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1. This month’s late start/early release is slightly veering from close reading to live in the moment of what you guys are asking for, which is more information and a better picture of the FSA ELA Assessment.

2. First, please know how remarkable of a job you are doing in the face of such change. We have new standards, changed standards, new assessments, changed assessments, etc. and while you are stressed, you are doing a fantastic job with Okaloosa County kids every single day.

3. I know many of you are stressed and this offers little solace, but every teacher in Florida’s 67 counties are feeling the exact same way as you. I had the pleasure of sitting on the ELA content review committee and was able to gauge other counties preparedness levels. While some counties are still unpacking the standards, we have committed to the ELA Literacy shifts, close reading, writing from sources and other best practices that will impact student achievement. Hillsborough County asked for our Social Studies FSA rubric that our working group created! That is huge and something for which you all should be proud!

4. By teaching the process of close reading, you are equipping your kids with the analytical skills necessary to be successful on readers, writers and citizens. Close reading is a life skill that kids have to get used to in order to succeed in college AND career. We begin with a quote from the DOE on close reading for that purpose. This quote specifically mentions close reading, as do the newly redesigned SAT informational documents. Today, instead of focusing on close reading protocol, you will see how close reading will give your students an advantage on the ELA FSA.

5. The text-based writing rubrics were released a couple of weeks ago during the content review meeting. If you remember, the rubrics were released in DRAFT format in July and opened to comment from all Florida stakeholders. They did take into account every comment and the comments were rendered actionable or not. Based on that, they then made slight tweaks to the rubrics for grades 4-11.

6. The rubric, analytic in nature, is used to drill down to specific domains of the rubric. For example, a student can score a 4 in purpose, focus, and organization while scoring a 3 on evidence and elaboration. In the case of these rubrics, a score point of 3 indicates the student has met the standard.

7. The biggest changes to the rubric in ALL grades is that adequately and generally were added to purpose, focus, and organization score point 3. A clearly stated opinion is the biggest change made to the opinion rubric in grades 4-5.

8. In grades 6-11, the most important change was that a student CANNOT make a score point of 3 or higher if they have not cited evidence. The writing working group felt this was implied, but it is now explicitly stated in the rubric.

9. Importantly, the writing working group for high school created some exemplars based on their first 9 weeks informational writing. Middle school is meeting in early December to do the same thing. When using the rubric, remember to pay closer attention to the overarching statements. While the bullets are important, they should not be turned into a checklist for the reason that a student might hit MOST of the bullet points but not all and they would still be considered a 4. The most important thing to remember is that you should use your professional judgment!

10. Since we are teaching academic writing, students in grades 4 and 5 should be able to use sources at the most basic levels. This might be in the form of simple but clear details and facts from the passages, a paragraph number, an author or title’s name, even, for the most adept writers at this age, direct quotations. If a student can use a direct quotation, that is great, but the use of sources can come informally, too.

11. For grades 6-11, the citation of sources is expected and directly stated in the rubric. It is important to note that if a student does not use a direct quote from a source or sources, they cannot make higher than a 2 on evidence and elaboration.

12. Let’s look at what this looks like in student writing. The following samples are Exemplars from the Writing Working Group who met to find exemplar papers from the informational writing done the first 9 weeks. This informational writing is the practice prompt on the FSA Portal. This first example is a top score and we see the student has lifted quotations from the sources provided.

13. The second exemplar highlights a popular question teachers ask: the 4-2 split. This split comes because the analytic rubric scores the students in 3 categories separately and this student was beautifully organized, however they had no direct citations from the sources. Instead, they merely summarized and paraphrased. This is exactly what the 4-2 split looks like.

14. I want to take a moment to thank the members of the middle and high school writing working group for pouring through student samples to find these exemplars as well as for creating the wonderful documents such as the social studies FSA rubric, the one page rubric and the student friendly rubric.

15. A pitfall of writing seen throughout the county was that the majority of students merely summarized instead of getting to the analysis level with their essays. We all thought our students would do better with informational writing, however what you all indicated is that students are having a difficult time moving beyond simply summarizing sources. There are several things you can do to help this! From close reading to having your students write RAFTS or DBQs…that process of writing will help your students move beyond summary and paraphrasing the text.

16. Some people are a little surprised by the ELA Reading AND listening items. The state is proud of the fact that they are assessing listening standards on all computer based tests. This will come in the form of an audio of some kind. There will be NO video on the assessment this year due to technology and bandwidth restraints. The audio could be in the form of a student speech or a student research project and presentation with a slide show presentation. The audio can be paused or re-started as many times as students need to replay it to answer the questions. No paper based tests will include listening items.

17. Revised resources will be released soon. The Blueprints have been revised to clean up language and make slight tweaks for teachers to better understand the new assessment. It is important to note that not all states give teachers blueprints and test specs since they were intended for test makers and item writers. The cluster/domain that will change on the blueprints (which are just a recommendation) is Integration of Knowledge and Ideas. It was too difficult creating quality items at this domain. Teachers and administrators were given these documents in August and DOE says to use them to help familiarize students with item types.

AT 16 MINUTES AND 40 SECONDS, PAUSE TO FIELD ANY QUESTIONS PARTICIPANTS MIGHT HAVE BEFORE ACCESSING THE PORTAL PORTION OF THE PRESENTATION

Also, have participants write three take-aways from the beginning section…

18. (At the portal)- this section will highlight the new technical features available on the portal. Once the secure download happens, sign ins will be required, instead of all people being able to access the portal. Right now the practice tests are still by grade band.

19. Functional buttons in the Writing Section:

·  Arrow is for wide-screen

·  Note Pad can be moved and is not specific to a line number, save what you type

·  Line reader allows for keeping track of where you are in the text

·  Highlight functionality is built in to passages, highlight text you want, then right click and the option comes up

·  Typing buttons include bold, italicize, underline, bullet, increase indent, special characters

·  Cannot copy and paste anywhere in stimuli or notes, can in essay for revisions

20. All essay prompts will have a purpose setting statement to orient students

21. (Reading and listening section notes)

·  Multi-select will have number students need to choose (ex. Two sentences) and number will be bold

·  Open response should be 2-5 sentences. 1 point item, so no partial credit, no intro. necessary

·  Listening section will not be a video this year. Will be an audio of some kind. Can pause, or replay as often as necessary

22. Grammar section will have two passages, total 10 questions

·  Students have to choose correct answer, even if error highlighted is correct

·  Standards L.1.1 and L.1.2 will get the job done! J

PLEASE SEND YOUR UNANSWERED QUESTIONS TO MELISSA BOWELL