PARCC ELA/Literacy Assessment Are we ready for 2014-2015 ?

1. PARCC ELA/Literacy AssessmentAre we ready for 2014-2015 ? Jennifer Walker, ELA Instructional Consultant j.walker@mahoningesc.org 330.965.7828, 1116

2. The Future of Assessments & the Implications for Our Teaching PARCC Assessment Information

3. What Are the Three Shifts at the Heart of PARCC Design (and the Standards)? • Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language. • Evidence: Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text, literary and informational. • Knowledge: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction. See PARCC PowerPoint Overview of the New ELA/Literacy Sample Items(scroll to the bottom of the page for the link)

4. Assessment DesignEnglish Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics, Grades 3-11 2 Optional Assessments/Flexible Administration End-of-Year Assessment • Innovative, computer-based items • Required Mid-Year Assessment • Performance-based • Emphasis on hard-to-measure standards • Potentially summative • Performance-Based • Assessment (PBA) • Extended tasks • Applications of concepts and skills • Required Diagnostic Assessment • Early indicator of student knowledge and skills to inform instruction, supports, and PD • Non-summative Speaking And Listening Assessment • Locally scored • Non-summative, required

5. Round 1 – Performance Based Assessments

6. Standards NOT Assessed in the PBAs • RL & RI 10 will be assessed through the complexity of the texts students will be given to read. • The Speaking & Listening Assessment has been postponed until 2015-2016.

7. Round 2 – End-of-Year Summative Assessment

8. ELA/Literacy Assessment Times

9. Reporting Categories Results of the ELA/Literacy assessments will be reported in three major categories: • Reading and comprehending a range of sufficiently complex texts independently • Writing effectively when using and/or analyzing sources. • ELA/Literacy based on a composite of students’ reading and writing scores. • Students will receive both a scale score and performance level scores for ELA/Literacy, and scale scores for the reading and writing categories.

10. Performance Level Descriptors • Performance Level Descriptors or PLDs describe what students at each performance level know and can do relative to grade-level or course content standards assessed. • PLDs capture how all students perform show understandings and skill development across the spectrum of standards and text complexity levels assessed. • ELA/Literacy Grade Specific PLDs

11. 5 Levels of Student Performance • Level 5: Students performing at this level demonstrate a distinguished command of the knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the Common Core State Standards assessed at their grade level. • Level 4: Students performing at this level demonstrate a strong command. • Level 3: Students performing at this level demonstrate a moderate command. • Level 2: Students performing at this level demonstrate a partial command. • Level 1: Students performing at this level demonstrate a minimal command.

12. Three Question Types Evidence Based Selected Response (EBSR) • Rigorous multiple choice questions • Part A and Part B questions ask students to show the evidence in a text that led them to a previous answer. • Addresses multiple standards.

13. EBSR Questions Scoring: • 2 points are awarded when the student correctly chooses the answer to Part A and the answer to Part B. • 1 point is awarded when the student correctly chooses the answer to Part A but incorrectly answers Part B. • No points are awarded when the student answers both Part A and Part B incorrectly, or the student answers only Part B correctly.

15. Three Question Types Technology Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR) • This ELA/literacy item uses technology to capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways that have been historically difficult to capture using current assessments. • Examples include using drag and drop, cut and paste, and highlight text features. • Addresses multiple standards. • Sample TECR Question

16. Three Question Types Prose Constructed Response (PCR) • Item type on the PARCC ELA/literacy assessments in which students are required to produce written prose (essay) in response to a test prompt. • These measure reading and writing claims. • The writing prompts are in response to the texts, and are never isolated from the reading.

17. Sample PCR Prompt Research Simulation PCR, Grade 3 • You have read two texts about famous people in American history who solved a problem by working to make a change. Write an article for your school newspaper describing how Eliza and Carver faced challenges to change something in America. •  In your article, be sure to describe in detail why some solutions they tried worked and others did not work. • Tell how the challenges each one faced were the same and how they were different.

18. Standards Assessed on Grade 3 Research Simulation PCR Prompt

19. PBAs- What Are the Expectations of the Three Tasks? Narrative Task • The Narrative Task broadens the way in which students may use this type of writing. Narrative writing can be used to convey experiences or events, real or imaginary. • Students will be given one text, either fiction or nonfiction. • In this task, students may be asked to write a story,  detail a scientific process, write a historical account of important figures, or to describe an account of events, scenes or objects, for example. • Example of 6th Grade Narrative Task

20. PBAs- What Are the Expectations of the Three Tasks? Literary Analysis • Students will be given two literary texts with a common theme or subject. This task will ask students to carefully consider literature worthy of close study and compose an analytic essay. • The Literature Task plays an important role in honing students’ ability to read complex text closely, a skill that research reveals as the most significant factor differentiating college-ready from non-college-ready readers. • Example of 10th Grade Literary Analysis Task

21. PBAs- What Are the Expectations of the Three Tasks? Research Simulation • Students will demonstrate the career- and college- readiness skills of observation, deduction, and proper use and evaluation of evidence across text types. • Students will analyze an informational topic presented through several articles or multimedia stimuli, the first text being an anchor text that introduces the topic.  • Students will engage with the texts by answering a series of questions and synthesizing information from multiple sources in order to write two analytic essays. • Example of 7th Grade Research Simulation Task

22. Word Count Guidelines for ELA/Literacy Assessment Reading Passages

23. Next Steps…

24. What We Should Be Observing in Classrooms

25. Questions to Discuss… • Is our curriculum aligned to the CCSS? Continue to deconstruct the CCSS and better understand how we will ask students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. • How are we integrating fiction, nonfiction, media and writing? Are our students able to synthesize multiple texts? • What is the role of writing in our curriculum? Are students able to write to texts rather than to isolated prompts?

26. Questions to Discuss… • Use the Text Complexity checklist to evaluate the texts used in your curriculum. What texts will remain appropriate for our students, and which may need to be moved to another grade level, or simply removed? • Are students being provided opportunities to read and draft on the computers? • How can we use the PARCC testing philosophies to guide some of the decisions we make in our instruction and assessment?

27. Questions to Consider When Looking at the PARCC Prototypes • What are the tasks students are asked to complete? • What do we need to understand about the tasks? • What kinds of texts are students being asked to read? • What kinds of questions are students being asked to answer? • What kind of writing are the students expected to construct? • How does the task align to the standards and reflect best practices? • Describe the response items and how they align to the standards and best practices? • Other implications about this task…

28. Looking Further into PARCC • Contents of the Grade- and Subject-Specific Performance Level Descriptors: ELA/Literacy • PARCC Grade and Subject Specific Performance Level Descriptors (PLDs) Frequently Asked Questions • PARCC ELA Testing Blueprint • Sample PARCC Online Test