Henry David Thoreau said, “Write while the heat is in you.” That might be well and good for an aspiring writer, but for teachers preparing their students to take the FCAT Writing—the heat is on them!
Now is the time for you to check and see what your teachers have in place for the last weeks prior to the FCAT Writing test. All English Department Heads received handouts and powerpoints from curriculum to distribute to all English and Language Arts teachers.
The secondary materials included a Homestretch Plan for HS FCAT Writing—10 Days of Activities and Lessons. Check with your department head to find out how teachers at your school plan to implement the materials.
You might want to ask some of the following questions:
• Are students using FCAT Writing Rubric when examining returned FCAT Practice Writing assignments? Do they understand what they are doing wrong?
• Do the students understand that two full elaborations can make a difference in their score? Do they fully understand what elaborations are?
• Have teachers shared papers with scores of 4 and higher with students?
If you feel you need to know more about the FCAT Writing, check out the materials under The Heat Is On to the right of this column.
Remember, high performing leaders provide an effective instructional program and apply best practices to student learning—make one of those best practices a homestretch plan for FCAT Writing.
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5 comments:
McNicol's Writing Plan includes an Intensive Small Group Session for all students and an interactive, engaging Saturday program where 50% of our 8th grade students have been attending. The Saturday Program is clinically based and allows students to work on specific target areas (Six Traits)as well enriching their strengths.
Most importantly, I feel our greatest asset at McNicol is our teachers and the quality of the relationships they have with their students and families. Students don't come to school six days a week unless they are excited to see someone. At McNicol, that someone is their teacher!
Brian Kingsley
Intern Principal
McNicol Middle School
In the classroom begin with an opening sentence or phrase. Have the students complete the "essay" using words associated with the topic, transitions, appropriate grammar and punctuation. Practice "good writing" through modeling. Solicit students to think outside of the box and take chances. Learn from others....
My school is fortunate to have two excellent and exceptional language arts teachers that co-authored PowerEd Writing, a supplemental writing tool that specifically targets focus, organization, support, and convention. This infused into the curriculum, coupled with modeling anchor papers for enhanced student understanding of what differently scored papers look like, continual writing assessments with rubrics, and dynamic teaching of the writing benchmarks, has resulted in 100% of our students meeting high standards in writing for the last three consecutive years.
We have a Mock FCAT the Tuesday before the actual test. All prompts are graded throughout the week, starting the day of the Mock test. Each day students meet with their writing papers with a team of LA teachers to rewrite to improve their score. It is a festive atmosphere with balloons, feathered pencils, buttons and candy. Students get this immediate feedback to be able to see what makes a great paper.
8th grade Language Arts Teachers at Westglades Middle School are, among many other strategies:
-having students define each aspect of FRIES and SOAP (fact, reason, ideas, examples, simile, onomatopoeia, alliteration, personification) and then working in groups and inserting an example of each into an essay as support.
-writing essays in small groups and doing gallery walks to score them - best essay gets bonus points or a prize.
-"writing about the writing" - a short piece of writing, perhaps just the first paragraph, is put up and the students write "observations" about the writing - "I observe the writing has 4 sentences, 6 lines, 57 words, 4 "to be" verbs, four uses of the word "school", etc. This helps the students to see every detail of the writing rather than just a shallow quick look that they generally take.
-writing to build confidence - when grading papers, tell the students one thing you loved about the writing and one thing needing improvement even if the paper is flooded with errors. One step at a time builds writing skills.
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