Victoria Young Discusses EOC Writing at TCTELA - HS

Below are my notes from TEA ELA Director Victoria Young's presentation at TCTELA. I have tried to clean them up but they aren't perfect. I was typing with my iPad balanced on my lap. :)

Go here and scroll to the bottom  for the Power Point presentation that accompanied this presentation: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/staar/writing/

Notes from Victoria Young TCTELA Presentation

Short Answer

*All students must understand what constitutes a credible idea in response to a question.

*An idea represents the quality and depth of thinking and understanding

Idea for a score 3 is perceptive, coherent, discerning and clearly analytical

Idea for a score 2 is reasonable and specific; goes beyond literal reading

Literal reading WILL BE a score 1

Score 1 lacks explanation or specificity usually it is "sort of" a reasonable idea but too general to know if it is valid

Score 0 is not answered, outside boundaries of text, flat wrong or too vague or unclear to determine reasonableness of idea

Text Evidence

The whole purpose of text idea is to prove that your idea is valid. It substantiates the reader's ideas and reflects the degree to which the reader can connect his ideas to the pieces of text that BEST support that idea... they aren't just looking for support but also well-chosen support

Students struggle with questions like "find the similarity" because it greatly limits the text evidence they can choose... perhaps we are doing students a disservice when we state they are right if they can support... maybe we need to focus more on sometimes there is only one right answer?

New prompt page design... Graphic at top (either a row of triangles, diamonds or boxes) of each prompt... the corresponding answer document will have the same graphic at the top. This is meant to decrease confusion as to which pages to write their essays.

VY said students need to know that 1 means very limited, 2 means basic, etc. Said any student writing on a level 1 or even 2 in HS is "in trouble"

She shared distribution of essays across state:

March Essay State Score Distributions

English I Expository

Score 2-11%

Score 3-13%

Score 4-28%

Score 5-20%

Score 6-17%

Score 7-6%

Score 8- 3%

English I Literary

Score 2-7%

Score 3-9%

Score 4-37%

Score 5-24%

Score 6-17%

Score 7-4%

Score 8-9%

December English I Retest Score Distribution

English I Expository

Score 2-30%

Score 3-22%

Score 4-33%

Score 5-9%

Score 6-3%

Score 7-1%

Score 8-0%

English I Literary

Score 2-7%

Score 3-9%

Score 4-37%

Score 5-24%

Score 6-17%

Score 7-4%

Score 8-1%

December passing rate: Ballpark is 40% at Level 2 

Observations about use of space in essays:

• Ineffective
• Intros that repeat prompt, incorporate an unnecessary framing device or include preview statements (5-9 lines)
• Conclusions that simply repeat intro
• use of filler
• Sentences that do not improve the quality of the idea
• Unnecessary, inappropriate or disruptive rhetorical questions or questions that directly address the reader- persuasive writing sometimes lends itself to these but they are being overused and used ineffectively in all forms of writing

Reminders- Literary Writing

• Literary piece must be a story, but students have latitude in determining how to respond to the prompt
• Can be based on real or imagined people
• must be narrowly focused
• can be written from any POV- 1st, 2nd, or 3rd
• Should not include extraneous details- anything that does not further the readers understanding of the core of the story itself-  they always weaken the plotline
• Judicious use of literary strategies and devices is important
• Two examples:
• Description can be effective but too much can cause disruptions in the story line
• Ditto with dialogue especially since it takes up so much space when working within 26 lines
• In the literary prompt there will never be a pronoun just a general idea... they do this so that students can know they can go in any direction

Reminders- Expository

• The essay must be responsive to both the purpose and the topic. Many try to use a narrative framing device which is not very effective. They are trying to explain their thinking and then reflecting on their thinking and it just isn't working. Or they are picking marginal ideas to explain which are off topic but related to the topic... causes an issue.
• Essays are weakened by inappropriate or marginally appropriate organizing structure
• Inclusion of extraneous ideas weakens the essay
• An outside audience is implicit in the prompt, they should assume they are writing for an educated adult audience but their job is NOT to persuade them simply to explain
• Concerning thesis- must be explicit and specific and the earlier in the paper, the better. (Change from previous VY statements)
• Any pronoun is okay (1st, 2nd and 3rd) as long as students are explaining. Even a shift can be okay although students are doing this throughout the essays and isn't generally ideal.
• Students are trying write on ideas that are complicated or abstract for their writing skills- how to shift them to write about what they understand?
• Ideas and development can be based on students own lives/experience and on their knowledge of the world and modern culture BUT development is most effective when it is based on what they TRULY know.
• Lack of transitions and reliance on perfunctory transitions (1st, 2nd, 3rd) which effects development- a roadblock to substance/depth/thoughtfulness because writer does not build from one idea to the next
• Clusters of ideas that link to the prompt but not to one another- important in all cases but esp if ideas are different "grain" sizes (pretty much described Bernabei's strategy as NOT GOOD)

Reminders- Persuasive Prompts

• EOC prompts will focus on issues that are relevant to teenagers but don't require them to bring in background knowledge or facts in order to have a good essay
• student MUST center their paper around a clear position
• students not required to address other side, make concessions or counterargument but can if they want to but they only have 26 lines
• It is not so much the breadth of the argument as the depth- students need to think of the writing space (26 lines) when planning their approach
• VY continues to advocate a narrow focus because they don't have the space for both deep and wide
• Specific examples are necessary to support a position. Ideas should be ordered to maximize their persuasiveness
• can use ethos, pathos, logos or a combination
• NO FALSE EVIDENCE- statistics, quotes, anything.