Tennessee Writing Assessment In Transition

1. Tennessee Writing AssessmentIn Transition TCTE Annual Conference September 29, 2012 Pat Scruggs Curriculum Specialist, Literacy Williamson County Schools TDOE ELA Leadership Council laurettas@wcs.edu

2. Why Change? • To support student and teacher readiness for PARCC • Writing in response to text • Computer-based assessment • Eighth and Eleventh Grade online • Fifth Grade optional (computer or pencil/paper) • To reflect the shifts of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts

3. Format Changes • Text-based • Students will read a passage and cite evidence from the text in the response • Scored using trait-based rubrics specific to mode: • Informative/Explanatory • Narrative • Opinion/Argument

4. Accountability Under NCLB waiver, the writing assessment will no longer be factored into accountability for schools or districts Will not figure into teacher value-added data Data will be reported on TDOE Report Card Teachers may elect to use writing assessment data for 15% student achievement portion of evaluation

5. ELA Instructional Shifts

6. An Integrated Approach to Writing • The modes look different under CCSS • Narrative writing “conveys experience, either real or imaginary, and uses time as its deep structure.” • Many purposes: • Inform • Instruct • Persuade • Entertain

7. Common Core Approach to Writing Writing is not a set of splintered and unrelated acts dictated by a set of arbitrary strictures corresponding to each mode, but an organic process which often requires students to draw from a variety of techniques and skills depending on the context.

8. Anchor Standard #4 “Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience.” Students will “know how to combine elements of different kinds of writing – for example, to use narrative strategies within argument and explanation within a narrative – to produce complex and nuanced writing.”

9. KEY DIFFERENCE • Text-Dependent • Students will read one or more texts, which may include visual texts, such as charts or political cartoons, and write in response to those texts using textual evidence. • Requires: • Reading comprehension • Ability to draw evidence from a source

10. http://www.achievethecore.org/downloads/E0702_Description_of_the_Common_Core_Shifts.pdfhttp://www.achievethecore.org/downloads/E0702_Description_of_the_Common_Core_Shifts.pdf http://tncore.org/ http://www.corestandards.org/ http://www.parcconline.org/