ELA Weekly:
October 19 - October 23
Curriculum Manager Announcements
Curriculum Managers Hold Office Hours!
Beginning this week, every other Wednesday afternoon from 4pm-5pm (opposite Wednesday ELA Webinars) will be a designated "Office Hour" for ELA Managers to visit with George and Colleen about anything related to Secondary ELA curriculum. If you have questions, feedback, or just want to discuss upcoming units or assessments, please feel free to hop on BlueJeans via the links below. These are come-and-go "Office Hours" with no set agenda. All ELA Managers and Coaches are welcome!
For 6th/7th & AP Language & AP Lit (Colleen): https://bluejeans.com/2872300923/browser
For 8th/9th/10th (George):
ELA 8-10 Campus Coaches
11th Grade IDEA Authors Update
7th Grade Writing: Changes to the 2016 STAAR Blueprint
The 7th grade Writing STAAR will now be shortened to 1 day, 4 hour assessment. Students will write one expository composition and will answer 30 Revising and Editing multiple choice questions. The breakdown of the test components is below:
Revising 13 questions, 13 possible points, 28% of test
Editing 17 questions, 17 possible points, 37% of test
Expository Essay 1essay, summed scorex2=16 possible points, 35% of test
TOTAL 1 essay, 30 MC, 46 possible points
This breakdown makes the expository essay worth more of the overall percentage of the exam than it was prior to the assessment changes. Students will need to score a 3 or 4 to be on track to pass the Writing STAAR.
Course Specific
6th Grade ELA
SpringBoard: This week's lessons provide students lots of opportunities to analyze plot, character development, and practice using a thesaurus. Students will begin the week by identifying elements of plot, then move into character analysis through understanding the author's use of dialogue. Teachers can use the various vocabulary activities to review dictionary and thesaurus skills. As students are generating lists of descriptive words, guide them to develop lists with advanced vocabulary words in order to increase word knowledge and create a richer written vocabulary.
Assessments: Students will take BWA 4 on Friday. While the passage used in the BWA is a personal narrative, the questions are all very aligned to character analysis, plot, and dictionary usage. This week's lessons are designed to prepare students specifically for BWA 4.
Do-Nows: Students will work on correctly using commonly confused words (6.21A) this week. Remember to hold students accountable for the correct use of these words in their writing, once these words have been introduced and practiced in class. Also, additional practice can be done through short homework assignments, which will reinforce what is introduced during class.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2z/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8AMZ/ (SpringBoard 1.14/Expository Rubric and exemplars for EA 2)
7th Grade ELA
SpringBoard: Students will continue to explore expository reading and writing with specialized lessons this week. All lessons are on the Hub, within the "Expository Lessons" folder in Quarter 2. Students will read several different texts this week, focusing on organizational patterns and summarization. Students should understand the following question: How does the organizational pattern provide support for summarizing? Students should use the organizational pattern graphic organizers (also on the Hub) to take notes from the texts, and then use those graphic organizers to aid in summary construction. To find texts written using different organizational patterns, teachers can look on NewsELA.com, Achieve3000, and Readworks.org.
Do-Nows: Students will work on correctly using commonly confused words (7.21A) this week. Remember to hold students accountable for the correct use of these words in their writing, once these words have been introduced and practiced in class. Also, additional practice can be done through short homework assignments, which will reinforce what is introduced during class.
Assessments: Students will take BWA 4 Reading this week. Students will read two expository texts and look at text organization, word meanings, main idea, supporting details, author's purpose, and use of graphics. This week's lessons are specifically preparing students for the skills on BWA 4.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2D/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8AN7/ (Strategies for teaching mythology)
September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zrR/
August 19th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zrU/
8th Grade ELA
Bi-Weekly Assessment 4: BWA4 is a 30 minute timed Open-Ended Response Single Story that should be given on Friday, October 23, 2015. The scanning deadline is next Friday, October 30 by Close of Business.
- Please review the assessment beforehand and be strategic about how to incorporate preparation for the exam by using powerful and purposeful Checks for Understanding throughout your lesson.
- Please be strategic with the additional time you have before the exam is given. You can use this time to provide a quick review for students on the OER SS components and/or set expectations for their response.
- Please review the Q2 Assessment Calendar found on The Hub for additional information regarding all Q2 assessments.
SpringBoard: SB Activities 1.25 and 1.27 are critical lessons for this week. Both lessons provide an opportunity for several checks for understanding and levels of questioning.
- SB 1.25: This lesson will have students analyze characterization and identify textual evidence to support their claim. This skill is critical as it is the same skill that is assessed on BWA4. Challenge students to always provide purposeful textual evidence to support their inferences. Do not accept graphic organizers if they do not have the textual evidence section complete.
- Suggestion: This is a great lesson to spiral in a quick review for inserting direct quotations from a text. Be strategic on where this can be done. Making an anchor chart with a specific example is key to ensure student accountability.
- SB 1.27: This lesson is critical as it covers author's purpose, a skill that is a definite on the STAAR exam. Be sure to insert multiple CFUs challenging students to comprehend and analyze the purpose of the speech with textual evidence from the excerpt.
- Suggestion: Purposeful annotation and CFUs throughout this lesson will ensure their is adequate preparation for the BWA as well as build in the skillset necessary to answer an author's purpose question with any text it is applied to.
Grammar Focus/Do Now: The focus for this week is punctuation marks (8.20B) explicitly covering the use of parentheses and dashes. Ensure students can articulate two key items in their response: 1) What is the mistake and 2) Why should this change be made.
- All Grammar Focus/Do Now slides fro Q2 are posted on The Hub and are aligned to the SpringBoard Grammar Handbook, IAs, and focus focus on key grammar TEKS that students must master in order to be successful on STAAR, AP/IB, ACT, and in college.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
- September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_S/
English I Pre-AP
Bi-Weekly Assessment 4: BWA4 is a 30 minute timed Open-Ended Response Single Story that should be given on Friday, October 23, 2015. The scanning deadline is next Friday, October 30 by Close of Business.
- Please review the assessment beforehand and be strategic about how to incorporate preparation for the exam by using powerful and purposeful Checks for Understanding throughout your lesson.
- Please be strategic with the additional time you have before the exam is given. You can use this time to provide a quick review for students on the OER SS components and/or set expectations for their response.
- Please review the Q2 Assessment Calendar found on The Hub for additional information regarding all Q2 assessments.
SpringBoard: SB Activity 3.6 and 3.8 are this week's critical lessons. Both lessons provide an opportunity for several checks for understanding and levels of questioning.
- SB 3.6: This activity challenges students to analyze a poem's structure including line breaks, stanzas, and sense units. Please be prepared to review the structure and provide models for students and most students find poetry difficult to understand at a first glance. Taking the time to model and annotate the poem will help minimize the anxiety.
- Suggestion: This is a great time to incorporate IOP prep as a CFU. Have students individually present the terms to their partner then provide an example within the poem. Put the heavy lifting in the hands of your students and trust that they can do the task if the expectation is set and held throughout the lesson.
- SB 3.8: This lesson helps provide students with a foundation to understand the symbolism, imagery, and figurative language used within a poem and make deeper connections as to why the author used a specific visual to represent a concept. Once again, you may need to review the concept beforehand and ensure a model is given to students before they are challenged to work independently.
- Suggestion: This is a great time to incorporate levels of questioning and CFUs into the lesson. Start with basic Level 1 Identify questions then build to Level 2 Analysis and Level 3 Create/Connection. This will take teacher planning beforehand; however the results will be well worth it.
Grammar Focus/Do Now: The focus for this week is punctuation marks (9.18B) explicitly covering the use of parentheses and dashes. Ensure students can articulate two key items in their response: 1) What is the mistake and 2) Why should this change be made.
- All Grammar Focus/Do Now slides fro Q2 are posted on The Hub and are aligned to the SpringBoard Grammar Handbook, IAs, and focus focus on key grammar TEKS that students must master in order to be successful on STAAR, AP/IB, ACT, and in college.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
- September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_U/
- September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Av6/
- September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_V/
English II Pre-AP
Bi-Weekly Assessment 4: BWA4 is a 30 minute timed Open-Ended Response Single Story that should be given on Friday, October 23, 2015. The scanning deadline is next Friday, October 30 by Close of Business.
- Please review the assessment beforehand and be strategic about how to incorporate preparation for the exam by using powerful and purposeful Checks for Understanding throughout your lesson.
- Please be strategic with the additional time you have before the exam is given. You can use this time to provide a quick review for students on the OER SS components and/or set expectations for their response.
- Please review the Q2 Assessment Calendar found on The Hub for additional information regarding all Q2 assessments.
SpringBoard: SB Activities 3.6 and 3.7 are this week's critical lessons. Both lessons provide an opportunity for several checks for understanding and levels of questioning.
- SB 3.6: This lesson focuses on juxtaposition and compares Okonkwo to his father. This is key to ensuring students begin to see why Okonkwo acts in a certain manner, all due to the perception the village has of his father and the fear he has to not be anything like him. The Venn Diagram is key to visually breaking down the ideas.
- Suggestion: Push students to ensure their claims are support with textual evidence. You can do this by conducting additional CFUs that challenge the students to support each specific characteristic or action and linking it back to evidence. This is a key skill that will be assessed on BWA4 and the STAAR exam.
- SB 3.7: This lesson focuses on purposeful annotation and interpretation of textual excerpts. This lesson provides direct support and review for what will be done on any assessment given to students. Use purposeful levels of questioning to help build students up to the response you are seeking.
- Suggestion: Beware of too much teacher talk time! Build in several CFUs that correlate to various levels of questioning to ensure you do not take over the lesson, but instead have students to the heavy lifting. Remember, levels of questioning vary in three levels: 1) Identify, 2) Analyze, and 3) Create/Connection. Inserting purposeful questioning and CFUs will push students to meet the high demands you have set for your classroom.
Grammar Focus/Do Now: The focus for this week is punctuation marks (10.18B) explicitly covering the use of parentheses and dashes. Ensure students can articulate two key items in their response: 1) What is the mistake and 2) Why should this change be made.
- All Grammar Focus/Do Now slides fro Q2 are posted on The Hub and are aligned to the SpringBoard Grammar Handbook, IAs, and focus focus on key grammar TEKS that students must master in order to be successful on STAAR, AP/IB, ACT, and in college.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
- September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_X/
- September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Avc/
- September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Avb/
AP Language
SpringBoard: Students will continue exploring refutation, bias, slanters, and propaganda through Unit 2 lessons. This week's lessons focus heavily on the use of language to persuade or manipulate readers. Students will continue to practice argumentative writing in preparation for the Argument FRQ on BWA 5 and IA 2. Teachers should incorporate timed writing opportunities in class and out of class.
Assessments: Students will take BWA 4 on Friday, which is a multiple choice AP Language released test. Students will have 30 minutes to complete 25 questions.
Update on IDEA Authors Prompts/ACT preparation:
As of September 2015, the ACT Writing section has undergone several updates and is now a more challenging section that provides students with multiple perspectives regarding one issue and challenges them to create claims from the evidence provided or craft their own (very much like the argument essay on the AP Language exam).
To reflect this change, we updated the IDEA Authors prompts for 11th grade to ensure that our initiative is truly preparing students in 11th grade for their ACT exam. The previous prompts reflect the older version of the exam and; therefore, will no longer be used. The updated document is posted on the Hub and has been sent to your campus manager.
March – May will challenge the 11th graders to write essays 1 – 3 for the Common Application to give them a jumpstart for senior year and help us gauge what additional preparations to take for the Class of 2017.
Archived Webinars: Please use the links below to view previous webinars:
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2G/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8ANu/ (Norming the Synthesis Essay for IA 1)
September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsh/
August 19th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsi/
AP Literature
SpringBoard: Students will complete lessons 2.5 and 2.6 this week, which includes Acts I and II in Pygmalion. Students will analyze the text and make predictions from examination of archetypal patterns. Students will also engage in character analysis, exploring dialogue, actions, and internal monologue. As students are reading Pygmalion, they should mark the text with notes around characterization.
Assessments: Students will take BWA 4 during class Friday, which is a 25-question multiple choice assessment. This BWA includes one prose piece and one poem, with accompanying questions from an AP Literature released test. Teachers should also incorporate timed writings in class and out of class to prepare students for the Prose Analysis FRQ on BWA 5 and IA 2.
Archived Webinars: Please use the links below to view previous webinars:
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2W/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8ANI/ (Implementing timed writings in class/Integration of poetry during prose lessons)
September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsn/
August 19th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsm/