2. 5 th Grade Writing

3. 5 th Grade Promotional Tests CRCT: Reading and Math State Writing Assessment

4. Writing Genres

5. Narrative Narrative writing tells a story. It has a distinct beginning, middle, and ending. Students are encouraged to use details, vivid verbs, and descriptive language.

6. Persuasive Students pick a side of a problem or situation and defend it with at least three supportive reasons. Restating their position at the end of the piece of writing is very important. This genre can be challenging because it requires the children to think of reasons why they feel a certain way.

7. Informational Informational writing explains a topic or educates the reader. Informational writing does not tell a story. Ideas are typically factual and clustered into sections. It may also answer the 5 W’s and H”: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

8. Testing procedures Students receive: one sheet with the prompt-used for planning, one drafting page, one final answer document Directions: to help students with the process. 15 minutes for planning 30-45 minutes for drafting Bathroom break 20-25 minutes for revising/editing 25-35 minutes for recopying

9. Anything that is not on the final answer document will not be scored. Sent to state- scored by 2-3 judges Results after about two months Remediation Retest

10. Scoring officials use writing rubrics. We use the same method when scoring our writing pieces. The students are shown these rubrics to gain better knowledge of what is expected of them.

11. Domains of Writing 1.Ideas – this domain counts twice as much as the other domains. It is important for students to include details and examples to score well in ideas. 2.Organization – Related ideas grouped together, clear sequence of ideas, use transitions to link parts of the paper 3.Style –word choice, variety of sentence types, awareness of audience 4.Conventions – sentence formation, usage (subject verb agreement, possessives, contractions, pronoun antecedent agreement), mechanics (punctuation, spelling, paragraph breaks, capitalization)

12. Sample Scored 5/5 Domain: Ideas

13. Persuasive Writing Prompt Some students want to have drink and snack machines at your school. Many parents, however, think those foods are not healthy for students. What do you think about having drink and snack machines in school? Write a letter to convince the principal that drink and snack machines should or should not be allowed at your school. (Copyright © 2005 Georgia Department of Education)

14. Example body paragraph from a student who made a 5 in Ideas Right now, you are probably thinking about money issues aren’t you? I have gotten all of that stuff worked out. I thought that in order to earn enough money for machines, we could have a fund raiser. It would be fun, exciting, and worthwhile. We could do something like a car wash or a lemonade stand. It would teach us how to work and earn money. Also, it would teach us responsibility. Hopefully, we will earn enough money for the drink and snack machines.  Prompt 5117  Full essay at: http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum- Instruction-and- Assessment/Assessment/Documents/2013 Grade 5 Topics and Sample Papers.pdfhttp://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum- Instruction-and- Assessment/Assessment/Documents/2013 Grade 5 Topics and Sample Papers.pdf

15. Weaknesses Students struggle to generate ideas and/or they have difficulty elaborating their ideas. How can you help?

16. Narrative: Ask your child to tell you a story. Encourage them to add details. If at any point you have a question about the story ask them to elaborate. Think about who, what, when, where, and why and use senses to describe events and how they felt.

17. If you ask your child how their day was and they say, “It was good.” Ask them to use a synonym for good. You could also ask them to compare it to something in a metaphorical way, “My day was almost as good as the last day of school.”

18. Encourage them to use vivid verbs. Instead of saying, “We ate pizza for dinner.” how about saying, “We devoured the pizza in one gulp.” When they tell you a story encourage them to use transition words to help them move through the story. “Finally the test was over, and the class celebrated by chanting loudly, We DID IT!”

19. Persuasive: When your child asks for something they want, ask them to persuade you by telling you why they should have it and how it will benefit them. Also, ask them to tell you why they think you might say “no” to them. In class we have taught them that this is the “con” and we ask students to think about how the reader might argue against them, then directly address it presenting a “kick back” to the con.

20. For example: Child: Mom, can I stay up late? Mom: Why should I let you stay up late? Child: Well, I got all of my homework done, I worked hard all day, I am not tired, and I would like to stay up to watch the Disney Channel. Mom: Why do you think I am against you staying up late tonight? Child: Mom, I know you are probably thinking I will be tired in school tomorrow and won’t be focused. You know Mom, that might be true if you let me stay up late every night this week, but I am asking only about tonight. I do not have any tests tomorrow and I promise to go to bed right after the show is over. Remember that time last year that you let me stay up late for High School Musical, I was not too tired the next day and was able to get all of my work done at school and completed my homework too.

21. Informative: Ask your child to walk you through the steps of doing things like making a sandwich, playing a game, teaching you something they learned how to do in school, explain their math problems to you and any other activity that involves steps that must be followed to complete it. Another excellent activity is to ask them to teach you about something they know a lot about by giving interesting details and facts.

22. If you read with your child and notice that an author has added nitty gritty details, provided new information, details on how-to steps, and/or personal experiences, stop and point them out to your child. Discuss how it enhanced the writing and made it more interesting to read. Talk about how the author writes. Can you “hear” the author’s voice? How did they catch and keep your attention?

23. Another writing technique is to include personal experiences in stories. These really impress the readers when done well. Tell your child stories that they can relate to and encourage them to reminisce about events in their life that connect to things they are learning about in school.

24. Reading and telling stories increases students’ ability to come up with ideas. Spelling and conventions are also included in the scoring. If your child struggles in either area, practice words on the Fry list, Wordly Wise vocabulary, review their own writing and revise spelling and punctuation errors.

25. Encourage your student to bring their writing journal home nightly to review writing samples. Work with your student to revise/edit writing samples to make the writing better. Refer to the Top 10 List for Writing to assist your child.

26. Top 10 List for Writing 2 FULL pages of writing Strong Paragraphs (topic, supporting, concluding sentences) Grabber Lead – Hook (dialogue, question, setting, action) Variety of Sentences (compound and complex, declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative) Specific Nouns (not “tools” but saw, hammer, and wrench) Strong and Active Verbs Transitions Words Show/Don’t Tell – Use of strong vocabulary Dialogue (speaker tags) Figurative Language-similes, metaphors, hyperbole personification, onomatopoeia.

27. Before School Writing Support Students have just completed their second mock writing test. These writing tests will be scored on Friday. The results will come home next week for your review. Based on the results, your student may be invited to attend writing support groups before school. Check with your child’s teacher about the need for writing support.

28. Questions?

29. Credit Thank you to Dr. Kevin Raczynski, professor at UGA, for providing teachers with numerous resources to help our students become successful writers. Much of this powerpoint was borrowed from his work.