Assessing English Language
Arts Common Core Standards
LISA CLARK
INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDER
QUAIL LAKE ENVIRONMENTAL CHARTER
SCHOOL
Smarter Balanced
—  Training/Overview/Expectations
—  Sources and text are referred to as “stimuli.”
—  Questions are referred to as “stems.”
—  Performance tasks incorporated all three types of
responses: selected response, constructed response,
and some kind of end write or speech. However,
Answers needed to be evidence based, but not directly stated in
text.
¡  No outliers were allowed (answer choices were to be uniform
in length and grammar).
¡  All answers needed to be plausible.
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Sample Performance Tasks
—  Performance Tasks incorporate multiple standards
and multiple claims.
—  Students may be expected to write an opinion essay
until 5th grade, then in 6th grade it will transition to
argument. They must be able to write for or against
a position, and may not get to choose which position
they want to take.
—  Multiple sources are used as stimuli for the tasks.
For grade 3, up to 2 sources could be used. For
grades 5- HS, up to 5 sources could be used.
Questions Used to Assess Understanding
—  Smarter Balanced said CST questions were “too
traditional.”
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If you have questions where the students can go back to the stimuli
and find the answers spelled out for them in the text or video, they
will need some revisions.
—  Don’t ask students to “write about” something. Instead,
ask students:
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To explain why/what/how something happened or was needed.
What evidence does the author provide to show__?
What additional information or questions would better help you
understand __?
What information leads you to believe or understand__?
How does this information further help you understand__?
Your Assignment
(PT) XXXX was a XXXX who lived and
XXXX more than XXXX years ago. The
video and the articles tell how important
his XXXX was both in the past and even
today. Using your notes from the video
and the articles, write a narrative story
from the point of view of XXXX as a young
XXXX. You should present factual
information about XXXX and also create a
sense of what it was like for him to grow up
as a child prodigy. Your audience is your
teacher and the students in your class. Use
all the materials from Part 1 to help you
write your story.
Piloting the Common Core Assessment
—  Quail Lake piloted a sample fourth grade
assessment.
—  We discovered issues that extended beyond just
access to technology:
Keyboarding
¡  Navigating tools
¡  Drawing tools
¡  Split screen text, scrolling between the two sources
¡  Responding in writing to math questions
¡  Not referring to the text when responding to constructed
response items
¡  Perseverance through long passages of text
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—  In some cases, the test was adaptive. Students got
more difficult questions depending on their answers.
—  We conducted short “exit interviews” with the
students after the test.
Almost all students responded that “it was fun” or they “liked it
better than filling in bubbles.”
¡  Some students said the test was “hard” and some said “there
was a LOT of reading.”
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How We Have Responded and What We Are
Doing Now to Prepare Students
—  After we piloted the assessment, we debriefed as a staff
and asked ourselves: What instructional shifts can we
implement now that do not detract from our current
instructional and assessment focus?
¡
SUSD teachers are incorporating HOT questions into lessons and in
checking for understanding. PLCs decide on HOT questions during
meeting time and record them in PLC notes. At Quail Lake, teachers
have Bloom’s Taxonomy flip charts and are consistently using them
during instruction.
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SUSD has been intentional in training teachers to incorporate more
cross-curricular writing into existing lessons. Junior High PLCs are
planning lessons together that incorporate writing across the content
areas.
—  SUSD has placed an emphasis on having students
justify their answers.
—  After piloting the assessment, teachers felt that
students needed to move beyond justification;
students need to learn to respond with supporting
evidence.
Teachers are teaching lessons about good examples of
evidence.
¡  Some teachers are adding “evidence boxes” to existing lessons.
¡  Students are being required to provide justification and
evidence on whiteboards and on tests.
¡
Language, such as “convince me” and “prove it to me,” are
being used by teachers and students. Students are voting on
“convincing evidence.”
¡  Tier 2 and Tier 3 academic vocabulary words are visible and
explicitly taught.
¡  Students are learning to take notes from sources. These
sources include video clips as well as audio clips. They use
these notes when they complete an end write or project.
¡  Teachers are incorporating “Thinking Tools” to help students
organize their thinking to produce writing and projects.
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Resources to Use Now
Teachers have expressed concerns about finding good
informational sources. These sources are readily available
in most school libraries, or probably should be:
—  Scholastic
—  Ranger Rick
—  Time for Kids
—  National Geographic for Kids
—  Kids Discover
—  Spider
—  Highlights
—  Websites with .gov