https://sites.google.com/a/cesa11.k12.wi.us/gsd/home/english-language-arts

We are using this google site to keep track of the ELA curriculum work....and curriculum resources

We are using this Curriculum Blog to keep track of the work of our curriculum teams this year:

https://sites.google.com/a/cesa11.k12.wi.us/gsd/

The Office of Educational Accountability has just released 5 new informational handouts and related links regarding all assessments for K-12 students starting in 2014-15. The biggest change is in high school testing, as ACT discontinued the Explore and Plan assessments. Instead, ACT  joined Pearson to create a new entity and the test is called ACT Aspire. 

• General information from ACT: Transitioning from Explore/Plan to Aspire (link)
• ACT’s Resource Page: Topical FAQ About Aspire (link)

In addition, a Parents Guide to New Assessments has been created for use with parents and others in the community to assist in understanding the new assessments and schedule.

• 2014-15 Tentative Wisconsin Assessment Schedule (PDF)
• Wisconsin's New Assessments (PDF)
• Parents Guide To New Assessments in Wisconsin (PDF)

See all info at http://tinyurl.com/wiscsbac1 or at http://oea.dpi.wi.gov/oea_wiassessmt.

WI Online Assessment Readiness

Practice Tests - DPI link

January 2014

Smarter Introduces Training Test complete with full accommodations/accessibility features

In May 2013, Smarter Balanced introduced its online Practice Test (http://sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/). Since that time, teachers and students have used this tool to experience grade-level assessments in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Over time, a variety of new features that will be included in the Smarter Balanced Field Test this spring and in the 2014-15 Operational Test will continue to be added to the Practice Test.

Today (January 30, 2014), Smarter Balanced introduces its Training Test (http://sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/). The Training Test is designed to serve three key purposes:

1. Provide a means for students and teachers to quickly become familiar with the features of the Smarter Balanced assessment software interface.
2. Provide a means for students and teachers to experience new item types that do not currently appear on the Practice Test. 
3. Provide a means for students and teachers to preview universal tools, designated supports, and accommodations.

Recommended Reading Websites

The Common Core State Standards team through DPI has launched the English Language Arts Professional Learning Community, a Google community where PK-16 ELA educators may engaged in dialogue around practice and research. This is an open community that allows members to share their ideas through links, posts, and comments. It is organized in categories—reading, writing, speaking and listening, language, instruction, assessment, etc. The categories are located in the left margin under the logo.: http://bit.ly/WIDPIELA.

New Assessments Begin in 2014-015.

Smarter Balanced Assessments:  Here's the DPI web page devoted to SMARTER:  http://oea.dpi.wi.gov/oea_faqsbac

It will be good if we are all as prepared as possible for the new assessments. To that end, we encourage you to click on the links and try out the assessment questions so you have a feel for what our students will be experiencing.

Try going to the sample test and using the resource page designed to assist teachers in understanding the test format and type of questions as well as how they are scored.http://sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/ Also on that page, look at the resources and documentation page.

Smarter Balanced Assessments for Grades 3-8:

Practice Test: 
http://sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/

Scoring Guide: 
http://sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/resources/#scoring

FYI --- the WKCE will still be given in the fall for science and social studies. 

ACT Suite – Aspire – online version for grades 9 and 10. 
Timing of assessments – 4 hours total testing for all five subjects.  The average single test duration as low as 30 minutes and not greater that 65 minutes per test.

Sample test questions:  http://www.discoveractaspire.org/pages/test-features

Disciplinary Literacy

Literacy in all content areas is critical  for learners.  The Common Core Standards related to Disciplinary Literacy was first introduced to our staff in the fall of 2010 with a PowerPoint presenting the roll out of our ELA Curriculum which you can view here: 2010 ELA Curriculum Power Point.  We used what we had learned from Cris Tovani as a launching point for beginning the discussion of Disciplinary Literacy.  It is time for us to revisit and reflect on what we are doing to help students meet these standards.  To help make sure we have a common understanding I encourage you to view the following 4 minute video:  Literacy in Other Disciplines
The Wisconsin DPI has created a site with support for teachers of all content areas: Wisconsin's Approach to Disciplinary Literacy!  This site provides good information for all of us including their Disciplinary Literacy Suitcase which has great professional development available.  Not all resources they hope to provide on this site are there yet but, there are enough to be helpful for most of us. Another resource from the WI DPI is their worksheet for Developing Performance Tasks which is helpful for teachers to review as you reflect on the work students are doing and how that work might change to align better with the CCSS.  To compliment that there is a template for how you might write a performance task for your content area: Performance Task Template
It is so critical for every teacher to support and teach with strategies that will help our students master the standards.  Close Reading is one strategy that can be implemented in every classroom to help meet the standard requirements.  This video 2:47 video of Douglas Fisher explains what it is:  Douglas Fisher:  Close Reading and the CCSS Part 1, I encourage you to follow up with the 3:01 video of part 2 Douglas Fisher:  Close Reading and the CCSS Part 2 The above graph shows that by 12th grade the CCSS expect 70% of the reading students do to be from informational texts.  This is not expected to happen in the English Classroom.  Yes, they are making a shift to using more informational texts but the only way we will get to the recommended levels is if we as a system all support ensuring our students are reading and meaningfully processing (comprehending) content specific text. If you have not yet read the CCSS for ELA & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects I encourage you to do so today!  Pages 3-8 provide much of the reasoning behind the standards and are worth your time.  Again, it is essential for all content area teachers to ensure students are reading content specific text, and teach students how to use textual evidence meaningfully in their application of content specific standards..