments in the future.

Multiple Vantage Points CCSS AS SBAC “Meets” CCSS- Grade Level Lucy Calkins The next resource we analyzed were the CCSS Grade Level Standards and Progressions for writing. These are represented in the middle column of your document. These are included in full by grade level as they are the guiding structure by which you will design your lessons. All grades standards for K-5 are available on the ELA Portal.

Grade Level Standards 1 The progression documents seen here are available on the ELA Portal.

Multiple Vantage Points CCSS AS SBAC “Meets” CCSS- Grade Level Lucy Calkins After a week long training this summer with the team from the Reading Writing College, we took a fresh look at the Lucy Calkins materials and how they may be used to assist teachers. The third and final column on your document reflects the “what to look for in student writing.”

This column is representative of the Writer’s Workshop concepts which coordinate with the CCSS requirements; they are also just best practice in writing. These “look fors” are a helpful place to start when analyzing student papers. Of course, for a cut and dry evaluation of student writing we will look to the official district writing rubric which you will find on the back side of this document in just a moment.

Journey Album Album Title – CCSS Album– SBAC Page- Grade Picture– Student Paper 17 minutes to here Another way to look at this side of the document is to see it as a photo album of your journey to meeting the common core expectations. It leads you through an album of the resources you have from broad to narrow. The Title of the album would be the Anchor Standard, the album as a whole is the SBAC requirements, a single page in the album would be the Grade level Standards while a single snap shot on the page would be the “look fors in student writing.”

Now what? Rubrics Document – Standards based including SCORING CENTER For Classroom Use For Student Use RUBRICS ARE A PRODUCT TOOL NOT A TEACHING TOOL – we use it, you use it so kids use it… No more questions about which rubric to use – 1 for each mode for each grade. (Problems are being solved) 5 minutes silent look 5 minutes talk to table GET NARRATIVE – 1 sided document out & highlighters.. 10 to score 5 more to talk (calibrate) STUDENT USE --- SLIPS -- Slip – Elaboration and Narrative Techniques 3rd Grade 3 How to – Students– Slip- 3 Score (show of hands- level?) 2 minute talk 33 minutes

Big Ideas in Narrative Writing Non-Fiction Narrative “Narrative Techniques” is new to our rubric. One type of narrative we might not be as familiar with is non fiction narrative as represented here from a fourth grade Ready Gen text.

Narrative 5 minutes Pick a highlight– have them review doc.– Non- Fiction Narrative (Ready Gen Example) Narrative Techniques is new to our rubric Things to consider when teaching Project page of book

Assessments Baseline Three District Common Assessments Flash Draft Performance based tasks 7 min– Base Line Flash Draft 30-45 minutes TOTAL Base line= really, where they came in… for comparison later. This year (at least) we are not turning these in. See prompt doc next page…

Base Line Prompt Please read through this document Note the final paragraph outlining the purpose behind the baseline work sample

First Grade Baseline Writing Sample 4 minutes Student work sample

Narrative Prompt Looks similar, some notable differences: One to two days depending on grade level (not a five writing day writing process) Why? SBAC- Real Life Purposes for writing (XXXXXXXXXX process writing vs writing on demand XXXXXXXXXXXXXX) Performance Task Narrative: Picture to write to Informative/ Explanatory Two resources to read and synthesize information from Opinion: Given resources in which with opposing view points are presented and they give their opinion for agreeing or disagreeing with the authors’ stance For our District Narrative Writing Assessment students in grades 1-5 are being given one picture to write to and students in K are being given another. Scoring Center will have updated training 6 minutes Narrative prompt

Mentor Texts 15-30 Informational text standard and Narrative writing standards and how they are connected through the mentor text (it gets at both and shows the reading writing connect) How you use it for Reading and Writing– How is writing constructed- Take the books and deconstruct them… Help kids understand the reading writing connection. Informational- Main idea and supporting details Narrative- Elaboration Unlocking writing standards using the text in reading (and vice versa)

Making the Reading Writing connection Writing: CCR Anchor Standard 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. Reading Literature Text: Key Ideas and Details: CCR Anchor Standard 2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas. An example of how, when working with a mentor text, you can pull standards from both reading and writing to focus and measure. How is writing constructed- Take the books and deconstruct them… When making an assignment you can teach to multiple subject standards in single lesson (e.g., writing and reading) –Robin Campbell –Pinnacle

Launching into OUR Early Release P.D. Between now and the September P.D. we would like you to reflect on the learning today with the following activity: Choose one of your first narrative reading selections from your core OR select a picture book from your personal collection which you feel would be a powerful mentor text. As you view your text, decide which standards you can teach using this mentor text OR if your brain works in the opposite direction, look at your text and decide which standards you can teach using the mentor text. Finding mentor texts is a big job. This way we are each doing a small piece of this job and sharing it with our colleagues. >>>>>>> At the September early release: <<<<<<<< Share why your mentor text is a great one for teaching the standards you chose. As you prep for your task please note the highlighted progressions for Reading and Writing are available on the ELA portal.