Looking Within to Find Our Way Forward!

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Looking Within to Find Our Way Forward!
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STAAR Writing Performance ExpositoryState and
FBISDs Results
2014 Expository Summed Scores 2014 Expository Summed Scores FBISD
1/1 2 17 14
1/2 3 14 12
2/2 4 38 41
2/3 5 15 16
3/3 6 11 11
3/4 7 3 3
4/4 8 1 2
And we have 67 Basic Writers in
Expository With only 85 8s out of 4633 student
papers.
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How do your scores compare?

• Look at your campus data
• What is the of basic writers?
• Do the results surprise you?
• Why or why not? Explain

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What Drives Scoring?

• Responsiveness
• Focus
• Progression/Connections
• Development

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WritingWhat Drives Scoring

• RESPONSIVENESS to both the purpose and the topic.
  Responsiveness is weakened when the student
• Does not address the topic AND/OR
• Does not respond to the purpose
• Students must also use the appropriate organizing
  structure expository. Big pieces of expository
  were written in personal narrative
• Students cant be removed from the topic or
  adjacent to the topic They must address the
  topic

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WritingWhat Drives Scoring

• FOCUS
• Must be focused on the central charge of the
  prompt (the Write about)
• An explicit, specific controlling idea is
  critical to a focused essaythe earlier in the
  paper, the better.
• Focus is weakened when the central idea is
  general or vague
• Some students have multiple ideas rather than a
  specific central idea, thus their paper is
  superficially developed

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WritingWhat Drives Scoring

• PROGRESSION/CONNECTIONS
• What isnt required a specific number of ideas
  or paragraphs
• What is required moving logically from sentence
  to sentence and connecting ideas with meaningful
  transitions so that the reader can really
  (easily) follow the students train of thought
• Progression/connections are weakened when the
  student
• moves randomly from sentence to sentence
• does not use transitions or use them effectively
  to connect ideas

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WritingWhat Drives Scoring

• PROGRESSION/CONNECTIONS
• The biggest problem we see when an essay is
  lacking in this area
• clusters of ideas that are each linked to the
  prompt but not connected to each other
• a roadblock to substance/depth/thoughtfulness
  because the student does not build from one
  idea to the next
• Remember
• Unconnected ideas superficial development
• Superficial development a score of 2

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WritingWhat Drives Scoring

• DEVELOPMENT
• Given the space constraints of 26 lines, what
  makes the most sense
• Narrow and deep development
• fewer ideas with more depth better than more
  ideas with less depth
• Building meaning from one idea to the nexteach
  idea enriched/enhanced by what came before it

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WritingWhat Drives Scoring

• DEVELOPMENT
• What causes the worst development problems
• Formulaic approaches (e.g., 5-paragraph
  essays)almost always result in a lack of
  thoughtfulness, individuality, depth
• Remember
• The best development is real, based on a
  students own experiences and thinking about the
  world.

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Now Its Your Turn
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Looking at the 2s

• Locate your set of 2s
• Divvy them up and work in pairs. Read and
  discuss each paper.
• Jot down what patterns/ahas you have as a group
  what are the student needsteaching needs for
  writing at this level? Be specific.

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Looking at the 4s

• Locate your set of 4s
• Divvy them up and work in pairs. Read and
  discuss each paper. How are these papers
  different from the 2s?
• Jot down what patterns/ahas you have as a group
  what are the student needsteaching needs for
  writing at this level? Be specific.

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Looking at the 6s

• Locate your set of 6s
• Work as whole group. Have someone read each paper
  aloud - discuss each. How are these papers
  different from the 4s?
• Jot down what patterns/ahas you have as a group
  what are the student needsteaching needs for
  writing at this level? Be specific.

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Debrief
What are the major areas of weakness in the
students writing?
Where do we go from here?