Boy, that rubric is interesting. This looks more complicated than grading AP essays.

Here's one for the grades 4 and 5 analytic writing

http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade%204-5%20ELA%20Expanded%20Rubric%20FOR%20ANALYTIC%20AND%20NARRATIVE%20WRITING_0.pdf

Anonymous wrote:Will the tests be sent away for scoring--including essays, or will they be scored by teachers?

Here's a draft of the scoring rubric for essays written by kids grads 6-12

http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade%206-11%20ELA%20Expanded%20%20Rubric%20FOR%20ANALYTIC%20AND%20NARRATIVE%20WRITING_0.pdf

Anonymous wrote:Will the tests be sent away for scoring--including essays, or will they be scored by teachers?

They will be sent away to be scored. Just like the essay on the DC-CAS composition test, and the essays for the SAT and ACT are now.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/23/parent-to-obama-let-me-tell-you-about-the-common-core-test-malia-and-sasha-dont-have-to-take-but-eva-does/?hpid=z5

Crazy that Obama is so supportive of something his daughters don't even have to take! If CC is mandatory for public should be for private too.

It's not entirely missing from privates. Dd's school is using Go!Math, a curriculum written to align with cc.

Will the tests be sent away for scoring--including essays, or will they be scored by teachers?

Anonymous wrote:One of the problems will be in the scoring of the essays.

Scoring essays is always harder than scoring multiple guess answers, but there will be a rubric, known ahead of time, and scorers will have training on it.

You ca't really measure mastery of writing objectives without having kids write.

One of the problems will be in the scoring of the essays.

PP I think that was a well written letter.

Note that the author states she is supportive of Common Core State Standards. She is criticizing the PARCC test questions, and I think she has some valid points. The fact that the president's daughters won't be taking the test is not terribly relevant, but it is an attention grabber, sure.

I agree with the author of the letter -- I think the PARCC essay question for 3rd graders is too hard, and demands too many skills for a developing reader and writer, espeically as the test in many cases will be measured on a computer, and many kids that age can't even type well.

I think the question "How do a character's words and actions contribute to the plot" is awfully theoretical for 3rd grade. I'm not someone who every really appreciated the study of literature, though, so maybe I am missing something obvious.

I haven't read that particular story (with Old Mother Wind and Sandwitch) but would a possible acceptable answer be something like "Old Mother Wind said that she would blow and blow until people did what she asked. That had an effect on the plot because it made all the other animals do what she told them. The Sandwitch said she would sprinkle sand one everyone's food, and that made all the animals cover their food so she couldn't get at it" be acceptable? If something like that is what is looked for with these plot questions.... I don't think it would be too hard to teach evem third graders to write short paragraphs like that.

What is interesting is the concept behind these essays -- no longer are kids going to be asked "What is your opinion about that" where there are no right or wrong opinions. Instead kids will be asked to read something, make a claim (a thesis statement, essentially) and then back it up with references to the text. This is a pretty important skill, and if what I wrote above would be an appropriate enough answer for third grade (given that I kind of made up the plot of the story because I haven't read it) then I don't think it will be too awful.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/23/parent-to-obama-let-me-tell-you-about-the-common-core-test-malia-and-sasha-dont-have-to-take-but-eva-does/?hpid=z5

Crazy that Obama is so supportive of something his daughters don't even have to take! If CC is mandatory for public should be for private too.

Anonymous wrote:http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/22/mandatory-common-core-tests-in-new-york-just-happen-to-be-full-of-corporate-brand-names/

another unintended consequence?

Just for clarification -- that was the New York State test, that New York state decided to give. There is no such thing as a Common Core test, but many states are choosing to use a common assessment, either the SMART test, or the PARCC test, to measure Common Core Standards. That test, was not a SMART or PARCC test. It was the test adopted by New York State.

New York State is denying that there was any product placement deal made with the test -- they say the texts used were "authentic" and that authors just happened to use brand names... I have my doubts. THere's a lot about that NY State test that seemed rushed, and fishy.

17:54 Thank you for being a voice of reason. This is exactly what I see in my child's school. Lots if different skills taught in reading, writing, and understanding.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/22/mandatory-common-core-tests-in-new-york-just-happen-to-be-full-of-corporate-brand-names/

another unintended consequence?

Skilled readers use multiple types of cues, integrating them, and switching back and forth between them effortlessly. They have large sight word vocabularies, and also use a lot of syntactical and meaning cues. They often use the sounds in words to check and monitor accuracy rather than to figure out the words in the first place. However, skilled readers definitely need to have phonics skills as part of their arsenal. Without phonics skills, readers can't figure out new words, or connect new words to verbal sources of information. In addition, strong phonics skills can help a student develop strong spelling skills, and later on, to learn a new language.

Research supports phonics instruction for beginning readers. It tells us that curricula that incorporate phonics produce better results than those that don't, and that struggling readers often have deficits in phonemic awareness and phonics, and benefit from direct phonics instruction.

That doesn't mean that reading instruction should be all phonics all the time. In the school where I teach, a public school in a state using the CC standards, our first graders get about 2 1/2 hours a day of literacy instruction. For most students, this includes about 15 minutes of direct instruction in phonics, where they practice sorting, reading and writing words outside of the context of a story or an informational text. In addition, students are giving opportunities to practice noticing patterns and applying skills in context. Teachers might select a poem for shared reading that highlights rhyming patterns, or show kids how to generalize a phonics skill during a mini lesson or strategy group. Kids get practice with the sounds in words in Writer's Workshop, as they stretch out words and represent the sounds they hear, and use tools like word walls that are arranged alphabetically. Similarly, kids get practice with sight words and meaning cues in isolation, and in context.

Having said all of that in support of phonics, kids follow lots of different paths to reading. Some kids excel at learning phonics in isolation, and apply these skills early to their work in context. In the beginning, some of these kids might show the kinds of errors that are common to kids whose phonics skills are a relative strength. For example, they might get tripped up by a word like "come" which should logically be pronounced "Koam", or fail to use meaning or syntax to notice and fix errors.

Other kids will experience early success with sight words or meaning cues, and will make other kinds of errors such as reading "no" for "on, or "pony" for "horse". Many of these kids will come to phonics via memorizing large numbers of words, and then noticing the patterns within those words and applying those patterns to new words.

Either way, a child who is progressing well in reading should be able to demonstrate the skills listed in the Common Core.

Anonymous wrote:Comprehension has nothing to do with the method of deciphering words. I've seen kids who could "call" words beautifully and not be able to answer the simplest question about what they have read.

Being able to read fluently and accurately is KEY to being able to comprehend text and is necessarily but not always sufficient.

I have not personally experienced "word callers" in my teaching experience but I am aware that some teachers do believe they have seen such students. When I test these students, it turns out they have strong "sight word" and guessing strategies, but only make it to about the 2nd or 3rd grade reading level before their sight word knowledge tops out -- you can only memorize by sight so many words before you have to resort to guessing.

I have never seen a "word caller" read past the 3rd grade level. In each case, I have taught the child how to decode words, and then he or she makes more progress.

The only true word caller I have seen was in ESOL children who were able to decode words but not understand them. Once they learned English, they were able to understand the words.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805835/

The validity of the word caller phenomenon has been questioned by researchers (Hamilton & Shinn, 2003; Nathan & Stanovich, 1991; Stanovich, 1986, 2000), and has been described as a “red herring” of the reading literature (Nathan & Stanovich, 1991, p. 177). Despite the frequent use of the term (e.g., Walczyk & Griffin-Ross, 2007), there is almost no research to indicate what the actual prevalence of word calling among developing readers is and what teachers’ understanding of the term is.