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APPENDIX A (Compiled by PARCC Assessment Team at University of Louisiana at Lafayette 1) TEN TO TWENTY ESSENTIAL CORE COMPETENCIES AND EVIDENCE FOR COLLEGE-LEVEL ENGLISH I ULL English Language PARCC Team Process: The team met to consider elements we considered necessary for a student to be successful in the first-year English courses at ULL. In addition to the Common Core State Standards and ACT Standards outlined in the PARCC document, we also looked at instructional materials for English 101 used by the ULL English Department and at their Standards for courses in first-year writing, a framework of standards from the Council for Writing Program Administrators/National Council of Teachers of English/ and the National Writing Project, and also a document written by the Center for Education Policy Research, Understanding University Success, sponsored by the Association of American Universities and the Pew Charitable Trusts. We have arrived at the following 19 competencies. After discussing elements from these documents that faculty considered the most critical competencies for entering freshmen, we categorized the 20-item Table in the PARCC document to follow the order of the CCSS/ACT matrix headings to make it easier for the State committee to fold it into the matrix. Thus, the order of the list proceeds: Reading Literature & Informational Text, Writing, Language Knowledge & Use, Reading & Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, and Reading & Writing Standards for Literacy in Science/Technology. Then we compared the list with the BOR descriptors, provided, to ensure all reflected one or more of those elements. # Essential core competencies that should be measured on a PARCC assessment that would indicate that a high school student has a 75% likelihood of achieving a C or better (50% chance of a B or better) without need for remediation in a college-level credit-bearing English I course. Read and comprehend content from a variety of sources (aesthetic & expository) such as newspapers, magazines, textbooks, literature, poetry, internet blogs, Evidence that could be found on a PARCC assessment that would indicate that a high school student exhibits the core competencies at the necessary proficiency level for success. -Reading comprehension assessment questions -[Include 2 poems such as the former, by Henry Wadsworth

Dr. Gerald Carlson, Dean, College of Education; Dr. Christine Briggs, Head, Curriculum and Instruction; Dr. Clancy Ratliff, Director of First-Year Writing, English; Dr. Elaine Taylor, Curriculum and Instruction; Dr. Frank DelFavero, Educational Foundations and Leadership.

etc.

Evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem (Louisiana Department of Education, 2012). Engage in writing as a recursive process, writing each project as a series of drafts and doing global, higherorder revision of claims, evidence, integrating counterarguments, and organization.

Longfellow, and the latter, by Amy Lowell...] How are the structures of It Is Not Always May and Song similar? A. Both poems begin with a mildly cheerful tone that gradually grows to elation. *B. Both poems begin with images of life in its prime and end with a sobering reminder of lifes end. C. Both poems begin with images of very small things and end with images of very large things. D. Both poems begin by addressing no one in particular and then switch to addressing an individual (Released Test Items: EOC, 2009). Multiple choice interpretive exercises based on various source materials such as graphs, political cartoons, written text from newspapers, magazines, Internet blogs, etc. A mini-portfolio that shows a writing project from start to finish: notes, early drafts, instructor comments on early drafts that focus on higher-order content concerns (as opposed to sentence-level errors), and revised final draft, plus a short piece by the student reflecting on the process.

Recognize the difference between a strong argument and Provide short arguments that are designed to be weak, each a weak argument (evidence, credibility, logical fallacies, using a particular logical fallacy or other weakness (non etc.) (First-Year Writing: Instructor Packet, 2011-2012) sequitur, begging the question, ad hominem, overgeneralization, lack of evidence, etc.), and ask multiplechoice questions requiring students to choose the correct logical fallacy or other problem with the argument. Recognize an argument and explain what makes an Assessment prompts that ask students to read two news argument different from a text in which purpose is solely articles on the same topic: one taken from the front page, the to inform (First-Year Writing: Instructor Packet, 2011other from the op-ed page. A multiple choice could be: a.) 2012) Article 1 is an argument; article 2 is not. b.) Article 2 is an argument; article 1 is not. c.) Neither one is an argument. d.) Both are arguments. But preferably wed have a space for

-Demonstrates critical thinking (ability to recognize complexity, cultural diversity, biases, and stereotypical representations; distinguishing fact from opinion), not overly reliant on clichs or culturally conditioned/ ethnocentric assumptions and biases. (Standards for First-Year Writing, 2012)

them to explain their answers. Write an argument that explains your position on one of the given topics. Provide reasons that elaborate your ideas and support your position convincingly. A successful exam essay will: 1. include a clear position on the issue and adequate support for it; 2. address opposing view(s); 3. be well organized, treating ideas systematically, one at a time (one welldeveloped idea per paragraph, with clear transitions from one point to the next); 4. have a discernible introduction and conclusion [Writing Prompt:] The university near your hometown is debating whether or not to change from a grading system of A, B, C, D, F to a plus/minus system. The current system assigns the following point values to grades: A=4.0 B=3.0 C=2.0 D=1.0 F=0.0 The proposed new system would have these point values: A = 4.00 A- = 3.70 B+ = 3.30 B = 3.00 B- = 2.70 C+ = 2.30 C = 2.00 C- = 1.70 D = 1.00 F = 0.00 Write a letter to the university Provost explaining your position on the issue. Do you believe the university should keep the current system or adopt the proposed new plus/minus system? Do you think students GPAs would increase or decrease as a

result? Dont hesitate to use yourself as an example. What do you think the effect would be on merit-based financial aid? 7 Habits of mind such as curiosity, creativity, flexibility, openness, metacognition, persistence, responsibility, engagement, etc.) (WPA, NCTE, & NWP, 2011) -Students self-assess using a writing prompt about the habits of mind such as the following: The Council of Writing Program Administrators, in collaboration with the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Writing Project, recently published a report titled "Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing." In it, they list a variety of qualities that students need to have in order to write well as they move on to college. From the report: -----------------Habits of mind refers to ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and that will support students success in a variety of fields and disciplines. The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing: Curiosity the desire to know more about the world. Openness the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world. Engagement a sense of investment and involvement in learning. Creativity the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas. Persistence the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects. Responsibility the ability to take ownership of ones actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others. Flexibility the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands. Metacognition the ability to reflect on ones own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge. -----------------For your proficiency exam essay, you will need to do the

following: 1. Select two of the above habits of mind that you think are particular strengths of yours. 2. Make an argument that you have these habits of mind and state reasons why you chose these as your strengths. 3. Support your argument with evidence: examples of the coursework you have done (the papers youve written, your class participation/peer reviewing, the reading youve done, etc.). Here youll be explaining how these habits of mind apply to writing in particular. 4. Explain how you have used these same habits of mind in at least one of your classes how the same two habits of mind you chose apply, or transfer, to your work in another subject. Give specific examples to support your explanation. 8 -Teachers rate students habits of mind using a Likert Scale2. -Demonstrate (at a minimum) some level of organization, -Papers, preferably a portfolio of writing, that require students i.e., introduction sets up the major concerns and aims of to do simple summary, response, and analysis (First-Year the paper, develops ideas through body (each paragraph Writing: Instructor Packet, 2011-2012) focuses on one discrete idea/subpoint of the argument, and some attempt at transitions between paragraphs are -Assignment of various types of papers such as personal made, even if they are awkward). Conclusion provides narrative/essay, research paper, position paper, etc. some closure to the argument, even if only a summary of the main points -Analyze, make inferences, and draw conclusions -Write a concise statement containing a claim and a reason3 (First-Year Writing: Instructor Packet, 2011-2012) Write prose that is mostly free of sentence-level errors, -Review of essays/papers that students write for their classes. but some degree of sentence-level error is expected and acceptable; writing at the whole-discourse level is more -Multiple choice items based upon reading and editing highly prioritized than the sentence level. passage, such as the following:

We understand this method's limitations: teachers evaluating students' habits of mind using a Likert scale could be influenced by not only personal biases and feelings toward individual students or groups of students, but they may also feel pressure from administrators to give students high scores. 3 Some call this a thesis statement, but that term has a variety of uses, and we want to be precise.

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-Ability to proofread and to know the difference between revising and proofreading (understanding revision as a global necessity). -[Note: Studies show editing of de-contextualized sentences does not typically transfer into improvement on a students own writing. What does transfer, however, is for a student to engage in a process to edit his or her own piece of writing4.]

A Voice of Her Own Sandra Cisneros, perhaps the best known Latina author in the United States, writes poems and stories whose titles aloneBarbie-Q, My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn, Woman Hollering Creekengage potential readers curiosity. To the pleasure of her readers, Cisneross work, which uses both English and Spanish, is as interesting as the titles suggest. *A. NO CHANGE B. potential, readers C. potential, readers D. potential readers (ACT, 2012) -Can they edit and revise a piece of their own writing? For example, based upon a student collection of personal drafts to a polished piece, student writes a one-page reflection on their writing process: What revisions did they make and why? How did the revisions reflect their rhetorical choices? -Or, an online testing system could be designed to allow students to access their own writing from a previous writing test in the same system and actually edit that piece of writing in a new editing test. Give student a scenario/short piece to read followed by a question such as you want to use the statistics in the article. Should that be cited, and why? The next prompt draws from the same short piece and asks: The capital city of Alabama is Montgomery, should that be cited, and why or why not? (answer: No, because is common knowledge)

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General academic norms and ethics involving intellectual property and citation; integrating their own ideas with those of others. In other words, the awareness that academic writing is a conversation and that its important to academic audiences to know who said what -- also that a major way to establish credibility in ones writing is to demonstrate (by citing sources) that one has read some published scholarship about the subject he or she is writing about. Note: this competency is not necessarily tied to a particular documentation style (MLA, APA for example).

In that testing will be done on subsequent occasions over a student's K-12 career, would it be possible with advancing technology to provide students access to their own writing from their last test (say, via a pop-up window), and they edit it within the test setting.

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Writing responds to the needs of various audiences applying appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality (Standards for First-Year Writing, 2012).

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Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly and distinctly, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks. Understand the idea of genre: that genre is a type of rhetorical response to a recurring communicative situation and that each genre has its own conventions: news article, op-ed news article, white paper, grant proposal, literature review, annotated bibliography, to give some examples.

Short writing prompts specifying the audience would test for awareness of appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality within a given context. A sample would be write three letters describing your senior year of high school: one to your grandmother, one to your principal, and one to your best friend. Students should understand what kinds of information and what style of voice/tone each of these three audiences would and would not be interested in reading. -Case studies of 10-12 randomly selected students whose inclass oral presentations are video-recorded and evaluated by small pool of qualified assessors. -Classroom visits by designated evaluator/s who will score inclass presentations using an agreed-upon rubric. -Present students with samples of different genres and give test questions asking which genre the text is. These could be multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank. Students can also be asked something like Which of the following is a convention of the annotated bibliography genre? a.) a section addressing projected budget for the project; b.) complete bibliographical citations followed by summaries of those sources; c.) both of the above; d.) none of the above. -Respond to a Writing Prompt such as the following: ULL is considering the production of a new pamphlet to recruit freshman students. One proposed pamphlet has a photo of the student section at a ULL sporting event that shows smiling students interacting with each other and includes the cheerleaders and band members. Another pamphlet displays a photo taken of a few students gathered at the Jazzman Caf in Dupr Library talking together about a class project. Write a letter to Julie Simon-Dronet, director of Public Relations and News Services, in which you make a case for the pamphlet you think is more effective to recruit new students. If you want to suggest a different photograph altogether or a different recruiting strategy besides pamphlets, that is fine, but explain

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Integrate multiple sources of information presented via different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in designing and supporting an argument with evidence (Louisiana Department of Education, 2012). Use knowledge of language and its conventions when speaking. Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources (Louisiana Department of Education, 2012). Students should understand what types of sources would be best suited to answer their particular research questions.

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the problems with the pamphlets/photographs currently proposed.5 Give students a few sample pieces on a topic (population growth) and excerpts from, for example, two newspaper articles with divergent positions, a journal article, and a population density map showing growth in a region over time. Using these resources, students would write a one-page persuasive argument stating a position on the topic and using evidence from the materials given to support the claims. In a short interview regarding content-related topics, students use of conventions in spoken language (vocabulary and grammar) mostly adheres to standardized, spoken English. -Which source is a secondary source? A. a diary kept by Abraham Lincoln B. a letter written to Abraham Lincoln C. a speech written by Abraham Lincoln *D. a biography written about Abraham Lincoln (Released Test Items: EOC, 2009) -Also short-answer scenario questions like You are asked to do a research project pursuing the question of how Abraham Lincoln treated his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. What types of sources would you consult to answer this question? Answers may vary but should probably include letters between the two and/or biographies of each of them.

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Research to build and present knowledge by conducting short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under

-Give students a narrative account from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel John Winslow of the British military expressing sadness for the French Acadian people during their exodus (at his command) from Nova Scotia, Canada in the 1750s due to a long-standing conflict between Britain and France and the following prompt: You want to know more about the history

While this prompt may be too local for a statewide testing population, we recommend that writing prompts be designed to reflect students direct experiences, making them more meaningful than abstract examples such as Should people try to live in the world the way it is or try to change it?(Released Test Items: EOC).

investigation (Louisiana Department of Education, 2012).

that led to this conflict. Based upon the information in the narrative, develop a question as a basis around which to begin your inquiry which will narrow the focus of your personal research project. -Require that all students who wish to earn a HS diploma write a senior thesis. -Assessor conducts a case study of student seated at a computer doing a think-aloud protocol while completing a writing task using digital technology. -Require that all students who wish to earn a HS diploma write a senior thesis6

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Use technology, including online library data bases, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information. (Louisiana Department of Education, 2012)

References
ACT. (2008). College Readiness Standards. Retrieved from ACT.org ACT. (2012, May 1). Retrieved from ACT: http://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2005/downloads/SampleACTTestItems.pdf Center for Education Policy Research. (2003, May 1). Understanding University Success. Retrieved from The American Association of Universities & the Pew Charitable Trusts: https://www.epiconline.org/files/pdf/UUS_Complete.pdf First-Year Writing: Instructor Packet. (2011-2012). English Dept. Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana at Lafayette: Unpublished. Louisiana Department of Education. (2012, May 1). Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts. Retrieved from http://www.doe.state.la.us/topics/ccss_ela.html

Released Test Items: EOC. (2009, November). Retrieved from Louisiana Department of Education: http://www.louisianaschools.net/lde/uploads/15029.pdf
Standards for First-Year Writing. (2012, May 1). Retrieved from English Department, University of Louisiana at Lafayette: http://english.louisiana.edu/about-us/firstyearwriting/index.shtml WPA, NCTE, & NWP. (2011). Framework for success in post-secondary writing. ?: Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project.

A number of European countries have experienced success using versions of a curriculum model that builds upon itself over the span of high school years by structuring content along a spiraling continuum, designed to scaffold and reinforce knowledge at each level. Near the end of the final year, each student takes a comprehensive written Exam/Thesis to be subsequently defended before a small committee, a process which broadens and deepens student understanding of content knowledge.