Mulhern's English Site: November 2014

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

FSA ELA Sample Argumentative Prompt--Student Data

I created the following sample FSA Argumentative prompt for the ELA based on five New York Times articles written especially for students. It has not been approved by the DOE. See the following link for access to the articles for the prompt below:

I created the following sample FSA Argumentative prompt for the ELA based on four New York Times articles written especially for students. This sample prompt has not been approved by the DOE. See the following link for access to the articles for the prompt below:

The following opinions are mine, not necessarily those of the DOE. Unfortunately, there has not been the best communication about this new assessment and there is a lack of clarity on some issues. My recommendations are as follows:

The rubric for the Argumentative Essay on the DOE website does not address the issue of whether students are allowed to include their own original examples to support their thesis. The rubric does state that students must reference all of the sources, however. I suggest that you refer only to the accompanying texts included with the prompt for your examples/support. Be sure to elaborate sufficiently with at least three sentences, demonstrating your thinking/logic. The test is timed; including original examples, while creative and insightful on your part, may take too much time. In addition, it is not clear at this point if your own examples will detract from your final grade, even if you include references to all the accompanying texts.

FSA ELA Sample Informative/Explanatory Prompt--Memory

I created this sample essay prompt, as well as some others on my website. They have not been approved by the DOE.

Below is a sample FSA Informational Writing Prompt. See the attached links for the texts to accompany the prompt. The FSA Writing Component for ELA will have anywhere between two and four passages, with a maximum of 2000 words total.

The first text you could cite from is "Rituals of Memory," in the Collections textbook for Grade 9.

Links to Important Information about the FSA ELA

Monday, November 10, 2014

FSA ELA Informative/Explanatory Writing Prompt--Thinking Process

Thinking, Nicholas Roerich (1918)

The DOE sample prompt reads as follows:

Writing Prompt
(from the Florida Department of Education website)

Write an informational essay on the relationship between clothing styles and developments in clothing creation. Your ideas must be based on ideas, concepts, and information from the passage set.

The Florida Standards Assessment for Writing (March) will have either an informational essay prompt or an argumentative essay prompt. Both prompts require students to cite textual evidence from accompanying reading passages. Below are strategies for students to use for the informational essay prompt.

I reviewed the Training Test on the Florida Department of Education Website and extracted the following information:

The Peer Editing Rubric below was adapted from the rubric on the Florida DOE website.

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Florida Standards Assessment Informative/Explanatory Writing Rubric

For each of the following, answer yes or no. Also point out to your peer the sections of the essay that could be improved. Suggest ideas for improvement.

I created this sample essay prompt, as well as some others on my website. They have not been approved by the DOE.

Students should type their responses as practice for the exam. Although the directions from the sample test at http://www.fsassessments.org/

do not specify parenthetical citations, I would have students cite any information they use in their essays (both paraphrased text and text that students choose to quote). I would advise students to write the title or an abridged version of the title within parentheses. For example, the first text below would be cited as (“Black Death”), the next text could be abbreviated as (“Sin”) and the third text could be abbreviated as (“Depopulation”).

Know Current Events

All Scholars:

You need to be aware of current events. Check out the following websites on a regular basis so that you are up to date on what is happening in the world. You should consider yourself a global citizen and be cognizant of important issues facing the world community.

http://www.economist.com/

http://www.theweek.com/

http://www.bbc.com/

http://www.drudgereport.com/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

http://www.mediamatters.org/

http://www.npr.org/

http://globalissues.org

http://www.cnn.com/

http://www.cbsnews.com