Teaching STAAR Writing
A Timeline of Mini-Lessons
Teaching STAAR Writing - A Timeline of Suggested Activities
1. Have students review the rubric for understanding.
Activity Idea: Practice with a partner or table using the TEA rubric to transform it into one with student friendly language, using visuals if necessary. (Examples below.)
- TEA Rubric (one pager) or Persuasive One Pager
- Blank Rubric
Discussion Question/Extension: What would you need to review just to make sure students understand the rubric/how to score? What can you design for your writing anchor wall that supports greater student understanding of how to score a "4?"
The image below is from a Region XIII training, simplifying the scoring of the essay.
2. Have students practice scoring other students, as well as eventually their own writing, EVERY time they write an essay. You can use an OER format to have them justify the score they gave it, using "text evidence" directly from their own essay.
- Teacher Discussion Questions/Extension: What elements do you notice about the "4" essays? What would you need to teach that you haven't yet? Start making a bullet list of needs and mini-lessons you need to teach before writing block. (Here is a blank one you may want to use; my example)
3. Use exemplary essays and focus on specific elements that support their unique writing needs or struggles:
STAAR Essays that scored 7 or 8 on STAAR - Expository or Persuasive
Digital Writing Binder of STAAR Essays, sorted by Strategy/Skill - mentor essays
Real Expository Writing Pieces for a variety of purposes/topics. (Example here: "Essays every HS student should read" or here: "Short English Essays for Students")
Teachers: Offer mini-lessons before writing specific to the genre students are writing in and/or needs you have seen during conferences. Additional 1:1 or group mini-lessons may happen as you confer individually or call small groups that are struggling with the same skill.
Activity Idea: Find mentor sentences (or review teacher provided sentences) from informational articles and essays (authentic writing) and/or a mentor STAAR essay. Create model sentences that mimic the mentor sentence to practice writing a variety of sentence structures.
4. For the FIRST essay only, you might consider chunking the teaching of the writing on a daily basis, where it is easier for you to grade sections at a time. This will also give you more of an idea for where students (and the class, in general) are struggling.
Example for teaching the first expository STAAR essay:
- Day 1: The hook, intro, and thesis
- Day 2: Example 1
- Day 3: Example 2
- Day 4: Concluding Statements
- Day 5: Revision
- Day 6: Editing
Teacher Reflection Questions: What are supports that students need for each step? What models, visuals, or bullet point notes could you design so that you can create folders for a place on your wall or in your room to store info and examples on each section of the writing process: Hook/Intro, Thesis, Example Ideas, and Conclusion?
The outlines below are adapted from Gretchen Bernabei.
Have students write at least one essay once/week. (You can start with the 11 min essay from the Bernabei PPT (using CHELPS for example ideas), then reduce the number of examples so that it becomes a 9 min essay. Many "4" essays have only one example, but have plenty of details to support their example.
***Confer with students regularly during writing time. As you give feedback during conferences, you can direct students to 1-2 areas of need specific to them. Be sure to circle back to give feedback after changes are made to those areas before suggesting new ideas to work on.
Activity Idea: Use post-its for students to write their essay. That way, they can chunk their ideas and move them around. Post-its are also less intimidating to use than a whole sheet of blank paper.
The PPT below is clickable! Please open to view the strategies discussed in this smore.
6. Revise/Edit
Use a Status of the Class (SotC) activity to decide what students need to be placed in a collaborative writing group or need a teacher conference. This expository or persuasive checklist can be helpful for students to make sure they have corrected any big errors. Add depth and specificity to their examples, using strategies like Ba-Da-Bings, icons, or pitchforking (see Bernabei PPT).
Activity Idea: Use a revise or edit shuffle activity, where peers are looking for one thing at a time, following a direct mini-lesson. This can be over grammar (capitalization, commas, and homophones are common errors) or revising to highlight every other sentence checking for length and variety.
7. Publish/Score
Have students be a part of scoring others, as well as their own essays, pulling from "text evidence" from the TEA rubric to support their score (or a peer's score). As you score students, you may also want to score in rounds - choosing to grade only specific parts of the essay at a time.
Activity Idea: Use persuasive essays to "debate" different sides of the prompt.
***Ideas for an IDEAL WRITING BLOCK (35-40 minutes)***
- Do two Quickwrites with a few golden lines that you type up to model correct structure, etc. (5-6 minutes)
- Have students create the four square from memory. (2-3 minutes)
- Try a 9 (or even 5!) minute essay. (5-9 minutes)
- Add at least one ba-da-bing and at least one pitchfork to the essay. (5 minutes)
- Practice the steps of COPPS with students. (5 minutes)
- Do three rounds of Revise Shuffle and Edit Shuffle. (12 minutes)
For students who have finished their essay (and scored a 3 or 4), allow them to write: within a genre, from one topic, or "freewrite" so that even when students complete an essay, they are still expected to build their writing fluency by writing for a minimum of 20-30 minutes minimum per day.
Erika San Miguel
- Masters in Educational Leadership
- 8 years HS ELA & Reading Teacher
- 3 years Instructional Lead Teacher & Dept Chair
- 4 years Curriculum & Instruction Specialist, AISD
Email: erika.sanmiguel@austinisd.org
Website: teachermaterials.weebly.com
Location: 4000 South Interstate 35 Frontage Road, Austin, TX, USA
Phone: 512-554-8687