Advances in the
PARCC
ELA/Literacy
Summative
Assessment
August 2013
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PARCC’s Fundamental Advance
PARCC is designed to reward quality
instruction aligned to the Common Core
State Standards, so the assessment is
worthy of preparation rather than a
distraction from good work.
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PARCC’s Core Commitments to
ELA/Literacy Assessment Quality
•
Questions Worth Answering: Sequences of questions that draw
students into deeper encounters with texts are the norm (as in an
excellent classroom), rather than sets of random questions of
varying quality.
•
Texts Worth Reading: The assessments use authentic texts worthy
of study instead of artificially produced or commissioned passages.
•
Better Standards Demand Better Questions: Instead of reusing
existing items, PARCC is developing custom items to the Standards.
•
Fidelity to the Standards: PARCC evidence statements are rooted in
the language of the Standards so that expectations remain the
same in both instructional and assessment settings.
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What is Different About PARCC’s
Development Process?
• PARCC states first developed the Model Content Frameworks
to provide guidance on key elements of excellent instruction
aligned with the Standards.
• Then, those Frameworks informed the assessment blueprint
design.
So, for the first time. . .
• PARCC is communicating in the same voice to teachers as it is
to assessment developers!
• PARCC is designing the assessments around exactly the same
critical content the standards expect of teachers and
students.
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What Are the Shifts at the Heart of
PARCC’s Design (and the Standards)?
1. Complexity: Regular practice with complex text
and its academic language.
2. Evidence: Reading and writing grounded in
evidence from text, literary and informational.
3. Knowledge: Building knowledge through
content rich nonfiction.
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The CCSS Shifts Build Toward College and
Career Readiness for All Students
Nine Specific Advances in the PARCC
ELA/Literacy Summative Assessment
Demanded by the Three Common Core
Shifts. . .
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Shift 1: Regular practice with complex
text and its academic language
1. PARCC builds a staircase of text complexity to ensure
students are on track each year for college and career
reading.
2. PARCC rewards careful, close reading rather than racing
through passages.
3. PARCC systematically focuses on the words that matter
most—not obscure vocabulary, but the academic language
that pervades complex texts.
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Shift 2: Reading and writing grounded in
evidence from text, literary and
informational
4. PARCC focuses on students rigorously citing evidence from
texts throughout the assessment.
5. PARCC includes questions with more than one right answer
to allow students to generate a range of rich insights that are
substantiated by evidence from text(s).
6. PARCC requires writing to sources rather than writing to decontextualized expository prompts.
7. PARCC also includes rigorous expectations for narrative
writing, including accuracy and precision in writing in later
grades.
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Shift 3: Building knowledge through
content rich nonfiction
8. PARCC assesses not just ELA but a full range of reading and
writing across the disciplines.
9. PARCC simulates research on the assessment, including the
comparison and synthesis of ideas across a range of
informational sources.
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Students’ Command of Evidence with
Complex Texts is at the Core of Every Part
of the Assessment!
SO. . .
Two standards are always in play—whether items are
focused on reading or writing. These standards are:
– Reading Standard One (Use of Evidence)
– Reading Standard Ten (Complex Texts)
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Three Innovative Item Types That
Showcase Students’ Command of
Evidence with Complex Texts
• Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR)—Combines a traditional
selected-response question with a second selected-response question
that asks students to show evidence from the text that supports the
answer they provided to the first question. Underscores the importance of
Reading Anchor Standard 1 for implementation of the CCSS.
• Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR)—Uses technology to
capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways that have been
difficult to score by machine for large scale assessments (e.g., drag and
drop, cut and paste, shade text, move items to show relationships).
• Prose Constructed Responses (PCR)—Elicits evidence that students have
understood a text or texts they have read and can communicate that
understanding well both in terms of written expression and knowledge of
language and conventions. There are three of these items of varying types
on each annual performance-based assessment.
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Questions Worth Answering:
Items demonstrate:
– Sequences of questions that draw students into deeper
encounters with texts (as in an excellent classroom), rather
than sets of random questions of varying quality.
– Opportunities for students to demonstrate what they
know, rather than what they don’t know; items allow for
partial credit
– Purposeful options for student expression of divergent
thinking
– Use of technology to allow students to construct meaning
for machine-scorable items
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Understanding the Literary Analysis Task
• Students carefully consider two literary texts worthy of close
study.
• They are asked to answer a few EBSR and TECR questions
about each text to demonstrate their ability to do close
analytic reading and to compare and synthesize ideas.
• Students write a literary analysis about the two texts.
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Understanding the Research Simulation
Task
• Students begin by reading an anchor text that introduces the
topic.
• EBSR and TECR items ask students to gather key details about
the passage to support their understanding.
• Students read one (Grade 3) or two additional sources (Grades
5 and 6) and answer a few questions about each text to learn
more about the topic, so they are ready to write the final essay
and to show their reading comprehension.
• Finally, students mirror the research process by synthesizing
their understandings into a writing that uses textual evidence
from the sources.
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Texts Worth Reading:
Grade 3
• Two of the sample items measure student understanding of
an excerpt from a book titled.
• The Prose Constructed Response (PCR) item also measures
student understanding of “The Peanut Man,” an article about
George Washington Carver.
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Grade 3, Item #1—Part A
The article includes these details about life:
• She wrote newspaper articles to tell others about what she saw in Alaska
to inform those who had not been there. (paragraph 1)
• She wrote the first guidebook about Alaska. (paragraph 1)
• She was the first woman to work at the National Geographic Society,
where she wrote many articles and books. (paragraph 11)
What do these details help show about?
a) They show that she shared the benefits of her experiences with others.*
b) They show she had many important jobs during her lifetime, but
becoming a photographer was one of her proudest moments.
c) They show that her earlier travels were more exciting than the work she
did later in her life.
d) They show that she had a careful plan for everything she did in her life.
Grade 3, Item #1—Part B
Ideas from paragraphs 1 and 11 were used to help you learn
about her. Click on two other paragraphs that include additional
support for the answer in Part A. There are more than two
paragraphs that include additional support, but you need to only
choose two.
Grade 3, Item #2—Part A
Which statement best describes how the events in paragraphs
13 through 15 are related to each other?
a) They explain how Washington, D.C., would change if cherry
trees were planted around the city.
b) They show that found a new way to get cherry trees planted
in Washington, D.C.*
c) They compare the ways and Mrs. Taft tried to add beauty to
Washington, D.C.
d) They describe how Mr. gave the idea to bring cherry trees to
Washington, D.C.
Grade 3, Item #2—Part B
Which sentence from the article best supports the answer in
Part A?
Grade 3, Item #3
You have read two texts about famous people in American
history who solved a problem by working to make a change.
Write an article for your school newspaper describing how she
and faced challenges to change something in America.
– In your article, be sure to describe in detail why some
solutions they tried worked and others did not work.
– Tell how the challenges each one faced were the same and
how they were different.
Understanding the Narrative Writing Task
• Students read one brief text and answer a few questions to
help clarify their understanding of the text(s).
• Students then write a narrative story.
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Texts Worth Reading:
Grade 6
• Julie of the Wolves was a winner of the Newbery Medal in
1973.
• This text, about a young Eskimo girl surviving on her own
in the tundra by communicating with wolves, offers a story
rich with characterization and imagery that will appeal to a
diverse student population.
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Grade 6, Item #1—Part A
Which statement best describes the central idea of the text?
a) Miyax is far from home and in need of help. *
b) Miyax misses her father and has forgotten the lessons he
taught her.
c) Miyax is cold and lacks appropriate clothing.
d) Miyax is surrounded by a pack of unfriendly wolves.
Grade 6, Item # 1—Part B
Which sentence best helps develop the central idea?
a) “Miyax pushed back the hood of her sealskin parka and
looked at the Arctic sun.”
b) “Somewhere in this cosmos was Miyax; and the very life in
her body, its spark and warmth, depended upon these
wolves for survival.”*
c) “The next night the wolf called him from far away and her
father went to him and found a freshly killed caribou.”
d) He had ignored her since she first came upon them, two
sleeps ago.”
Grade 6, Item #2—Part A
What is the purpose of this sentence in paragraph 1: “No roads
cross it; ponds and lakes freckle its immensity”?
a) It illustrates the theme that human beings should keep the
natural would pure and unpolluted.
b) It shows how beautiful the setting seems to Miyax.
c) It helps develop the theme that nature connects all living
things together.
d) It emphasizes how the setting of the story creates great
challenges for Miyax.*
Grade 6, Item #2—Part B
Which other sentence from the story serves a similar purpose?
a) “Quietly she put down her cooking pot and crept to the top
of a dome-shaped frost heave, one of the many earth
buckles that rise and fall in the crackling cold of the Arctic
winter.”
b) “They were wagging their tails as they awoke and saw each
other.”
c) “Winds scream across it, and the view in every direction is
exactly the same.”*
d) “Unfortunately, Miyax’s father never explained to her how
he had told the wolf of his needs.”
Grade 6, Item #3—Part A
(Prototype)
What does the word regal mean as it is used in the passage?
a)
b)
c)
d)
generous
threatening
kingly*
uninterested
Grade 6, Item #3—Part B
(Prototype)
Which of the phrases from the passage best helps the reader
understand the meaning of regal?
a)
b)
c)
d)
“wagging their tails as they awoke”
“the wolves, who were shy”
“their sounds and movements expressed goodwill”
“with his head high and his chest out”*
Grade 6, Item #4—Part A
(Prototype)
Based on the passage from Julie of the Wolves, how does Miyax
feel about her father?
a)
b)
c)
d)
She is angry that he left her alone.
She blames him for her difficult childhood.
She appreciates his thorough knowledge of nature.*
She is grateful that he planned out her future.
Grade 6, Item #4—Part B
(Prototype)
Which sentence from the passage best shows Miyax’s feelings
for her father?”
a) “She had been lost without food for many sleeps on the
North Slope of Alaska.”
b) “This could be done she knew, for her father, an Eskimo
hunter, had done so.”*
c) “Unfortunately, Miyax’s father never explained to her how
he had told the wolf of his needs.”
d) “And not long afterward he paddled his kayak into the Bering
Sea to hunt for seal, and he never returned.”
Grade 6, Item #5—Part A
(Prototype)
Choose one word that describes Miyax based on evidence from
the text. There is more than one correct choice listed below.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
reckless
lively
imaginative*
observant*
impatient
confident
Grade 6, Item #5—Part B
(Prototype revised to create sample item)
Drag and drop two details from the passage that support your
response to Part A into the box labeled “Supporting Details.”
Supporting Details
Grade 6, Item #6
(Prototype)
In the passage, the author developed a strong character named
Miyax. Think about Miyax and the details the author used to
create that character. The passage ends with Miyax waiting for
the black wolf to look at her.
Write an original story to continue where the passage ended. In
your story, be sure to use what you have learned about the
character Miyax as you tell what happens to her next.
Understanding the End-of-Year
Assessment
• Students will be given several passages to read closely.
• EBSR and TECR questions will be sequenced in a way that they
will draw students into deeper encounters with the texts and
will result in thorough comprehension of the concepts that
can also provide models for the regular course of instruction.
• These tasks will draw on higher order skills such as critical
reading and analysis, the comparison and synthesis of ideas
within and across texts, and determining the meaning of
words and phrases in context.
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Texts Worth Reading:
Grade 5
The sample items provide students an opportunity to read an
article and a corresponding side bar piece on the same topic.
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Grade 5, Item #1—Part A
What is the meaning of the word dictate as it is used in
paragraph 23?
a)
b)
c)
d)
hint
fix
understand
decide*
Grade 5, Item #1—Part B
Which phrase helps the reader understand the meaning of
dictate?
a)
b)
c)
d)
“recreate the tree house”
“determine the shape”*
“is less expensive to build”
“has all the time in the world”
Grade 5, Item # 2
Choose the two correct main ideas and drag them into the empty box
labeled “Main Ideas.” Then choose one detail that best supports each main
idea. Drag each detail into the empty box labeled “Supporting Details.”
Possible Main Ideas
Possible Supporting Details
Jonathan has his own 1000-yard zipline.
"In fact, as a tree house architect,
Jonathan has built more than 380 custom
tree houses across the United States."*
Jonathan is an experienced tree house
“Jonathan’s love of tree-house living
builder.*
began when he was a kid.”
Jonathan works carefully so that tree
houses do not hurt the trees.*
Jonathan lived in a tree house when he
was in college.
Jonathan advises readers to learn the
names of trees.
"It was the most fun I ever had."
"'I build a tree house so it helps the tree,'
he says."*
"'Walk in the woods and learn the
different trees. Spend time climbing and
learn how to do it safely.'"
Jonathan once built a house in a crab
“One of his favorite names is ‘Ups and
apple tree.
Downs.’”
Main Ideas
Supporting Details
Grade 5, Item #3—Part A
What is the purpose of the braces described in paragraph 6 of
the article?
a) They fix broken tree limbs, so a tree house will not fall down.
b) They lock several trees together, so almost any kind of tree
can be used.
c) They join two trees into one unit, so a tree house looks
secure.
d) They help trees hold up a tree house, so the trees will not
break.*
Grade 5, Item #3—Part B
Which two details from the article help support the answer to Part A?
a) “Designing unique tree houses may sound tough, but Jonathan
says it's no sweat.”
b) "’Hardwoods such as oak, maple, or hickory make the best trees
for houses—but I did once build a wonderful tree house in a
crabapple tree.’”
c) “’My tree house is in two trees—an oak and a fir—and has three
posts to support the weight.’”*
d) “As a certified arborist, Jonathan tries to never harm the trees.”*
e) "The tree's center of gravity is at the top and the ends of its
branches, so I build a house down at the center of the tree. . . ”
f) "The tree grows over the artificial limbs, and they become part of
the tree, . . .”
Grade 5, Item #4—Part A
Which idea is found in both the article about Fairoaks and the
side bar about Nelson?
a) Each tree house should be special for its owner.*
b) People should climb trees for practice before building a tree
house.
c) Having a tree house is good for people.
d) Going to a tree house school can be helpful in getting
started.
Grade 5, Item #4—Part B
Choose one detail from the article and one detail from the side
bar that support the answer to Part A. Drag each of the details
into the box labeled "Supporting Details."
Supporting Detail from Article
Supporting Detail from Side Bar
Summary of Items Released August 2013
• Grade 3 – EBSR, TECR, and PCR items that demonstrate the
types of items PARCC will use to measure reading for
information, reading vocabulary, written expression, and
knowledge of language and conventions claims on a research
simulation performance-based assessment task.
• Grade 4 – A sample of a complete literary analysis task.
• Grade 5 – Three sample items to indicate the types of items
that will appear on an End of Year Assessment.
Summary of Items Released August 2013
• Grade 6 – When combined with the early prototype items
released previously, educators can view a complete narrative
writing task.
Additional Materials Released
Simultaneously with the Sample Items:
• PARCC has revised the draft generic rubrics based on results
from two research studies completed in spring/summer of
2013. The rubrics remain in draft form to allow for results of
the upcoming field test to ensure effective rubric design.
• A white paper sharing ideas on potential means to use the
draft generic rubrics is being shared with the release of the
revised draft generic rubrics.
• In addition, PARCC has provided a white paper giving
examples of the types of forms that may be elicited with
PARCC Prose Constructed Response items.
A Strong Foundation:
The Common Core State Standards
• The Common Core State Standards in English language
arts/literacy and mathematics were created by educators
around the nation.
• Nearly every state in the nation is working individually and
collectively to improve its instruction and assessments to
ensure students graduate with the knowledge and skills
most demanded by college and careers.
• The PARCC assessment rewards this commitment by
providing an assessment focused on the instructional shifts
and academic skills needed to prepare all students for
college and career readiness in the 21st century.
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