ccss aligned composition guidance. ela instructional shifts 1.increased emphasis on informational...

CCSS Aligned Composition Guidance

ELA Instructional Shifts

1. Increased emphasis on informational text

2. Building knowledge in the disciplines

3. Increased exposure to complex text

4. Evidence/text based answers

5. Writing from primary and secondary sources

6. Academic vocabulary such as: analyze, source, evaluate, synthesize

Previous 4th Grade Composition Prompt

Think about an activity that you enjoy sharing with someone in your family or with your friends. It could be eating or preparing a favorite meal, listening or dancing to music, playing or watching a game or sport, visiting a special place, or doing some other activity.

Write a personal narrative about your favorite time enjoying this activity. In your narrative, include details about when and where the experience happened and who shared the experience with you. Describe what happened during the experience and why you enjoyed the activity. Be sure your narrative has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Use your Planning and Draft Pages when planning your narrative. Then write your narrative on the lined pages in this Test Booklet. Only what you write in this Test Booklet will be scored.

CCSS Aligned 4th Grade Writing Prompt

Characters do things for different reasons. Authors show these reasons through the thoughts, words, and actions of characters.

Three of the characters in “Fishing Secrets,” Hawk, Willow, and Bee, have different reasons for their actions. What are these reasons? How are they shown to the reader by each character’s thoughts, words, and actions?

In your response, be sure to:

•Describe the reasons behind each character’s actions and how these reasons are shown in the story.

•Use specific details, such as thoughts, words, or actions, from the story to support your description.

•Include a beginning, a middle, and an end in your writing.

Be sure to check your writing for correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

http://osse.dc.gov/service/dc-cas-composition-prompts

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Imagine a perfect vacation.

In a well-developed composition, describe what you consider to be a perfect vacation. Be sure to include specific details about the things you would see, hear, and feel while taking this vacation.

Use your Planning and Draft Pages when planning your composition. Then write your composition on the lined pages in this Test Booklet. Only what you write in this Test Booklet will be scored.


When writing letters to the editor to provide a personal response to news articles, authors must present their views in a logical and persuasive way. Authors may offer factual details to support their arguments or try to appeal to readers’ emotions. Newspapers often publish letters from people on different sides of an issue, such as one letter in favor of a specific point of view and one letter opposing that point of view.

The two letters in response to an article about the USDA’s new image, the MyPlate graphic, present differing viewpoints. Explain the viewpoints of the two authors, and then analyze the effectiveness of each author’s argument. How does each author support his or her position? Is each argument successful?

•As you plan, write, and edit your analysis, be sure that you:

•Describe each author’s viewpoint.

•Describe how each author supports his or her position.

•Explain whether or not the supporting evidence provided by each author is effective or not.

•Support your response with specific evidence from each letter.

•Provide an appropriate introduction and a conclusion.

•Be sure to check your writing for correct grammar, spelling, and mechanics.


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Directions: Think carefully about the ideas presented in the question below and the assignment that follows.

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”-Maya Angelou

Assignment: Who is likely to accomplish more—the person who adjusts to society as it is, or the person who attempts to change it? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your ideas on this theme. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experiences, or observations.Use your Planning and Draft Pages when planning your essay. Then write your essay on the lined pages in this Test Booklet. Only what you write in this Test Booklet will be scored.


Often, authors of literary texts use characters to advance the plot or to convey a message in a narrative. They might do this by describing what a character does, says, or thinks. In the narrative “The Shawl,” the author is attempting to convey the message that concern over material things and status can interfere with one’s enjoyment of life.

Write an essay explaining how the author uses the character of Elizabeth to convey a message that being concerned with material possessions and status can negatively impact one’s life. Be sure to analyze how Elizabeth changes or stays the same over the course of the narrative. Also examine the actions or reactions of the other characters.

As you plan, write, and edit, be sure that you:

•Examine how the author conveys this message through the character of Elizabeth.

•Consider the author’s descriptions of Elizabeth’s thoughts, words, and actions.

•Analyze Elizabeth’s interactions with other characters.

•Include an introduction, a logical arrangement of ideas, and a conclusion.

•Be sure to check your writing for correct grammar, spelling, and mechanics.


How are CCSS aligned assessments scored?

3 rubrics:•Topic Idea Development•Standard English Conventions•Understanding Literary or Informational Text

RUBRICS

#1: Topic/Idea Development

Score Description

6 • Rich topic/idea development• Careful and/or subtle organization• Effective/rich use of language

5 • Full topic/idea development• Logical organization• Strong details• Appropriate use of language

4 • Moderate topic/idea development and organization• Adequate, relevant details• Some variety in language

3 • Rudimentary topic/idea development and/or organization• Basic supporting ideas• Simplistic language

2 • Limited or weak topic/idea development, organization, and/or details• Limited awareness of audience and/or task

1 • Limited topic/idea development, organization, and/or details• Little or no awareness of audience and/or task

Score Description

4 • Control of sentence structure, grammar and usage, and mechanics (length and complexity of essay provide opportunity for student to show control of standard English conventions)

3 • Errors do not interfere with communication and/or• Few errors relative to length of essay or complexity of sentence structure, grammar and usage, and mechanics

2 • Errors interfere somewhat with communication and/or• Too many errors relative to length of the essay or complexity of sentence structure, grammar and usage, and mechanics

1 • Errors seriously interfere with communication AND• Little control of sentence structure, grammar and usage, and mechanics

#2: Standard English Conventions

Score Description

4 The response demonstrates an understanding of the complexities of the text.• Fully addresses the demands of the question or prompt• Effectively uses explicitly stated text as well as inferences drawn from the text to support an answer or claim

3 The response demonstrates an understanding of the text.• Addresses the demands of the question or prompt• Uses some explicitly stated text and/or some inferences drawn from the text to support an answer or claim

2 The response is incomplete or oversimplified and demonstrates a partial or literal understanding of the text.• Attempts to answer the question or address the prompt• Uses explicitly stated text that demonstrates some understanding

1 The response shows evidence of a minimal understanding of the text.• Shows evidence that some meaning has been derived from the text to answer the question• Has minimal textual evidence

#3: Understanding Literary or Informational Text

CCSS: Types of Writing

Narrative Writing:

•conveys experience and uses time as its deep structure

•can be used to inform, instruct, persuade, or entertain

Informational/Explanatory Writing:

•conveys information accurately

•aims to make the reader understand rather than to persuade him or her to accept a certain point of view

Argument:

•a reasoned, logical way of demonstrating that the writer’s position, belief, or conclusion is valid

Common Core State Standards, http://corestandards.org

The CCSS Appendices Can Help

• Appendix A: Complex Text Guidance (and supplement)

• Appendix B: Complex Text Samples/Performance Tasks

• Appendix C: Writing Samples

# 5 Writing from Sources

• The ability to draw specific evidence from text to support claims and arguments

• Students get to the end result a different way; through reading complex text and responding to it through their writing

Brown, Shiela and Kappes, Lee. (2012). Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A Primer on “Close Reading of Text”. Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute.

PARCC Model Content Framework

“The inherent difficulty of reading and comprehending a text combined with consideration of reader and task variables.”

-CCSS Appendix A

“Performance on complex texts is the clearest differentiator in reading between students who are likely to be ready for college and those who are not.”

-ACT Reading Between the Lines

Complex Text

What is Complex Text?

What’s the Difference? Informational vs. Literary Text

•Informational text: Text designed to convey factual information, rather than tell or advance a narrative.

•Literary Text: Works of literature that convey a message

What is Close Reading?

• Involves an investigation of a short piece of text, with multiple readings done over multiple instructional lessons.

• Careful and purposeful rereading of a text

• Use of text-dependent questions that draw students deeper into the text and that can only be answered with evidence from the text

• Transaction between the reader and the text - understanding what the author has to say and bring your own ideas to the text

Brown, Shiela and Kappes, Lee. (2012). Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A Primer on “Close Reading of Text”. Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute.

Douglas Fisher: Close Reading and the CCSS, video retrieved on January 10, 2012 at http://www.schooltube.com/video/2586a181320549d687f4/Douglas%20Fisher:%20Close%20Reading%20and%20the%20CCSS,%20Part%201

CCSS Appendix BInformational Text – Grades 9-10

CCSS Appendix BLiterary Text Grades 9-10

CCSS Writing Standards

• Offer a focus for instruction each year to help ensure student mastery of a range of skills and applications.

• Allow students to demonstrate increasing sophistication in all aspects of language use, from vocabulary and syntax to the development and organization of ideas, and they should address increasingly demanding content and sources.

• Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.

Writing Structure…

Can Students Write:

A Paragraph consists of several sentences that are grouped together to discuss one main idea.

• Topic sentence Sets up and states the main idea of the paragraph

and tells the reader what to expect from the paragraph

• Supporting sentences (at least 3) Back up the main idea Specific examples help make the main idea clear to

the reader

• Concluding Sentence Should tie all the ideas in the paragraph together

http://www.brainpopjr.com/readingandwriting/writing/writingaparagraph/grownups.weml

Elementary Templates:

Secondary Templates:

Student Sample Grade 1:

Process Writing

1. Prewriting

-brainstorm to generate ideas for writing

2. Drafting

-put ideas on paper

3. Revising

-adding, rearranging, removing, replacing

4. Proofreading/Editing

-mechanical, grammatical and spelling errors are fixed

5. Publishing

-piece of writing is prepared in final form

Writing Structure

Can your students write a multi-paragraph essay?

Introductory Paragraph

-Includes the thesis statement

Body Paragraphs

-Supporting paragraphs

-Each paragraph is a different example of support for the thesis

Concluding Paragraphs can

-Revisit (restate) the thesis

-Make a future prediction

-Sum up ideas

Example Outline

Example Essay Writing Sheet

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/26330594/Standard-Multi-Paragraph-Essay-Format

CCSS Appendix BGrade 3 Student Sample

Exemplar: 4th grade writing prompt








4th Grade Response – No Quotes!

The three characters in the story “Fishing Secrets” act in different ways when the chief of the tribe is walking in the water with his fishing spear. Hawk, Willow and Bee all have different thoughts, words and actions for what they see.

Hawk wanted to be like the chief. He knew that Chief Bear was better than him at catching fish and so he copied what Chief Bear was doing. Even though he didn’t catch any fish by doing what Chief Bear was doing, Hawk still thought Chief Bear knew best. Hawk fell on the slippery stones into the cold water but still continued to fish that way.

Willow wanted to seem smart. She wondered what Chief Bear and Hawk were doing, but she didn’t say anything. She thought she wouldn’t “seem very smart” if she asked a question that seemed so silly. So, she fished like the men even though it didn’t make much sense to her.

Bee didn’t question herself and wanted to solve problems. She didn’t worry about asking silly questions or copying what others were doing. She wanted to figure out what was happening and that is why she asked Chief Bear what he was doing.

Each character had a different reason for why they acted the way they did. Hawk wanted to keep up with Chief Bear. Willow didn’t want to look silly. These two reasons made Hawk and Willow act in a foolish way. Bee’s reason for her actions was to solve problems instead of guessing at what was happening. She did not act in a foolish way, like Hawk and Willow. These are three different reactions to Chief Bear’s actions in “Fishing Secrets.”

• Use quotation marks to enclose a direct quotation – a person’s exact words

• Place quotation marks both before and after a person’s exact words

“When the bell rings,” said the teacher, “leave the room quietly.”

• Begin with a capital letter

Lisa said, “Let’s study math together.”

• A comma or period should be inside the closing quotation marks

“The Jones’ built a new house,” said our neighbor.

• Question marks/exclamation points should be inside the closing quotation marks

“Are we there yet?” asked the small child.

Can Students Use Quotation Marks?

Exemplar with Quotations

In the story “Fishing Secrets,” three characters act in different ways when they see the chief of their tribe walking in the water with his fishing spear. The reasons that each character acts differently are shown in their thoughts, words, and actions.

Hawk wanted to be like the chief. He knew that Chief Bear was better than him at catching fish and so he copied what Chief Bear was doing. Even though he didn’t catch any fish while copying Chief Bear, Hawk still thought Chief Bear knew what he was doing. Hawk fell on the slippery stones into the cold water but continued to fish in the same way.

Willow wanted to appear smart. She wondered what Chief Bear and Hawk were doing, but she didn’t say anything. She thought she wouldn’t “seem very smart” if she asked “a silly question.” So, she fished like the men even though it didn’t make sense to her.

Bee didn’t question herself because she wanted to solve problems. She didn’t worry about asking silly questions or copying what others were doing. She wanted to figure out what was happening which is why she asked Chief Bear what he was doing. Each character acted differently for a different reason. Hawk wanted to keep up with his fellow tribesman, Chief Bear. Willow did not want to look silly. These two reasons made Hawk and Willow act in a foolish way. Bee’s reason behind her actions was to solve problems instead of guessing what was happening. She did not act in a foolish way. These are three different reactions to Chief Bear’s actions in “Fishing Secrets.”

CCSS Resources – LearnDC.org

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