Fitch High School February 6, 2014 Fitch High School February 6, 2014

 Presenters:  Andrea Davis, Coordinator of English 6-12  Amy McKenna, English teacher, grades 9 &11  Presenters:  Andrea Davis, Coordinator of English 6-12  Amy McKenna, English teacher, grades 9 &11

 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium  Designed to measure student achievement of the recently adopted Common Core State Standards for English/language arts and Mathematics. 

 Based on student responses, the computer program adjusts the difficulty of questions throughout the assessment.  These assessments present an individually tailored set of questions to each student  This approach represents a significant improvement over traditional paper-and-pencil assessments used in many states today, providing more accurate scores for all students across the full range of the achievement continuum.

There are six major shifts in the focus of English instruction with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for College and Career Readiness (CCSS)

 Increased text complexity  Evidence- based writing ( writing arguments)  Academic vocabulary  Reading nonfiction  Reading and writing across content areas  Text-referenced reading response (close reading)

 Assessments are composed of reading, writing, listening and research. Assessments include a shift in:  Text complexity across literary and informational texts; greater exposure to informational texts  Writing for multiple purposes and to different audiences (i.e. narrative, informational/expository, and opinion/argumentative across all grade levels)  Writing to source materials  English Language Conventions  Performance Tasks (PT)

 2 Hour non-performance section of test that includes assessment reading and responding in short and multiple choice answers, as well as listening to podcasts and answering questions about what was listened to. Questions about editing and revising are included.  2.5 Hour Performance Assessment that includes a 30 minute in-class teacher- whole class activity.  Next slides will show sample for grade 11.

 Performance tasks measure a student’s ability to integrate knowledge and skills  Measure the depth of understanding, research skills, and complex analysis  Some parts are scored automatically; many will be hand-scored by professionally trained readers.

 Issue:  There has been much debate about the role of government-funded public art. Your local city council is holding a meeting to decide if city funds should be used to finance public art in your town.  Before you attend the meeting, you do some initial research on this topic and uncover four sources (two articles, a website, and an editorial) that provide information about government-funded public art.

 After you have reviewed these sources, you will answer some questions about them. Briefly scan the sources and the three questions that follow.  Then, go back and read the sources carefully to gain the information you will need to answer the questions and finalize your debate stance.

 In Part 2 assignment:  Your local city council is voting on whether to use city funds to pay for a sculpture to be created and placed in the town center. Today you will write a multi-paragraph argumentative letter that will be presented to the city council that argues either in support of or in opposition to the city government-funded sculpture. Make sure to address potential counterarguments in your letter and support your view with information from the sources you have examined.

 Using SBAC released rubrics to assess student work throughout the school year  Increasing opportunities to read nonfiction texts and practice close reading  Embedding Academic Vocabulary across the disciplines ( as part of the team approach)  Practice with listening and responding  Research writing that requires reading multiple sources

 Please take a flyer with you