Common Core State Standards for ELA/Literacy

1. Common Core State Standards for ELA/Literacy Key instructional shifts and the impact on assessment Jenny Howard SCDE Office of Assessment jyhoward@ed.sc.gov 1

2. Rationale for the CCSS Declining US competitiveness with other developed countries NAEP performance that is largely flat over the past 40 years in 8th grade • Slight improvement at the 4th grade level • Slight decline at the high school level High rates of college remediation

3. Principles of the CCSS Aligned to requirements for college and career readiness Based on evidence Honest about time

4. Common Core State Standards for ELA/Literacy: Key Instructional Shifts

5. ELA/Literacy: 3 Instructional Shifts Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

6. Shift #1: Building Knowledge Through Content-Rich Nonfiction Much of our knowledge base comes from informational text Informational text makes up the vast majority of required reading in college/workplace (80%) Informational text harder for students to comprehend than narrative text Yet,students are asked to read very little of it in elementary (7 - 15%) and middle school CCSS moves percentages to • 50:50 at elementary level • 60:40 at middle school* • 75:25 at high school* (*includes ELA, science, social studies)

7. ELA/Literacy: 3 Instructional Shifts Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational

8. Shift #2: Reading, Writing & Speaking Grounded in Evidence, Both Literary and Informational • Most college and workplace writing requires evidence. • Ability to cite evidence differentiates strong from weak student performance on NAEP • Evidence is a major emphasis of the ELA Standards: Reading Standard 1, Writing Standard 9, Speaking and Listening standards 2, 3 and 4, all focus on the gathering, evaluating and presenting of evidence from text. • Being able to locate and deploy evidence are hallmarks of strong readers and writers

9. What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous? What can you infer from King’sletter about the letter that he received? “The Gettysburg Address” mentions the year 1776. According to Lincoln’s speech, why is this year significant to the events described in the speech? Shift #2 Text-Dependent Questions Not Text-Dependent Text-Dependent In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something. In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair. In “The Gettysburg Address” Lincoln says the nation is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Why is equality an important value to promote?

10. Sample Literary Question: Pre-Common Core Standards From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Have the students identify the different methods of removing warts that Tom and Huckleberry talk about. Discuss the charms that they say and the items (i.e. dead cats) they use. Ask students to devise their own charm to remove warts. Students could develop a method that would fit in the time of Tom Sawyer and a method that would incorporate items and words from current time. Boys played with dead cats and frogs, during Tom’s time. Are there cultural ideas or artifacts from the current time that could be used in the charm?

11. Sample Text Dependent Question: Common Core Standards From The Adventures of Tom SawyerWhy does Tom hesitate to allow Ben to paint the fence? How does Twain construct his sentences to reflect that hesitation? What effect do Tom’s hesitations have on Ben?

12. ELA/Literacy: 3 Instructional Shifts Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational Regular practice with complex text and its academic language

13. Shift #3: Regular Practice with Complex Text and its Academic Language Gap between complexity of college and high school texts is huge. What students can read, in terms of complexity is greatest predictor of success in college (ACT study). Too many students reading at too low a level (Less than 50% of graduates can read sufficiently complex texts). Standards include a staircase of increasing text complexity from elementary through high school. Standards also focus on building vocabulary that is shared across many types of complex texts and many content areas.

14. What are the Features of Complex Text? • Subtle and/or frequent transitions • Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes • Density of information • Unfamiliar settings, topics or events • Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences • Complex sentences • Uncommon vocabulary • Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student • Longer paragraphs • Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures

15. Reflecting on the Instructional Shifts for ELA/Literacy

16. Instructional Shifts Mean a Change in Practice! • From… • Content knowledge primarily from teacher-led lecture • To… • Content knowledge comes from a balance of reading, writing lecture, and hands-on experience

17. Areas to Watch for Progress In relation to the shifts, consider: • Instructional materials and resources • Teacher knowledge and practice • Student work

19. Big Question What impact will these “shifts” have on assessment? 19

20. How does the Smarter Balanced assessment differ from our current (SC) state tests? PASS – multiple choice, writing (independent prompt) EOCEP – all multiple choice HSAP – multiple choice, constructed response, writing (independent prompt) 20

21. Selected response (SR) • Constructed response (CR) • Technology enhanced item (TE) • Performance task (PT) 21

22. Cognitive Rigor Matrix 22 This matrix from the Smarter Balanced Content Specifications for ELA draws from both Bloom’s (revised) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and Webb’s Depth-of-Knowledge Levels below.

23. Cognitive Rigor and Depth of Knowledge The level of complexity of the cognitive demand. • Level 1: Recall and Reproduction • Requires eliciting information such as a fact, definition, term, or a simple procedure, as well as performing a simple algorithm or applying a formula. • Level 2: Basic Skills and Concepts • Requires the engagement of some mental processing beyond a recall of information. • Level 3: Strategic Thinking and Reasoning • Requires reasoning, planning, using evidence, and explanations of thinking. • Level 4: Extended Thinking • Requires complex reasoning, planning, developing, and thinking most likely over an extended period of time. 23

24. The Performance Task The PT involves significant interaction of students with stimulus materials and/or engagement in a problem solution ultimately leading to an exhibition of the students’ application of knowledge and skills, often in writing or spoken language. A key component of college and career readiness is the ability to integrate knowledge and skills across multiple [content] standards. Smarter will address this ability through performance tasks because it cannot be adequately assessed with selected or constructed response items. 24

25. “One of the aspects of the consortia’s work that represents perhaps the greatest departure from current state testing practice is the inclusion of performance tasks, which engage students in more complex, prolonged exercises.” “They {vendors} are used to writing items for state tests that do not get at this depth of knowledge.” Education Week – Aug. 14, 2012 25

26. “Performance tasks ask students to research and analyze information, weigh evidence, and solve problems relevant to the real world, allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in an authentic way. ” “The Smarter Balanced assessment system uses performance tasks to measure skills valued by higher education and the work-place--critical thinking, problem solving, and communication-- that are not adequately assessed by most statewide assessments today.” Linda Darling-Hammond 26

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28. Parts of a Performance Task Part 1: Student reads research sources and responds to prompts (Claim 1 or 4) Part 2: Student plans, writes, and revises his or her full essay (Claim 2) or plans and delivers a speech (Claim 3) 28

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33. Estimated testing time for Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment in ELA/Literacy 33