The Healthy Way to Prepare for PARCC: Using PARCC’s ELA Resources

Test taking can be a stressful experience for students. However, with the right preparation and resources, instructors can prepare students for PARCC so that they will be confident on test day. We believe that for a student to perform at his or her personal best, he or she must be familiar with the test content, comfortable with the test-taking environment, and equipped with test-taking strategies. Fortunately, PARCC provides the tools and resources that an instructor needs to address all three.

Content

One may think that being aligned with the test content is synonymous with being aligned with the Standards. But this is not the case. How can one test evaluate students’ acquisition of all of the Standards? PARCC assesses a good many of the Standards, but cannot address all of them. For instance, PARCC assesses three vocabulary concepts within the Reading Standards (context clues, denotation vs. connotation, and identifying the meaning of unknown words) but none of the Language Standards (Exception: Students are evaluated on grammar and mechanics in the writing tasks.)

Instructors can better understand how PARCC assesses any given ELA Standard by reviewing the PARCC Evidence Tables for Reading and Writing.

Paired Texts

One way that PARCC assesses the Standards is to utilize paired passages. Besides creating thematic units of study, using paired or companion texts is a relatively new concept in the study of English language arts. Instructors can hone their understanding of how and why one should use paired text by using PARCC’s Passage Selection Guidelines (Information about selecting paired or multiple texts begins on page 11). Below is a list of reasons (paraphrased from the PARCC guidelines) why PARCC uses paired passages.

1. Compare literary elements, such as theme.

2. Compare central ideas, topics, and/or events (including same event and point of view) in two or more informational texts.

3. Compare and/or analyze different versions of the same text (literature or informational texts).

4. Analyze how ideas are transformed from one text to another literary or informational text.

5. Integrate information for a purpose.

6. Compare text structures.

7. Analyze supplemental elements.

Text Complexity

Another way to align instructional practice with PARCC’s content is to ensure that the level of text complexity is similar to PARCC’s as well as the Standards'. For a more complete understanding of measuring text complexity instructors can review the Common Core’s Appendix A.

To measure text complexity, PARCC uses two worksheets:

Literary Text Analysis Worksheet

InformationalText Analysis Worksheet

If instructors are still unsure about how to use these worksheets they can refer to the Passage Selection Guidelines for more detail.

Environment

PARCC is novel in their test-taking design. PARCC (and most of the new online state tests) utilize something call a technology-enhanced item (TEI). According to PARCC’s glossary of terms, “TEIs are items administered on a computer and take advantage of the computer-based environment to present situations and capture responses in ways that are not possible on a paper-based test.” Students need practice with this format so that navigating these items becomes second nature.

Fortunately, PARCC provides practice tests that can be taken online or as paper-and-pencil tests.

This year, instructors can also use PARCC’s released samples from the Spring 2014-2015 testing, which is provided for grades three through eleven (released test items).

Strategies

There are many ways that instructors can help students to perform at their personal best on any standardized test. One of those strategies is to help students understand the test construct and to develop personal strategies in relationship to the test item requirements. An example of this is to teach students how to score the writing tasks for the NWTs, LATs and RSTs. When students learn how to score essays, theirs and others, they become acutely aware of what’s expected out of their own essays. (See Scoring Rubrics: grade 3, grades 4-5, grades 6-11 .)

PARCC also provides scored student samples with annotations of their scoring rationale. PARCC’s annotated released samples are for the Reading Comprehension and Written Expression portion of the rubric. Also, PARCC provides separate samples on each grade level for the Language and Conventions portion of the rubric.

Sample releases can be accessed on PARCC’s Partnership Resource Center.

Creating EBSRs and TECRs

Lastly, another strategy to assist students with PARCC is to replicate the structure of the test items in daily work. One way to do this is to use PARCC’s Evidence-Based Selected Responses (EBSRs) and Technology-Enhanced Constructed Responses (TECRs) with classroom literature.

Two PARCC resources can be used to assist with this process. One document is the scoring guide for PARCC’s EBSRs and TECRs. With this document instructors know how to score their student results.

And another more complex document is called the Item Guidelines for ELA/Literacy PARCC Summative Assessment. Within this document are specifications on how PARCC creates EBSR and TECR items.

Below are PARCC’s recommendations for creating these items.

EBSR and TECR Questions:

·         “Good text dependent questions will often linger over specific phrases and sentences to ensure careful comprehension of the text—they help students see something worthwhile that they would not have seen on a more cursory reading.

·         An effective set of text dependent questions delves systematically into a text to guide students in extracting the key meanings or ideas found there.

·         They typically begin by exploring specific words, details, and arguments and then move on to examine the impact of those specifics on the text as a whole.

·         Along the way they target academic vocabulary and specific sentence structures as critical focus points for gaining comprehension.”

EBSR and TECR Distractors:

·         “The primary purpose of a distractor is to provide evidence that a student is not able to meet the standard(s) assessed due to student misconceptions.

·         Distractors must be plausible responses to item stems.

·         Items should not use negative distractors (the exact opposite of the correct answer).

·         The written style of all distractors in an item should be similar to that of the correct response(s).

·         Answer responses (distractors) are not ordered alphabetically by first word or by short to long.

·         In Part B, when writing the distractors for evidences, all of the answer choices must be the same type of citation of evidence (e.g. all quotes or all paraphrases).

·         Particular care must be taken for Part B items, where students are asked to select evidence from the text such that distractor wording to achieve parallelism in style does not overly impose distractor wording.

·         All answer choices for Part B must be accurate/relevant/from the passage.”

Conclusion

At times educators speak about the ills of teaching to the test. PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and many of the state-created assessments are now a strong reflection of the Standards. We have to implement the Standards. But as pragmatic educators we should also consider how to assist our students with the specific experience, similar to the way we teach someone to play soccer and not just sports. PARCC has unique attributes. If we are to understand our student’s ability to implement the Standards on these high stakes tests, then we need to prepare them for this test in particular, and not tests in general.

Victoria Pagonis

Founder and President

Standards Solution Holding, LLC

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Preparing for PARCC - Blog Series Part VII

Preparing for PARCC

Creating PARCC-Like English Assessments – Part 1 EBSRs

This post is part of our blog series on PARCC. In this series, we offer tips and strategies you can use to ensure that your students perform at their very best on the PARCC tests.

One way to assist students to perform at their personal best is to simulate the test-taking experience, both in terms of the test content and the testing conditions. This two-part blog post covers how to create a PARCC-like English assessment. In Part 1, we’ll address how to select a text, how to identify what is special or unique about the text, and how to write Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR) items. In Part 2, we’ll explain the Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR) items and provide templates for creating these items.

What is an EBSR?

An EBSR is a two-part question (Part A and Part B).

“The term refers to a type of ELA/literacy test item that asks students to show the evidence in a text that led them to a previous answer.” (parcconline.org)

An EBSR assesses vocabulary knowledge, elements of literature, main ideas, key details, structure, or integration of ideas.

In order to create an assessment, we have to identify what PARCC calls “texts worth reading.” Let’s look at how PARCC determines if a text is worthy of study.

Five PARCC Criteria for Selecting Texts Worth Reading:

“Texts Are Complex: PARCC assessments follow the staircase of text complexity in the CCSS to ensure assessments track student progress each year towards college and career readiness.

Texts Are Diverse: PARCC texts stem from across the disciplines (e.g. ELA, history, science and technical subjects), are written by authors with diverse backgrounds, reflect the CCSS prescribed balances of literature and informational text, and appeal to a wide range of student audiences.

Texts Are Authentic: PARCC texts are authentic works of exceptional craft and/or rich repositories of ideas and information rather than commissioned-for-the-test passages lacking sufficient evidence, organization, and style.

Texts Are Paired Effectively: PARCC text pairings, where required by the CCSS, have meaningful and significant points of comparison that invite questions beyond superficial observations.

Texts Meet Demands of Bias and Sensitivity Guidelines: PARCC texts are carefully vetted to ensure that while they pique student interest and appeal to a wide audience they avoid highly controversial topics that may be troublesome to students.”

(parcconline.org)

Now, let’s complete the following four steps to create your first EBSR item.

Step #1 – Consider Your Text

Once you have selected your text, you have to think about what is special or unique about the text. Take a look at your text. With the understanding that text complexity is important and students should continually be exposed to increasingly complex text, determine which sections or passages may be difficult for students. Here is a sample for you to consider.

OK, so now we’re ready to create text-dependent questions. Read what PARCC has to say about text-dependent questions:

“Good text dependent questions will often linger over specific phrases and sentences to ensure careful comprehension of the text—they help students see something worthwhile that they would not have seen on a more cursory reading.

An effective set of text dependent questions delves systematically into a text to guide students in extracting the key meanings or ideas found there.

They typically begin by exploring specific words, details, and arguments and then move on to examine the impact of those specifics on the text as a whole.

Along the way they target academic vocabulary and specific sentence structures as critical focus points for gaining comprehension.”

(parcconline.org)

Step #2 – Identify What You Want to Assess

Now that you know what is special about your text, what do you want to assess? PARCC created Reading Evidence Tables for Kindergarten through grade 11. Take a look at your grade level’s document.

PARCC Reading Evidence Tables (Scroll about halfway down the page to see the list of evidence tables.)

Using your grade level’s table, identify passages in the text that can be used to assess the evidences to be measured by your test item.

Step #3 – Construct Part A of Your EBSR

Think about PARCC’s Item Guidelines listed below and use our template to construct Part A of your EBSR.

Constructing Distractors – Part A

ü  “The primary purpose of a distractor is to provide evidence that a student is not able to meet the standard(s) assessed due to student misconceptions.

ü  Distractors must be plausible responses to item stems.

ü  Items should not use negative distractors.

ü  The written style of all distractors in an item should be similar to that of the correct response(s).

ü  Answer responses (distractors) are not ordered alphabetically by first word or by short to long, etc. the answers in the order they appear in the passage.”

(PARCC - Item Guidelines for ELA/Literacy PARCC Summative Assessment- Best Practices for Distractors for EBSR items)

Step #4 – Construct Part B of Your EBSR

Follow these PARCC guidelines for creating Part B:

ü  “In Part B, when writing the distractors for evidences, all of the answer choices must be the same type of citation of evidence (e.g. all quotes or all paraphrases).

ü  Particular care must be taken for Part B items, where students are asked to select evidence from the text such that distractor wording to achieve parallelism in style does not overly impose distractor wording.

ü  All answer choices for Part B must be accurate/relevant/from the passage.”

(PARCC - Item Guidelines for ELA/Literacy PARCC Summative Assessment- Best Practices for Distractors for EBSR items)

There you have it! You constructed the first EBSR for your PARCC-like assessment. Standards Solution’s president, Victoria Pagonis, would be happy to review your work. Email your EBSR to victoria.pagonis@standardssolution.com along with the text, your reason for choosing that text, and the standards that you wish to assess with the item. She’ll reply with feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Let’s review. To create a PARCC-like English assessment with Evidence-Based Selected Responses, you have to:

• Select a text worthy of close study via a comprehensive analysis of the text.
• Identify specifically what you want to assess with a comparison of the reading evidence docs AND what is special and unique in the text.
• Create EBSRs that have quality distractors.

Standards Solution and Inspired Instruction offer 540 PARCC lesson plans, online PARCC-like assessments with technology-enhanced items, PARCC workshops, and PARCC demonstration lessons. Please contact Judy Cataldi for more information:

Judy.cataldi@standardssolution.com or call 908-223-7202.

Standards Solution Holding, LLC is not owned by or affiliated in any fashion with PARCC, Inc.