Explore Reading.pdf - Warren County Schools

CONNECTING COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS™ TO THE CLASSROOM For Language Arts Teachers/ Reading

ACT endorses the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education and the Code of Professional Responsibilities in Educational Measurement, guides to the conduct of those involved in educational testing. ACT is committed to ensuring that each of its testing programs upholds the guidelines in each Code. A copy of each Code may be obtained free of charge from ACT Customer Services (68), P.O. Box 1008, Iowa City, IA 52243-1008, 319/337-1429. Visit ACT’s website at: www.act.org © 2009 by ACT, Inc. All rights reserved.

13351

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 The College Readiness Standards Report for EXPLORE Reading . . . . . 2 Description of the College Readiness Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Description of the EXPLORE Reading Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 The Need for Thinking Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Thinking Your Way Through the EXPLORE Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Assessment-Instruction Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Using Assessment Information to Help Support Low-Scoring Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Instructional Activities for EXPLORE Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Putting the Pieces Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Appendix: Passages Corresponding to Sample Test Questions . . . . . 70

List of Tables 1 The College Readiness Standards for the EXPLORE Reading Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2 EXPLORE Reading Test Content Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 3 EXPLORE Sample Test Questions by Score Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 4 College Readiness Benchmark Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 5 Estimated PLAN Composite Score Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 6 The Link Between ACT Composite Scores and College Admission Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

INTRODUCTION ACT has developed this guide to help classroom teachers, curriculum coordinators, and counselors interpret the College Readiness Standards Report data for EXPLORE® Reading. The guide includes: ■

A description of the College Readiness StandardsTM and Benchmarks for EXPLORE

■

A description of the EXPLORE Reading Test

■

A set of sample test questions

■

A description of the AssessmentInstruction Link

■

A set of classroom instructional activities

The College Readiness Standards for EXPLORE are statements that describe what students who score in the four score ranges 13–15, 16–19, 20–23, and 24–25 are likely to know and to be able to do. The statements are generalizations based on the performance of many students scoring in these four score ranges. College Readiness Standards have not been developed for students whose scores fall in the 1–12 range because these students, as a group, do not demonstrate skills similar to each other consistently enough to permit useful generalizations. The College Readiness Standards for EXPLORE are accompanied by ideas for progress that help teachers identify ways of enhancing student learning based on the scores students receive. The College Readiness Standards Report for EXPLORE provides the percentage of your students in each College Readiness Standards score range in each of the four content areas the EXPLORE test measures—English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science. The report provides data that compare the performance of your school’s students with all students in a nationally representative comparison group (norm group).

Local comparisons to the national norm group are most appropriate when EXPLORE is administered under conditions similar to those in the norming study—with all four tests administered in a single session in the standard order. Eighth-grade students who test in August through January will receive Fall Eighth-Grade Norms. Eighth graders who test in February through July will receive Spring Eighth-Grade Norms. Ninth-grade students will receive Ninth-Grade Norms regardless of their test date. (If your school chooses to test ninth-grade students in the spring, keep in mind that these students will have had several more months of instruction than the norm group. Therefore, springtested ninth graders may show higher levels of achievement when compared to the fall-tested norm group than if they had tested in the fall.) Students who are not in the eighth or ninth grade when they take EXPLORE will receive Fall Eighth-Grade Norms on their student reports. EXPLORE is a curriculum-based assessment program developed by ACT to help eighth and ninth graders devise a high school course work plan that prepares them to achieve their post-high school goals. As part of ACT’s Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS®), EXPLORE is complemented by PLAN®, ACT’s tenth-grade program, and by the ACT®, for eleventh and twelfth graders. We hope this guide helps you assist your students as they plan and pursue their future studies.

“The role of standardized testing is to let parents, students, and institutions know what students are ready to learn next.” — Ralph Tyler, October 1991 Chairman Emeritus of ACT’s Board of Trustees

1

THE COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS REPORT FOR EXPLORE READING The College Readiness Standards Report data for EXPLORE Reading allow you to compare the performance of students in your school with the performance of students nationwide. The report provides summary information you can use to map the development of your students’ knowledge and skills in reading. Used along with your own classroom observations and with other resources, the test results can help you to analyze your students’ progress in reading and to identify areas of strength and areas that need more attention to ensure your students are on track to be college ready by the time they graduate from high school. You can then use the Standards as one source of information in the instructional planning process. A sample report appears on the next page. An explanation of its features is provided below.

COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS RANGES Down the sides of the report, in shaded boxes, are the five score ranges reported for the College Readiness Standards for EXPLORE. To determine the number of score ranges and the width of each score range, ACT staff reviewed normative data, college admission criteria, and information obtained through ACT’s Course Placement Service. For a more detailed explanation of the way the score ranges were determined, see page 5. For a table listing the College Readiness Standards by score range for Reading, see page 8. For a discussion of College Readiness Benchmark Scores, see page 27.

2

LOCAL

AND

NATIONAL STUDENT RESULTS

In the center of the report, the percent of students who scored in a particular score range at an individual school (Local) is compared with the percent of all students in the norm group (National) who scored in the same range. The percent of students for the norm group is based on the most current set of nationally representative norms.

THE COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS The College Readiness Standards were developed by identifying the knowledge and skills students need in order to respond successfully to questions on the EXPLORE Reading Test. The Standards are cumulative, which means that if students score, for example, in the 16–19 score range, they are likely to be able to demonstrate most or all of the knowledge and skills in the 13–15 and the 16–19 score ranges. Students may be able to demonstrate some of the skills in the next score range, 20–23, but not consistently enough as a group to reach that score range. A description of the way the College Readiness Standards were developed can be found on pages 5–6. A table listing the College Readiness Standards for Reading can be found on page 8.

3

COLLEGE

DESCRIPTION OF THE READINESS STANDARDS

WHAT ARE THE COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS? The College Readiness Standards communicate educational expectations. Each Standard describes what students who score in the designated range are likely to be able to do with what they know. Students can typically demonstrate the skills and knowledge within the score ranges preceding the range in which they scored, so the College Readiness Standards are cumulative. In helping students make the transition to high school, teachers, counselors, and parents can use the College Readiness Standards for EXPLORE to interpret students’ scores and to understand which skills students need to develop to be better prepared for the future.

HOW WERE THE SCORE RANGES DETERMINED? To determine the number of score ranges and the width of each score range for EXPLORE, ACT staff both reviewed EXPLORE normative data and considered the relationship among EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT. In reviewing the EXPLORE normative data, ACT staff analyzed the distribution of student scores across the score scale. Because EXPLORE and PLAN have a common score scale, ACT can provide EXPLORE examinees with an estimated PLAN Composite score. When the score ranges were being determined, therefore, both the EXPLORE score scale, 1–25, and the PLAN score scale, 1–32, were reviewed side by side. And because many students take PLAN to determine how well they might perform on the ACT, the course-placement research that ACT has conducted over the last forty years was also reviewed. ACT’s Course Placement Service provides colleges and universities with cutoff scores that are used to place students into appropriate entry-level courses in college; and these cutoff scores were used to help define the score ranges.

After analyzing all the data and reviewing different possible score ranges, ACT staff concluded that using the five score ranges 1–12, 13–15, 16–19, 20–23, and 24–25 would best distinguish students’ levels of achievement so as to assist teachers, administrators, and others in relating EXPLORE test scores to students’ attainment of specific skills and understandings.

HOW WERE THE COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS DEVELOPED? After reviewing normative data, college admission criteria, and information obtained through ACT’s Course Placement Service, content experts wrote the College Readiness Standards based on their analysis of the skills and knowledge students need in order to successfully respond to the test questions in each score range. Experts analyzed numerous test questions that had been answered correctly by 80% or more of the examinees within each score range. The 80% criterion was chosen because it offers those who use the College Readiness Standards a high degree of confidence that students scoring in a given score range will most likely be able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge described in that range.

“The examination should describe the student in meaningful terms— meaningful to the student, the parent, and the elementary and high school teacher—meaningful in the sense that the profile scores correspond to recognizable school activities, and directly suggest appropriate distributions of emphasis in learning and teaching.” — E. F. Lindquist, February 1958 Cofounder of ACT

5

As a content validity check, ACT invited nationally recognized scholars from high school and university English, Reading, and Education departments to review the College Readiness Standards for the EXPLORE Reading Test. These teachers and researchers provided ACT with independent, authoritative reviews of the ways the College Readiness Standards reflect the skills and knowledge students need to successfully respond to the questions on the EXPLORE Reading Test. Because EXPLORE is curriculum based, ACT and independent consultants conduct a review every three to four years to ensure that the knowledge and skills described in the Standards and outlined in the test specifications continue to reflect those being taught in classrooms nationwide.

HOW SHOULD THE COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS BE I NTERPRETED AND USED? The College Readiness Standards reflect the progression and complexity of the skills measured in EXPLORE. Because no EXPLORE test form measures all of the skills and knowledge included in the College Readiness Standards, the Standards must be interpreted as skills and knowledge that most students who score in a particular score range are likely to be able to demonstrate. Since there were relatively few test questions that were answered correctly by 80% or more of the students who scored in the lower score ranges, the Standards in these ranges should be interpreted cautiously. The skills and understandings of students who score in the 1–12 score range may still be evolving. For these students the skills and understandings in the higher score ranges could become their target achievement outcomes. It is important to recognize that the EXPLORE Test does not measure everything students have learned nor does any test measure everything necessary for students to know to be successful in high school. The EXPLORE English Test includes questions from a

6

large domain of skills and from areas of knowledge that have been judged important for success in high school and beyond. Thus, the College Readiness Standards should be interpreted in a responsible way that will help students understand what they need to know and do if they are going to make a successful transition to high school. As students choose courses they plan to take in high school, they can use the Standards to identify the skills and knowledge they need to develop to be better prepared for their future. Teachers and curriculum coordinators can use the Standards to learn more about their students’ academic strengths and weaknesses and can then modify their instruction and guide students accordingly.

HOW ARE THE COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS ORGANIZED? As content experts reviewed the test questions connected to each score range, distinct yet overlapping areas of knowledge and skill were identified. For example, there are many types of questions in which students are asked to identify the main idea of a paragraph or passage. Therefore, Main Ideas and Author’s Approach is one area, or strand, within the College Readiness Standards for EXPLORE Reading. The other strands are Supporting Details; Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships; Meanings of Words; and Generalizations and Conclusions. The strands provide an organizational framework for the College Readiness Standards statements. As you review the Standards, you will note a progression in complexity within each strand. For example, in the 13–15 range for the Main Ideas and Author’s Approach strand, students are able to “recognize a clear intent of an author or narrator in uncomplicated literary narratives,” while in the 24–25 range, students are able to “infer the main idea or purpose of straightforward paragraphs in more challenging passages.”

WHAT ARE THE “DESCRIPTIONS OF THE EXPLORE READING PASSAGES”? A guiding principle underlying the development of the College Readiness Standards was that reading well depends on a range of flexible, adaptable strategies and that good readers work actively to construct meaning. As students progress in their learning, they encounter different types of discourse and read texts that vary in complexity. Effective readers adjust their reading to fit the type of text and employ specific tactics when they encounter sophisticated text. Because the complexity of a passage on the EXPLORE Reading Test plays such a key role in students’ ability to successfully negotiate the passage (and the test questions), the College Readiness Standards for EXPLORE Reading also include Descriptions of the EXPLORE Reading Passages. These descriptions clarify what kinds of passages are referred to in the College Readiness Standards as Uncomplicated or More Challenging Literary Narratives and Uncomplicated or More Challenging Informational Passages.

teacher-developed assessment tools, as well as standardized tests—to accurately reflect what each student knows and can do. The Standards and the ideas for progress, used in conjunction with classroom-based and curricular resources, help teachers and administrators to guide the whole education of every student.

WHAT ARE THE EXPLORE READING TEST COLLEGE READINESS STANDARDS? Table 1 on pages 8–13 suggests links between what students are likely to be able to do (the College Readiness Standards) and what learning experiences students would likely benefit from. The College Readiness Standards are organized both by score range (along the left-hand side) and by strand (across the top).

The Standards are complemented by brief descriptions of learning experiences from which students might benefit. Based on the College Readiness Standards, these ideas for progress are designed to provide classroom teachers with help for lesson plan development. These ideas, which are given in Table 1, demonstrate one way that information learned from standardized test results can be used to inform classroom instruction.

The ideas for progress are also arranged by score range and by strand. Although many of the ideas cross more than one strand, a primary strand has been identified for each in order to facilitate their use in the classroom. For example, the statement in the 20–23 range “synthesize information from challenging texts to clarify understanding of important concepts and ideas” brings together concepts from several strands, such as Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Supporting Details; and Generalizations and Conclusions. However, this idea is primarily linked to the Main Ideas and Author’s Approach strand.

Because students learn over time and in various contexts, it is important to use a variety of instructional methods and materials to meet students’ diverse needs and to help strengthen and build upon their knowledge and skills. The ideas for progress offer teachers a variety of suggestions to foster learning experiences from which students would likely benefit as they move from one level of learning to the next.

As you review the table, you will note that ideas for progress have been provided for the 24–25 score range, the highest score range for EXPLORE. EXPLORE is designed to measure knowledge and skills achieved through the eighth grade. Ideas for progress for the 24–25 score range are shown to suggest educational experiences from which students may benefit before they take PLAN and the ACT.

Because learning is a complex and individual process, it is especially important to use multiple sources of information—classroom observations and

7

Table 1:

EXPLORE READING TEST

The College Readiness Standards

The Standards describe what students who score in the specified score ranges are likely to know and to be able to do. The ideas for progress help teachers identify ways of enhancing students’ learning based on the scores students receive. The score range at the Benchmark level of achievement is highlighted.

Main Ideas and Author’s Approach 1–12

13 –15

Supporting Details

Standards

■

Students who score in the 1–12 range are most likely beginning to develop the knowledge and skills assessed in the other score ranges.

ideas for progress

■

locate details in a literary text that suggest the author’s or narrator’s intent

■

speculate about an author’s or narrator’s beliefs, motives, or thinking

■

write, exchange, and answer a series of questions that examine significant details presented in a text

■

locate and discuss details presented in a text (e.g., who, what, where)

Standards

■

Recognize a clear intent of an author or narrator in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

Locate basic facts (e.g., names, dates, events) clearly stated in a passage

ideas for progress

■

work with peers to create logical statements about the main idea or purpose of simple paragraphs

■

determine which details in a text are essential to understanding the author’s or narrator’s intended message

■

scan a text in order to locate specific details (e.g., dates, specialized terms, facts)

■

identify the author’s or narrator’s reasons for including specific information in the text

Descriptions of the EXPLORE Reading Passages

Uncomplicated Literary Narratives refers to excerpts from essays, short stories, and novels that tend to use simple language and structure, have a clear purpose and a familiar style, present straightforward interactions between characters, and employ only a limited number of literary devices such as metaphor, simile, or hyperbole.

8

More Challenging Literary Narratives refers to excerpts from essays, short stories, and novels that tend to make moderate use of figurative language, have a more intricate structure and messages conveyed with some subtlety, and may feature somewhat complex interactions between characters.

Table 1:

The Standards and the Pathways for Transition

Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships

■

■

use various strategies (e.g., timelines, event chains, discussion) to determine whether an event occurred and, if so, when it occurred

Meanings of Words

■

Generalizations and Conclusions

use various resources (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus) to explore connotations of familiar words or descriptive language

discuss an issue of interest, determining how past events affected the present

■

locate evidence in a text that explicitly states why an event or a series of events occurred

■

search for patterns or clues (e.g., signal words) that indicate cause-effect relationships

■

Determine when (e.g., first, last, before, after) or if an event occurred in uncomplicated passages

■

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships described within a single sentence in a passage

■

analyze how an author or narrator uses description, dialogue, and action to suggest relationships between characters in written or nonprint sources (e.g., films, ads)

■

select phrases or statements from a literary text that illustrate how a specific character feels toward others in the text

■

■

■

recognize generalizations about the main character in a literary text

■

combine several pieces of information to make a reasonable generalization about a specific character

■

make predictions about characters and events presented in a literary text, verifying or rejecting those predictions and making new ones as they read

■

Understand the implication of a familiar word or phrase and of simple descriptive language

■

Draw simple generalizations and conclusions about the main characters in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

examine specific language in a text and propose plausible interpretations based in part on their own viewpoints and experiences

■

analyze the reasonableness of generalizations by reviewing information presented in the text and from other sources

■

compose generalizations that include qualifying language (e.g., a few, sometimes) when limited evidence is presented by the author or narrator

read portions of a literary text, predicting how a person’s actions or words would likely impact a specific situation

■

determine what a literary narrative is generally about, organizing the text’s information into general statements that are supported by details from the text

use various strategies (e.g., questioning, role-playing) to determine plausible cause-effect relationships

■

draw reasonable conclusions about people and situations using evidence presented in a text

Uncomplicated Informational Passages refers to materials that tend to contain a limited amount of data, address basic concepts using familiar language and conventional organizational patterns, have a clear purpose, and are written to be accessible.

More Challenging Informational Passages refers to materials that tend to present concepts that are not always stated explicitly and that are accompanied or illustrated by more—and more detailed—supporting data, include some difficult context-dependent words, and are written in a somewhat more demanding and less accessible style.

9

Table 1 (continued):





Standards

ideas for progress

20–23

Standards

ideas for progress

10

■

■

Identify a clear main idea or purpose of straightforward paragraphs in uncomplicated literary narratives

analyze techniques used by the author of a text to reveal or conceal his or her point of view

■

Infer the main idea or purpose of straightforward paragraphs in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

Understand the overall approach taken by an author or narrator (e.g., point of view, kinds of evidence used) in uncomplicated passages

■

determine how an inference might change based on the inclusion of additional information

■

synthesize information from challenging texts to clarify understanding of important concepts and ideas

■

distinguish between key concepts and subordinate ideas in a text and write a concise summary

■

search for clues that suggest the viewpoint from which a literary text is written or told and determine whether the author’s or narrator’s point of view is valid or biased

■

analyze the relationship between an author’s or narrator’s intended message and the rhetorical devices used to convey that message (e.g., language used, evidence provided)

Supporting Details ■

Locate simple details at the sentence and paragraph level in uncomplicated passages

■

Recognize a clear function of a part of an uncomplicated passage

■

explain in their own words the significance of specific information in written or nonprint sources

■

distinguish between what is most and least important in a text

■

Locate important details in uncomplicated passages

■

Make simple inferences about how details are used in passages

■

gather and interpret details presented in a text, determining the contribution of each to the author’s or narrator’s intended message

■

identify details that clearly support the key point(s) of written or nonprint sources

■

check inferences against information provided in a text, identifying what is and is not sufficiently supported by the text

Table 1:


Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships ■

Identify relationships between main characters in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships within a single paragraph in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

place events from a literary text in chronological order by locating substantial evidence from the text

■

identify similarities and differences between people, objects, events, or ideas, drawing accurate conclusions

■

identify interrelationships between and among people, objects, events, or ideas in written or nonprint sources

■

determine factors that have clearly influenced the outcome of a situation

■

identify statements in texts that clearly state the cause(s) and effect(s) of specific events

■

Order simple sequences of events in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

Identify clear relationships between people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages

■

Identify clear cause-effect relationships in uncomplicated passages

■

analyze the sequence of events in written or nonprint sources

■

map sequences of events in texts or films or from everyday occurrences, defending their reasoning

■

evaluate the extent to which comparisons made by the author or narrator help clarify specific textual relationships

■

search for clues embedded in a text that suggest cause-effect relationships

■

examine events in written or nonprint sources to determine the precipitating cause(s) and final outcome(s)

Meanings of Words


■

Use context to understand basic figurative language

■

Draw simple generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages

■

clarify the meanings of words or descriptive phrases by searching for clues in the text (e.g., sentence structure, context, prefixes/suffixes, spelling patterns)

■

make accurate generalizations about people and events based on evidence presented in the text

■

identify inaccurate generalizations (e.g., stereotypes) in written or nonprint sources

■

identify details in a challenging text that confirm or disprove conclusions drawn by the author or narrator and by the students themselves or their peers

■

make reasoned judgments about ideas and events based on evidence from written or nonprint sources

Use context to determine the appropriate meaning of some figurative and nonfigurative words, phrases, and statements in uncomplicated passages

■

Draw generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages

■

Draw simple generalizations and conclusions using details that support the main points of more challenging passages

■

investigate the meanings of words and their possible effect(s) on the perceptions and behavior of people

■

■

research words and phrases from different sources, identifying their shades of meaning in various contexts or situations

defend or challenge the author’s or narrator’s assertions by locating several key pieces of information in a challenging text

■

make accurate generalizations based on implicit information in the text

■

analyze specific parts of a text, drawing accurate conclusions

■

11

Table 1 (continued):





Standards

ideas for progress

12

■

Identify a clear main idea or purpose of any paragraph or paragraphs in uncomplicated passages

■

Infer the main idea or purpose of straightforward paragraphs in more challenging passages

■

Summarize basic events and ideas in more challenging passages

■

Understand the overall approach taken by an author or narrator (e.g., point of view, kinds of evidence used) in more challenging passages

■

develop a reasonable interpretation of the central theme(s) or main point(s) of a challenging text

■

divide challenging texts into sections, determining what the key points are for each section

■

determine the primary purpose of specific sections of a text or the text as a whole

■

use two different mediums (e.g., sculpture, poetry, photography, music) to present a synopsis of the main idea(s) of a text, thereby expanding understanding of the text’s meaning

■

identify subtle evidence that conveys the author’s or narrator’s point of view in challenging texts

■

change the wording of a text in order to convey a different tone or attitude (e.g., from persuasive to serious)

Supporting Details ■

Locate important details in more challenging passages

■

Locate and interpret minor or subtly stated details in uncomplicated passages

■

Discern which details, though they may appear in different sections throughout a passage, support important points in more challenging passages

■

enumerate aspects or characteristics of people, objects, events, or ideas

■

interpret and integrate details in a text in order to verify or contradict a specific point or claim made by the author or narrator

■

recognize and study the evolution of an author’s argument(s) as presented in a complex informational text

Table 1:


Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships ■

Order sequences of events in uncomplicated passages

■

Understand relationships between people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages

■

Identify clear relationships between characters, ideas, and so on in more challenging literary narratives

■

Understand implied or subtly stated cause-effect relationships in uncomplicated passages

■

Identify clear cause-effect relationships in more challenging passages

■

Meanings of Words


■

Use context to determine the appropriate meaning of virtually any word, phrase, or statement in uncomplicated passages

■

Draw subtle generalizations and conclusions about characters, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated literary narratives

■

Use context to determine the appropriate meaning of some figurative and nonfigurative words, phrases, and statements in more challenging passages

■

Draw generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on in more challenging passages

read texts containing challenging sequences (e.g., flashback, flashforward), discussing how the order of events affects understanding of the text

■

develop and use strategies for deciphering the meanings of words or phrases embedded in richly figurative or technical contexts

■

synthesize information in challenging texts, making valid generalizations or conclusions about people and situations

■

explain how altering a series of events would likely change the outcome of a situation or the actions of the characters

■

analyze figurative and technical language in the media, relating some instances to a personal experience

■

confirm or disprove generalizations suggested in texts by providing examples or counterexamples from other sources

■

develop an in-depth understanding of the fine distinctions between literary characters in a challenging text by closely examining the language used by the author or narrator

■

identify relationships between ideas and/or people in a challenging text and how those relationships develop over the course of the text

■

identify clues in a challenging text that suggest possible motives for and effects of a person’s actions or words

■

read conflicting viewpoints of an event and use textual evidence to identify which one has the most reasonable explanations of causes and effects

13

DESCRIPTION OF READING TEST

THE

WHAT DOES THE EXPLORE READING TEST M EASURE? Good readers develop an understanding of texts by becoming actively involved as they read, and in doing so, they use a range of flexible, adaptable strategies that influence their “ability to read the lines, to read between the lines, and to read beyond the lines” (Gray, 1960, p. 17). “Get[ting] students to build understanding of text ideas” is a goal of reading instruction across all grade levels and content areas (Beck, McKeown, Hamilton, & Kucan, 1998, p. 67). To meet this goal requires active reading and the use of various kinds and combinations of skills, skills that can be assessed using various measures. The EXPLORE Reading Test, a curriculum-based assessment, measures the reading comprehension skills students have acquired in courses taken up to the beginning of eighth grade. ACT determines the content of the EXPLORE Reading Test by identifying the concepts and skills that are taught in classrooms nationwide and considered necessary for future academic success. Designed to simulate the types of reading tasks students encounter in their academic work and in life outside of school, the Reading Test

EXPLORE

measures students’ literal-level reading skills as well as their ability to make inferences, draw conclusions, generalize from specific data, and reason logically. The passages selected for the Reading Test are from published works of fiction and nonfiction, represent diverse points of view, and are produced by writers who reflect a wide variety of backgrounds. Students’ reading skills are assessed in three content areas: Prose Fiction, Humanities, and Social Science. Each passage is preceded by a heading that identifies the passage type (e.g., Prose Fiction), names the author, and may provide a brief note that helps in understanding the passage. The lines of the passage are numbered for reference. Table 2 below provides additional information about the EXPLORE Reading Test.

“The test should measure what students can do with what they have learned.” — (ACT, 1996a, p. 1)

Table 2: EXPLORE Reading Test Content Areas 30 questions, 30 minutes, 3 passages (500 words each) Description of Passage

Percentage of Questions

Prose Fiction

The test questions in this category are based on passages from short stories or novels.

33%

Humanities

The test questions in this category are based on passages from memoirs and personal essays, and in the content areas of architecture, art, dance, ethics, film, language, literary criticism, music, philosophy, radio, television, or theater.

33%

Social Science The test questions in this category are based on passages in anthropology, archaeology, biography, business, economics, education, geography, history, political science, psychology, or sociology.

33%

14

Questions in the Reading Test are classified in the general categories of Referring and Reasoning.

Referring. The questions in this category ask about material explicitly stated in a passage. These questions are designed to measure literal reading comprehension. A question is classified in the Referring category if the information required to answer it is directly given in the passage text. In such questions, there are usually relationships between the language of the passage and that of the question, and the answer to the question is evident in a single sentence, or two adjacent sentences, in the passage. Some Referring questions paraphrase the language of the passage.

Reasoning. The questions in this category ask about meaning implicit in a passage and require cogent reasoning about a passage. These questions are designed to measure “meaning making” by logical inference, analysis, and synthesis. A question is classified in the Reasoning category if it requires inferring or applying a logical process to elicit an answer from the passage, or if it demands that the examinee combine many statements in the passage or interpret entire sections of the text.

15

THE NEED

FOR

THINKING SKILLS

Every student comes to school with the ability to think, but to achieve their goals students need to develop skills such as learning to make new connections between texts and ideas, to understand increasingly complex concepts, and to think through their assumptions. Because of technological advances and the fast pace of our society, it is increasingly important that students not only know information but also know how to critique and manage that information. Students must be provided with the tools for ongoing learning; understanding, analysis, and generalization skills must be developed so that the learner is able to adapt to a variety of situations.

HOW ARE EXPLORE TEST QUESTIONS LINKED TO THINKING SKILLS? Our belief in the importance of developing thinking skills in learners was a key factor in the development of EXPLORE. ACT believes that students’ preparation for further learning is best assessed by measuring, as directly as possible, the academic skills that students have acquired and that they will need to perform at the next level of learning. The required academic skills can most directly be assessed by reproducing as faithfully as possible the complexity of the students’ schoolwork. Therefore, the EXPLORE test questions are designed to determine how skillfully students solve problems, grasp implied meanings, draw inferences, evaluate ideas, and make judgments in subject-matter areas important to success in intellectual work both inside and outside school.

16

Table 3 on pages 17–21 provides sample test questions, organized by score range, that are linked to specific skills within each of the five Reading strands. It is important to note the increasing level of skill with reading that students scoring in the higher score ranges are able to demonstrate. The questions were chosen to illustrate the variety of content as well as the range of complexity within each strand. The sample test questions for the 13–15, 16–19, 20–23, and 24–25 score ranges are examples of items answered correctly by 80% or more of the EXPLORE examinees who obtained scores in each of these four score ranges. As you review the sample test questions, you will note that each correct answer is marked with an asterisk. Also note that each sample test question includes the passage content area and subcategory for the corresponding passage as well as the page number where the passage is located in the appendix.

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardour and attended to with diligence.” — Abigail Adams in a letter to John Quincy Adams

Table 3:

Score Range

EXPLORE Sample Test Questions by Score Range Main Ideas and Author’s Approach Strand

Main Ideas and Author’s Approach

Sample Test Questions

13 –15


Due to the secure nature of the test, it was not possible to provide a sample test question for this skill.

16 –19


Due to the secure nature of the test, it was not possible to provide a sample test question for this skill.

20 –23


Whether the game that prompted the writing of this passage actually happened as described is a matter of:

24 –25

Summarize basic events and ideas in more challenging passages

*A. opinion, since the writer wonders whether he has remembered the event properly. B. opinion, since the game probably looked quite a bit different to the major league scouts in attendance. C. opinion, since the mother remembers quite a bit about the game, but what she remembers is different. D. fact, since the writer feels quite certain of all the facts he has presented here. The main point of the second paragraph (lines 19–32) is that: *A. some people weren’t sure starlings should have been imported into the U.S. B. starlings had been despised in Europe for thousands of years before coming to the U.S. C. starlings have competed with songbirds for many centuries in the U.S. D. the starling is a very impressive and unusual bird.

Passage Information

page 75 Humanities Personal Essay

page 72 Social Science History

17

Table 3:

Score Range 13 –15

EXPLORE Sample Test Questions by Score Range Supporting Details Strand

Supporting Details



The area under the stage was traditionally referred to as the:

20 –23



page 76 Humanities

A. B. C. *D.

16 –19

Passage Information

Basement. Grave. Hut. Hell.

Squeaky would most likely describe her running as a: A. *B. C. D.

boring hobby. serious sport. stressful undertaking. good defense.

According to the passage, where did Milton Snavely Hershey learn about chocolate making?

Theater

page 24 Prose Fiction Short Story page 73 Social Science

A. B. C. *D.

24 –25

18


At a German chocolate-making factory At his own plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania At a British chocolate-bar factory At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

According to the passage, what is Broadway? *A. B. C. D.

A busy city street A tall building An island A picnic area

History

page 24 Prose Fiction Short Story

Table 3:

EXPLORE Sample Test Questions by Score Range Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships Strand

Score Range

Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships

13 –15

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships explicitly described within a single sentence in a passage

16 –19



Passage Information

Squeaky gets her name because of the:

page 24

A. B. *C. D.

The relationship described in the most detail in the passage is that between:

Order simple sequences of events in uncomplicated literary narratives

Identify clear cause-effect relationships in more challenging passages

Squeaky and her father. Squeaky and Raymond. Raymond and his father. Squeaky’s parents.

In Squeaky’s opinion, if Squeaky, her father, and Gretchen all ran in a race together, what would the outcome be? A. B. *C. D.

24 –25

Prose Fiction Short Story page 24 Prose Fiction

A. *B. C. D.

20 –23

way she runs. way she looks. way she talks. kind of breathing exercises she does.

Squeaky first; Squeaky’s father second; Gretchen third Squeaky first; Gretchen second; Squeaky’s father third Squeaky’s father first; Squeaky second; Gretchen third Gretchen first; Squeaky second; Squeaky’s father third

The passage mentions the rumor that Eugene Schieffelin’s scheme was to: A. show Americans what a fascinating bird the starling is. *B. import all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s works to the U.S. C. control the Japanese beetle and cutworm problem in the U.S. D. demonstrate to U.S. citizens how beautiful the starling’s song is.

Short Story

page 24 Prose Fiction Short Story

page 72 Social Science History

19

Table 3:


EXPLORE Sample Test Questions by Score Range Meanings of Words Strand

Meanings of Words



It can reasonably be inferred from the second “Mine?” (line 63) uttered by Jody that he:


page 70 Prose Fiction

A. *B. C. D.

16 –19

Passage Information

won’t curry the horse after school. can hardly believe the pony is his. is wondering how he’s going to afford the pony. is embarrassed by what his father has done.

As it is used in the passage, the phrase “the cheapest part of the house” (lines 19–20) most nearly means the:

Novel

page 76 Humanities

A. B. *C. D.

20 –23

24 –25

20

Use context to determine the appropriate meaning of some figurative and nonfigurative words, phrases, and statements in uncomplicated passages

Use context to determine the appropriate meaning of virtually any word, phrase, or statement in uncomplicated passages

most inexpensive part of a home to build. least valuable room in a home. least expensive area in the theater. backyard of a home.

As it is used in line 7, the phrase common boundary most nearly means:

Theater

page 74 Social Science

A. *B. C. D.

natural cutoff point. shared border. ordinary limitation. average line.

As it is used in line 31, the word private most nearly means:

Geography


A. B. *C. D.

unimportant. shameful. confidential. sincere.

Short Story

Table 3:


EXPLORE Sample Test Questions by Score Range Generalizations and Conclusions Strand




Squeaky’s body type would most accurately be described as:


Draw generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages


Short Story


cautious. intellectual. timid. self-confident.

According to the passage, Squeaky’s relationship with her brother Raymond could best be described as:

Short Story


A. *B. C. D.

24 –25

muscular. large. slight. very tall.

Squeaky’s personality would most accurately be described as: A. B. C. *D.

20 –23


A. B. *C. D.

16 –19

Passage Information

easygoing yet distant. challenging but affectionate. intolerable and one-sided. awkward and regrettable.

The narrator implies in lines 43–47 that the nun’s reaction was one of:

Short Story


A. B. C. *D.

excitement. sadness. resignation. disbelief.

Novel

21

THINKING YOUR WAY THROUGH THE EXPLORE TEST In our increasingly complex society, students’ ability to think critically and make informed decisions is more important than ever. The workplace demands new skills and knowledge and continual learning; information bombards consumers through media and the Internet; familiar assumptions and values often come into question. More than ever before, students in today’s classrooms face a future when they will need to adapt quickly to change, to think about issues in rational and creative ways, to cope with ambiguities, and to find means of applying information to new situations. Classroom teachers are integrally involved in preparing today’s students for their futures. Such preparation must include the development of thinking skills such as problem solving, decision making, and inferential and evaluative thinking. These are, in fact, the types of skills and understandings that underlie the test questions on EXPLORE.

answer. The descriptions provide a series of strategies students typically might employ as they work through each test question. Possible flawed strategies leading to the choice of one or more incorrect responses also are offered. Analyzing test questions in this way, as test developers do to produce a Test Question Rationale, can provide students with a means of understanding the knowledge and skills embedded in the test questions and an opportunity to explore why an answer choice is correct or incorrect. Providing students with strategies such as these encourages them to take charge of their thinking and learning. The sample test questions that appear in Table 3 on pages 17–21 can be used to develop additional Test Question Rationales.

“Learning is fundamentally about

HOW CAN ANALYZING TEST QUESTIONS BUILD THINKING SKILLS?

making and maintaining connections . . .

On pages 24–25 you will find a passage and some sample test questions. The sample test questions provide a link to a strand, a Standard, and a score range. Each sample test question includes a description of the skills and understandings students must demonstrate in order to determine the best

— American Association for Higher Education, American College Personnel Association, & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, June 1998

among concepts, ideas, and meanings.”

23

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “Raymond’s Run” (©1972 by Toni Cade Bambara).

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

24

I don’t have much work to do around the house like some girls. My mother does that. And I don’t have to earn my pocket money. And anything else that’s got to get done, my father does. All I have to do in life is mind my brother Raymond, which is enough. Sometimes I slip and say my little brother Raymond. But as any fool can see he’s much bigger and he’s older too. But a lot of people call him my little brother cause he needs looking after cause he’s not quite right. And a lot of smart mouths got lots to say about that too. But now, if anybody has anything to say to Raymond, anything to say about his big head, they have to come by me. And I don’t play the dozens or believe in standing around with somebody in my face doing a lot of talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my chances even if I am a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is how I got the name Squeaky. And if things get too rough, I run. And as anybody can tell you, I’m the fastest thing on two feet. There is no track meet that I don’t win the first place medal. I used to win the twenty-yard dash when I was a little kid in kindergarten. Nowadays, it’s the fifty-yard dash. And tomorrow I’m subject to run the quarter-meter relay all by myself and come in first, second, and third. The big kids call me Mercury cause I’m the swiftest thing in the neighborhood. Everybody knows that—except two people who know better, my father and me. He can beat me to Amsterdam Avenue with me having a two fire-hydrant headstart. But that’s private information. So as far as everyone’s concerned, I’m the fastest and that goes for Gretchen, too, who has put out the tale that she is going to win the first-place medal this year. Ridiculous. In the second place, she’s got short legs. In the third place, she’s got freckles. In the first place, no one can beat me and that’s all there is to it. I’m standing on the corner admiring the weather and about to take a stroll down Broadway so I can practice my breathing exercises, and I’ve got Raymond walking on the inside close to the buildings, cause he’s subject to fits of fantasy and starts thinking he’s a circus performer and that the curb is a tightrope strung high in the air. And sometimes after a rain he likes to step down off his tightrope right into the gutter and slosh around getting his shoes and cuffs wet. Or sometimes if you don’t watch him he’ll dash across traffic to the island in the middle of Broadway and give the pigeons a fit. Then I have to go behind him apologizing to all the old people sitting around trying to get some sun and getting all upset with the pigeons fluttering around them, scattering their newspapers and upsetting the waxpaper lunches in their laps. So I keep Raymond on the inside of me, and he plays like he’s driving a stage coach which is O.K. by me so long as he doesn’t run me over or interrupt my breathing exercises, which I have to do on account of I’m serious about my running, and I don’t care who knows it.

Students reading this passage will recognize it as a prose fiction narrative. The passage is written in the first person, and much of the pleasure of reading it comes from the personality of the narrator, Squeaky, and the reader’s ability to see the world through her eyes. Many of the corresponding test questions touch upon how well the student-readers are able to understand Squeaky, her interests, and her responsibilities. To answer the questions that correspond to this prose fiction passage, students need to rely on various kinds and combinations of thinking skills. Some questions focus on literal reading skills, such as the ability to recognize explicitly stated material. Other questions require more complex reading strategies, such as recognizing how details relate to the main idea of a passage, drawing conclusions implied but not explicitly stated in the passage, and recognizing appropriate generalizations. These are but a few examples of the types of questions that examine the ability of students to analyze and synthesize the information and rhetorical structure of a passage. For students to read inferentially, they must connect explicit information in a text to relevant world knowledge or to other parts of the text in order to make logical interpretations. Inferring is a meaning-making process because a reader expands his or her knowledge by proposing and evaluating hypotheses about the meaning of the text; to infer well requires the thoughtful use of such strategies.

Test Question Rationale Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships

■ Identify relationships between main characters in uncomplicated literary narratives ■ 16–19 score range

1. The relationship described in the most detail in the passage is that between: A. *B. C. D.

Squeaky and her father. Squeaky and Raymond. Raymond and Gretchen. Raymond and his father.

Question 1 is an example of an item that requires students to decide which relationship is described in the most detail in the passage. To select the best answer, choice B, students must recognize that Squeaky is the narrator and that in most of the passage (the exception is the third paragraph) she is describing her relationship with her brother Raymond. Although Squeaky talks about her father (a few lines in the first and third paragraphs) students should be able to see that that relationship is less central to this particular passage than her relationship with Raymond, thus ruling out choice A. The passage does not indicate that Raymond and Gretchen have a relationship, which rules out choice C. Finally, nothing is mentioned about Raymond’s relationship with his father, which rules out choice D.

Test Question Rationale Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships

■ Understand implied or subtly stated cause-effect relationships in uncomplicated passages ■ 24–25 score range

2. Squeaky sometimes has to apologize to “the old people sitting around trying to get some sun” (lines 50–51) because: F. *G. H. J.

she had disturbed them by running by. Raymond has disturbed the pigeons. Raymond scared them by running across the street. she knocked over their lunches.

To select the best answer, choice G, the reader must infer the cause-effect relationships implied in that part of the passage. Lines 38–58 in the fourth paragraph indicate that Raymond has an active imagination and that he is full of energy. For example, the text states that Raymond “starts thinking he’s a circus performer and that the curb is a tightrope strung high in the air.” In addition, Raymond likes to “dash across traffic to the island in the middle of Broadway and give the pigeons a fit.” Students must interpret this information, drawing the conclusion that Raymond has disturbed the pigeons by running quickly past them or through them, which, consequently, disturbs the people who are sitting in the sun near the pigeons. The text implies that Squeaky feels the need to apologize to the old people

because the disturbed pigeons are flying around the people “scattering their newspapers and upsetting the waxpaper lunches in their laps.” Choices F and J are incorrect because Raymond, not the narrator, caused the disturbance. The text does not provide any evidence to support the conclusion in choice H.

Test Question Rationale Generalizations and Conclusions

■ Draw generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages ■ 20–23 score range

3. Squeaky’s feelings toward Raymond would most accurately be described as: A. B. *C. D.

jealous. modest. protective. ashamed.

The last example from this prose fiction passage, question 3, taps the critical comprehension skills of the reader. To select the best answer, choice C, students must determine the narrator’s attitude toward Raymond, as it is implicitly presented in the passage. Choice C is supported by information presented in the first, second, and fourth paragraphs. The last sentence of the first paragraph states that Squeaky’s primary responsibility is to “mind my brother Raymond.” Information in the second paragraph suggests Squeaky’s protectiveness toward her brother. For example, the narrator says that “a lot of people call him my little brother cause he needs looking after…” and “if anybody has anything to say to Raymond, anything to say about his big head, they have to come by me.” The fourth paragraph also describes how Squeaky takes care of her brother. For example, in lines 40–42 Squeaky indicates that she keeps “Raymond walking on the inside close to the buildings, cause he’s subject to fits of fantasy.” All of this information rules out choice A. Choice B is inaccurate, as a person can’t feel “modest” about another person. Choice D might be something students imagine as possible, but it is not supported by evidence in the passage.

25

The Assessment-Instruction Link

THE ASSESSMENT-INSTRUCTION LINK WHY I S IT I MPORTANT TO LINK ASSESSMENT WITH I NSTRUCTION? Assessment provides feedback to the learner and the teacher. It bridges the gap between expectations and reality. Assessment can gauge the learners’ readiness to extend their knowledge in a given area, measure knowledge gains, identify needs, and determine the learners’ ability to transfer what was learned to a new setting. When teachers use assessment tools to gather information about their students, then modify instruction accordingly, the assessment process becomes an integral part of teaching and learning. Using assessment to inform instruction can help teachers create a successful learning environment. Students can use assessment as a tool to help them revise and rethink their work, to help integrate prior knowledge with new learning, and to apply their knowledge to new situations. Connecting assessment to classroom instruction can help both teachers and students take charge of thinking and learning.

“Every objective, every lesson plan, every classroom activity, and every assessment method should focus on helping students achieve those [significant] outcomes that will help students both in the classroom and beyond.” — Kay Burke, editor of Authentic Assessment: A Collection

26

As teachers review student performances on various measures, they can reexamine how to help students learn. As Peter Airasian, the author of Classroom Assessment, says, “Assessment is not an end in itself, but a means to another end, namely, good decision making” (p. 19). Linking assessment and instruction prompts both teachers and students to take on new roles and responsibilities. Through reflecting together on their learning, students and teachers can reevaluate their goals and embark on a process of continuous growth.

ARE YOUR STUDENTS DEVELOPING N ECESSARY SKILLS?

THE

EXPLORE can be administered in eighth or ninth grade to provide students with an early indication of their educational progress in the context of the post-high school educational and career options they are considering. The results from EXPLORE can be used to help students make adjustments in their course work to help ensure that they are prepared for what they want to do in and after high school. EXPLORE and PLAN are developmentally and conceptually linked to the ACT and thus provide a coherent framework for students and counselors and a consistent skills focus for teachers from Grades 8 through 12. Because EXPLORE is linked to PLAN, students receive an estimated PLAN Composite score along with their EXPLORE scores. These scores can be used to evaluate students’ readiness for high school and to plan an appropriate course of study.

As students and others review test scores from EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT, they should be aware that ACT’s data clearly reveal that students’ ACT test scores are directly related to preparation for college. Students who take rigorous high school courses, which ACT has defined as core college preparatory courses, achieve much higher test scores than students who do not. ACT has defined core college preparatory course work as four or more years of English, and three or more years each of mathematics, social studies, and natural science. ACT works with colleges to help them develop guidelines that place students in courses that are appropriate for their level of achievement as measured by the ACT. In doing this work, ACT has gathered course grade and test score data from a large number of first-year students across a wide range of postsecondary institutions. These data provide an overall measure of what it takes to be successful in a standard first-year college course. Data from 98 institutions and over 90,000 students were used to establish the ACT College Readiness Benchmark Scores, which are median course placement scores achieved on the ACT that are directly reflective of student success in a college course.

placement values for these institutions and as such represent a typical set of expectations. College Readiness Benchmark Scores have also been developed for EXPLORE and for PLAN, to indicate a student’s probable readiness for collegelevel work, in the same courses named in the previous paragraph, by the time the student graduates from high school. The EXPLORE and PLAN College Readiness Benchmark Scores were developed using records of students who had taken EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT (four years of matched data). Using either EXPLORE subject-area scores or PLAN subjectarea scores, we estimated the conditional probabilities associated with meeting or exceeding the corresponding ACT Benchmark Score. Thus, each EXPLORE (1–25) or PLAN (1–32) score was associated with an estimated probability of meeting or exceeding the relevant ACT Benchmark Score. We then identified the EXPLORE and PLAN scores, at Grades 8, 9, 10, and 11, that came the closest to a 0.5 probability of meeting or exceeding the ACT Benchmark Score, by subject area. These scores were selected as the EXPLORE and PLAN Benchmark Scores. All the Benchmark Scores are given in Table 4. Note that, for example, the first row of the table should be read as follows: An eighth-grade student who scores 13, or a ninth-grade student who scores 14, on the EXPLORE English Test has a 50 percent probability of scoring 18 on the ACT English Test; and a tenth-grade student who scores 15, or an eleventhgrade student who scores 17, on the PLAN English Test has a 50 percent probability of scoring 18 on the ACT English Test.

Success is defined as a 50 percent chance that a student will earn a grade of B or better. The courses are the ones most commonly taken by first-year students in the areas of English, mathematics, social studies, and science, namely English Composition, College Algebra, an entry-level College Social Studies/Humanities course, and College Biology. The ACT scores established as the ACT College Readiness Benchmark Scores are 18 on the English Test, 22 on the Mathematics Test, 21 on Table 4: College Readiness Benchmark Scores the Reading Test, and 24 on the Science Test. The College Readiness EXPLORE PLAN Benchmark Scores were Test Score Test Score based upon a sample of Subject Test Grade 8 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 postsecondary institutions from across the United English 13 14 15 17 States. The data from Mathematics 17 18 19 21 these institutions were weighted to reflect postsecondary institutions nationally. The Benchmark Scores are median course

ACT Test Score 18 22

Reading

15

16

17

19

21

Science

20

20

21

23

24

27

USING ASSESSMENT INFORMATION HELP SUPPORT LOW-SCORING STUDENTS Students who receive a Composite score of 13 or below on EXPLORE will most likely require additional guidance and support from their teachers and family in order to meet their academic goals, particularly if one of those goals is to attend a four-year college or university. Because EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT share a common score scale, each student who takes EXPLORE receives an estimated PLAN Composite score range. This estimated score range predicts how a student might expect to perform on PLAN as a high school sophomore. The estimated score ranges, for both eighth-grade test takers and ninth-grade test takers, are reported in Table 5. Table 5 indicates that, for an EXPLORE Composite score of 12 when EXPLORE is taken in Grade 8, the lower limit of the estimated PLAN Composite score range is given as 13 and the upper limit is given as 16. That is, an estimated PLAN Composite score range of 13 to 16 is reported for eighth-grade students with EXPLORE Composite scores of 12. Similarly, when EXPLORE is taken in Grade 9, a student’s EXPLORE Composite score of 12 results in an estimated PLAN Composite score range of 11 to 14. Since both EXPLORE and PLAN are designed to be curriculum-based testing programs, some students’ performance on PLAN will fall outside their estimated PLAN Composite score range. If students do not maintain good academic work in school, their actual PLAN Composite scores may fall short of their estimated score ranges. Conversely, some students who improve their academic performance may earn PLAN Composite scores higher than their estimated score ranges. Eighth or ninth grade is a good time for students, parents, counselors, and teachers to take stock of a student’s progress. EXPLORE test scores and other performance indicators should be discussed in the context of the student’s future goals, previous academic preparation, and plans for future high school course work.

28

TO

Table 5: Estimated PLAN Composite Score Ranges

EXPLORE Composite Score

Estimated PLAN Composite Score Range for 8th Graders for 9th Graders Low High Low High

1

8

11

8

12

2

8

11

8

12

3

8

11

8

12

4

8

11

8

12

5

10

13

8

12

6

10

13

9

12

7

10

13

9

12

8

10

13

9

12

9

10

13

9

12

10

11

14

10

13

11

12

15

11

14

12

13

16

11

14

13

14

17

12

15

14

15

18

13

16

15

16

19

14

17

16

17

20

15

18

17

18

21

16

19

18

19

23

18

21

19

19

23

19

22

20

20

24

20

24

21

21

25

21

25

22

23

27

22

26

23

24

28

23

27

24

25

29

24

28

25

27

30

26

30

As educators and parents look over a student’s academic performance, the way the student’s scores and goals match up can suggest a course of action. For example, a student who wishes to become a journalist will need a solid reading background. A high Reading Test score can be used as evidence that the goal is realistic. A low score suggests the student should consider ways of improving his or her reading skills through additional course work and/or additional assistance in the area. First, using the College Readiness Standards, school personnel might explain EXPLORE scores to students and parents. Then, using reports and test data from classroom teachers, grade point averages, and data from district and state tests, educators and parents can help students make decisions about which academic areas students might need additional assistance with, which student goals might need to be redirected, and which junior high or high school courses to take. “A rigorous high school curriculum is often the strongest predictor of entering college and earning a degree. . . . This suggests that for students who plan to go to college, demanding coursework as early as eighth grade will increase their chances for college success. As [high school] course requirements become standard, it is important to ensure that the corresponding course content prepares students for the rigors of college” (Noeth & Wimberly, 2002, p. 17).

In addition to planning for high school course work, taking remedial classes if necessary, and beginning to match career goals to known talents, eighth-grade students who want to attend a four-year college or university should begin educating themselves about such schools. Some students, particularly those whose parents did not attend college, may not have access to information about postsecondary education. “Though many students . . . attending urban schools may have the desire and expectation, they may not have the skills, knowledge, and information they need to enter and complete a postsecondary program. Many . . . do not have the informational resources, personal support networks, continual checkpoints, or structured programs to make college exploration and planning a theme throughout their daily lives. . . . Students need their schools, parents, and others to help them plan for college and their future careers” (Noeth & Wimberly, 2002, p. 4). College admission policies vary widely in their level of selectivity. ACT Composite scores typically required by colleges having varying levels of selectivity are shown in Table 5. This information provides only general guidelines. There is considerable overlap among admission categories, and colleges often make exceptions to their stated admission policies.

Table 6: The Link Between ACT Composite Scores and College Admission Policies

Admission Policy

Typical Class Rank of Admitted Students

Typical ACT Composite Scores of Admitted Students

Highly Selective

Majority of accepted freshmen in top 10% of high school graduating class

25–30

Selective


21–26

Traditional


18–24

Liberal

Some of accepted freshmen from lower half of high school graduating class

17–22

Open

All high school graduates accepted to limit of capacity

16–21

29

WHAT DOES IT M EAN TO BE LOW-SCORING STUDENT?

Low-achieving students tend to be those students who score low on standardized tests. Students who slip behind are the likeliest to drop out of school and least likely to overcome social and personal disadvantages. According to Judson Hixson, a researcher at the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), students who are at risk should be considered in a new light: Students are placed “at risk” when they experience a significant mismatch between their circumstances and needs, and the capacity or willingness of the school to accept, accommodate, and respond to them in a manner that supports and enables their maximum social, emotional, and intellectual growth and development. As the degree of mismatch increases, so does the likelihood that they will fail to either complete their elementary and secondary education, or more importantly, to benefit from it in a manner that ensures they have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to be successful in the next stage of their lives—that is, to successfully pursue postsecondary education, training, or meaningful employment and to participate in, and contribute to, the social, economic, and political life of their community and society as a whole.

30

The focus of our efforts, therefore, should be on enhancing our institutional and professional capacity and responsiveness, rather than categorizing and penalizing students for simply being who they are. (Hixson, 1993, p. 2)

A

Hixson’s views reveal the necessity of looking at all the variables that could affect students’ performance, not just focusing on the students themselves. Low-achieving students may demonstrate some of the following characteristics: ■

difficulty with the volume of work to be completed;

■

low reading and writing skills;

■

low motivation;

■

low self-esteem;

■

poor study habits;

■

lack of concentration;

■

reluctance to participate in class or to ask for help with tasks/assignments; and

■

test anxiety.

Many of these characteristics are interconnected. For example, a low-scoring student cannot complete the volume of work a successful student can if it takes a much longer time for that low-scoring student to decipher text passages because of low reading skills. There is also the issue of intrinsic motivation: students may have little desire to keep trying if they do not habitually experience success.

Some low-scoring students may not lack motivation or good study habits, but may still be in the process of learning English; still others may have learning disabilities that make it difficult for them to do complex work in one or two content areas. Again, we must not focus only on the students themselves, but also consider other variables that could affect their academic performance, such as ■

job or home responsibilities that take time away from school responsibilities;

■

parental attitude toward and involvement in students’ school success;

■

students’ relationships with their peers;

■

lack of adequate support and resources; and

■

lack of opportunities.

For example, some students who score low on tests are never introduced to a curriculum that challenges them or that addresses their particular needs: “Much of the student stratification within academic courses reflects the social and economic stratification of society. Schools using tracking systems or other methods that ultimately place lowincome and marginal students in lower-level academic courses are not adequately preparing them to plan for postsecondary education, succeed in college, and prepare for lifelong learning” (Noeth & Wimberly, 2002, p. 18). As Barbara Means and Michael Knapp have suggested, many schools need to reconstruct their curricula, employing instructional strategies that help students to understand how experts think through

problems or tasks, to discover multiple ways to solve a problem, to complete complex tasks by receiving support (e.g., cues, modifications), and to engage actively in classroom discussions (1991). Many individuals and organizations are interested in helping students succeed in the classroom and in the future. For example, the Network for Equity in Student Achievement (NESA), a group of large urban school systems, and the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN), a group of school districts in diverse suburban areas and small cities, are organizations that are dedicated to initiating strategies that will close the achievement gap among groups of students. Many schools and districts have found participation in such consortia to be helpful. According to Michael Sadowski, editor of the Harvard Education Letter, administrators and teachers who are frustrated by persistent achievement gaps within their school districts “have started to look for answers within the walls of their own schools. They’re studying school records, disaggregating test score and grade data, interviewing students and teachers, administrating questionnaires—essentially becoming researchers—to identify exactly where problems exist and to design solutions” (Sadowski, 2001, p. 1). A student may get a low score on a standardized test for any of a number of reasons. To reduce the probability of that outcome, the following pages provide information about factors that affect student performance as well as some suggestions about what educators and students can do before students’ achievement is assessed on standardized tests like EXPLORE.

31

WHAT ARE SOME FACTORS THAT AFFECT STUDENT PERFORMANCE? Many factors affect student achievement. Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, has identified several positive factors in her book The Schools We Deserve: Reflections on the Educational Crisis of Our Time (pp. 276 and 294). These factors, which were common to those schools that were considered effective in teaching students, include ■

a principal who has a clearly articulated vision for the school, and the leadership skills to empower teachers to work toward that vision;

■

a strong, clearly thought-out curriculum in which knowledge gained in one grade is built upon in the next;

■

dedicated educators working in their field of expertise;

■

school-wide commitment to learning, to becoming a “community of learners”;

■

a blend of students from diverse backgrounds;

■

“high expectations for all” students; and

■

systematic monitoring of student progress through an assessment system.

There are also factors that have a negative impact on student achievement. For example, some students “may not know about, know how, or feel entitled to take academic advantage of certain opportunities, like college preparatory courses, college entrance exams, and extracurricular learning opportunities” (Goodwin, 2000, p. 3).

32

All students need to be motivated to perform well academically, and they need informed guidance in sorting out their educational/career aspirations. Teachers who challenge their students by providing a curriculum that is rigorous and relevant to their world and needs (Brewer, Rees, & Argys, 1995; Gay, 2000), and who have a degree and certification in the area in which they teach (Ingersoll, 1998) and ample opportunities to collaborate with their peers (McCollum, 2000), are more likely to engender students’ success in school.

MAKING

THE

I NVISIBLE VISIBLE

Using assessment information, such as that provided by the EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT tests in ACT’s Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS), can help bring into view factors that may affect—either positively or negatively—student performance. Reviewing and interpreting assessment information can encourage conversations between parents and teachers about what is best for students. Using data is one way of making the assumptions you have about your students and school, or the needs of students, visible. Collecting assessment information in a systematic way can help teachers in various ways. It can help teachers see more clearly what is happening in their classrooms, provide evidence that the method of teaching they’re using really works, and determine what is most important to do next. As teachers become active teacher-researchers, they can gain a sense of control and efficacy that contributes to their sense of accomplishment about what they do each day.

There are many different types of assessment information that a school or school district can collect. Some types yield quantitative data (performance described in numerical terms), others qualitative data (performance described in nonnumerical terms, such as text, audio, video, or photographs). All types, when properly analyzed, can yield useful insights into student learning. For example, schools and teachers can collect information from ■

standardized tests (norm- or criterion-referenced tests);

■

performance assessments (such as portfolios, projects, artifacts, presentations);

■

peer assessments;

■

progress reports (qualitative, quantitative, or both) on student skills and outcomes;

■

self-reports, logs, journals; and

■

rubrics and rating scales.

Reviewing student learning information in the context of demographic data may also provide insight and information about specific groups of students, like low-scoring students. Schools therefore would benefit by collecting data about ■

enrollment, mobility, and housing trends;

■

staff and student attendance rates and tardiness rates;

■

dropout, retention, and graduation rates;

■

gender, race, ethnicity, and health;

■

percent of free/reduced lunch and/or public assistance;

■

level of language proficiency;

■

staff/student ratios;

■

number of courses taught by teachers outside their endorsed content area;

■

retirement projections and turnover rates; and

■

teaching and student awards.

WHAT CAN EDUCATORS AND STUDENTS DO BEFORE STUDENTS TAKE STANDARDIZED TESTS? Integrate assessment and instruction. Because EXPLORE is curriculum-based, the most important prerequisite for optimum performance on the test is a sound, comprehensive educational program. This “preparation” begins long before any test date. Judith Langer, the director of the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement, conducted a five-year study that compared the English programs of typical schools to those that get outstanding results. Schools with economically disadvantaged and diverse student populations in California, Florida, New York, and Texas predominated the study. Langer’s study revealed that in higher performing schools “test preparation has been integrated into the class time, as part of the ongoing English language arts learning goals.” This means that teachers discuss the demands of high-stakes tests and how they “relate to district and state standards and expectations as well as to their curriculum” (Langer, 2000, p. 6). Emphasize core courses. ACT research conducted in urban schools both in 1998 and 1999 shows that urban school students can substantially improve their readiness for college by taking a more demanding sequence of core academic courses in high school. Urban students taking a more rigorous sequence of courses in mathematics and science and finding success in those courses score at or above national averages on the ACT. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, or family income, those students who elect to take four or more years of rigorous English courses and three or more years of rigorous course work in mathematics, science, and social studies earn higher ACT scores and are more successful in college than those who have not taken those courses (ACT & Council of Great City Schools, 1999). Subsequent research has substantiated these findings and confirmed the value of rigor in the core courses (ACT, 2004; ACT & The Education Trust, 2004).

33

Teach test-taking strategies. Students may be helped by being taught specific test-taking strategies, such as the following:

WHAT DO THE EXPLORE READING TEST RESULTS I NDICATE ABOUT LOWSCORING STUDENTS?

■

Learn to pace yourself.

■

Know the directions and understand the answer sheet.

■

Read carefully and thoroughly.

■

Answer easier questions first; skip harder questions and return to them later.

■

Review answers and check work, if time allows.

■

Mark the answer sheet quickly and neatly; avoid erasure marks on the answer sheet.

■

Answer every question (you are not penalized for guessing on EXPLORE).

■

Become familiar with test administration procedures.

■

Read all the answer choices before you decide which is the best answer.

■

Recognize a clear intent by an author or narrator in uncomplicated literary narratives

Students are more likely to perform at their best on a test if they are comfortable with the test format, know appropriate test-taking strategies, and are aware of the test administration procedures. Test preparation activities that help students perform better in the short term will be helpful to those students who have little experience taking standardized tests or who are unfamiliar with the tests’ formats.

■


■

Determine when (e.g., first, last, before, after) or if an event occurred in uncomplicated passages

■

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships described within a single sentence in a passage

■


■


Search out other sources of help. School personnel in urban or high-poverty middle schools can investigate programs such as GEAR UP, which “provides federal funds for schools to prepare lowincome middle school students for high school and college preparation through multiple school reform efforts. School districts, colleges, community organizations, and businesses often form partnerships to provide teachers with enhanced professional development opportunities to ensure they have the necessary tools and strategies to teach middle school and high school effectively” (Noeth & Wimberly, 2002, p. 18).

34

Students who score 13 or below on the EXPLORE Reading Test are likely to have some of the knowledge and skills described in the EXPLORE Reading College Readiness Standards for the 13–15 range. Low-scoring students may be able to demonstrate skills in a classroom setting that they are not able to demonstrate in a testing situation. Therefore, these students need to develop consistency in demonstrating these skills. Practicing these skills, literal and inferential, with various types and levels of materials (both print and nonprint) will likely engender transfer of these skills to various academic contexts and situations. The EPAS Reading College Readiness Standards indicate that students who score 13 or below tend to demonstrate some of the following skills:

Overall, these students likely need additional assistance reading and interpreting texts that are more challenging, especially texts in Social Science and Natural Science, which are two of the four content areas represented on the Reading Test of the ACT (ACT’s college admissions test).

ACT Reading Passages. Prose Fiction and Humanities passages on the ACT Reading Test are likely to be narratives. While not all of these passages (especially those in the Humanities) will have all of the common narrative elements, such as dialogue and plot, the passages typically have a strong personal voice and clear point of view. Technical explanations of the elements of a jazz song or an Impressionist painting, for example, would generally be avoided, while an essay by a jazz musician or a painter about what it is like to be an artist would be used on the test. Social Science and Natural Science passages are primarily informational. These passages emphasize such elements of science as research methods, hypotheses, theories, experiments, data, analysis, and conclusions. While first-person elements can be a part of the passage (for example, a scientist talking about his or her research methods), the focus is on information and research, not on personal reactions or reflections. Students who score 13 or below on the EXPLORE Reading Test can benefit from activities designed to help them develop critical thinking and reading skills. Some students are uncertain and lack confidence to respond analytically to inferential questions. What these students need is practice making inferences— understanding characterization, drawing conclusions, forming generalizations, and reaching judgments about an author’s methods and goals—in both narrative and informational contexts.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS PROFICIENT READER?

OF

A

Although there are many definitions of a proficient reader, within the various definitions are readily identified commonalities. One organization, the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory (NWREL), conducted a study in the mid-1990s to answer the question “What do good readers know and what are they able to do?” (Dwyer & Thompson, 1999, p. 2). After reviewing state standards documents and making observations of student readers, NWREL identified six interconnected traits of an effective reader:

Reading the Lines ■

decoding conventions (conventions of texts),

■

establishing comprehension (creating meaning from written texts),

Reading Between the Lines ■

realizing content (exploring layers of meaning),

■

developing interpretations (making inferences about texts),

Reading Beyond the Lines ■

integrating for synthesis (synthesizing information to compare and extend meaning), and

■

critiquing for evaluation (evaluating the quality and effectiveness of a text) (Dwyer & Thompson, 1999, pp. 3–4).

According to Kevin Dwyer and Leslie Thompson, authors of The Journey of a Reader in the Classroom, “the traits identify the six critical reading skills necessary to develop readers who can process knowledge from print material, make meaning of it, and apply this meaning to other situations” (Dwyer & Thompson, 1999, p. 2). The skills in the first two categories, Reading the Lines and Reading Between the Lines, are measured either directly or indirectly by the EXPLORE Reading Test. Some of the skills in the third category, Reading Beyond the Lines, are measured by the EXPLORE Reading Test, such as identifying how parts of the text work together, and thinking metaphorically. However, it’s important to note that the passages in the Reading Test are self-contained, which means that the questions corresponding to each passage can be answered using only the text provided; prior knowledge of the topic is not required to answer the test questions.

35

HOW CAN STUDENTS BETTER N EGOTIATE LITERARY NARRATIVES AND I NFORMATIONAL TEXTS? How a text is organized can affect a reader’s understanding of the text. So, readers need to be aware of the qualities or characteristics of literary narratives (e.g., short stories and novels) and informational texts (e.g., nonfiction essays and articles). Since there are always exceptions to the rule, the textual characteristics outlined below should be considered generalizations that may not apply to all passages. Informational texts can be challenging for readers to comprehend because of their organizational structure, abstract or technical vocabulary, complicated sentence structure, paragraph structure, density of information, and lack of imagery. In addition, informational texts are typically not linked to readers’ life experiences. Therefore, teachers need to find ways to build upon students’ background knowledge before a text is read so that the students will better understand the information and ideas to be learned. Students need time to think about what they know about a topic or concept, to make connections between their experiences and the new information presented in a text, and to reevaluate their thinking and understanding in terms of what has been learned. This is equally true for reading and interpreting complex literary narratives. Generally speaking, the organization of ideas in texts does not follow a standardized structure or pattern. In fact, texts typically use more than one type of organizational structure and may blend structures together within a paragraph. Following is a list of the most common ways in which an author can organize his or her ideas within a text (Piccolo, 1987): ■

Description: The author provides a mental picture and at times conveys his or her mood or tone about the topic.

■

Sequence: The author presents information in a sequential order.

36

■

Enumeration: The author provides a compilation of the main ideas, sometimes in list form.

■

Cause-effect: The author identifies relationships among the ideas or facts presented.

■

Problem-solution: The author presents a problem or two, provides evidence, and presents possible solutions.

■

Comparison-contrast: The author identifies the similarities and differences about a specific topic or concept.

For example, informational texts, and narrative texts as well, require readers to be aware of language that communicates or gives cues related to the organization of ideas. For instance, words or phrases such as but, on the other hand, or however (comparison-contrast) and by, consequently, or because (cause-effect) signal relationships among the ideas presented in a text. Students can learn to use these signal words to help them understand a passage. Research has shown that readers more readily recognize and understand these types of organizational structures when they have used them in their own personal writing (McGee & Richgels, 1985; Piccolo, 1987; May, 1990). So, students whose Reading score is at or below 13 should be encouraged to write in a variety of forms on a daily basis, experimenting with varying combinations of organizational structures. Texts frequently include technical terms, slang, or specialized vocabulary. These words may be abstract or unfamiliar and may represent ideas or concepts that can only be made real to students by illustrating situations in which the word would apply. Therefore, students’ attention needs to be focused on key words before they read. This can be done by role-playing, discussions, visual tools (webs, maps, organizers), etc. Students can be helped to develop a repertoire of strategies for determining and remembering the meanings of unfamiliar words or phrases.

Texts students will be expected to read in high school and beyond tend to contain challenging sentence structures and constructions that are not typically used in students’ writing or heard in everyday conversation. One way students can become more aware of complex sentence structures is to start with a kernel of an idea, a simple sentence such as “Dogs drool.” Then students could continue to add to the sentence (adjectives, adverbs, clauses, etc.), determining how each addition or modification expands or alters the meaning and clarity of the sentence. For instance, students might add adjectives to the sentence, “Big yellow dogs drool,” as well as adverbs “Big yellow dogs drool tacitly and constantly.” In addition, the students could try different clauses such as “Because big yellow dogs drool tacitly and constantly, they need to stay outside.” or “If you had big yellow dogs that drool tacitly and constantly on the carpet, you would most likely be spending your day cleaning up their messes.” Another challenge is the way in which paragraphs are structured in sophisticated texts. Texts do not always contain topic sentences or introductory statements at the beginning of each paragraph. There is not always coherence among the sentences in a paragraph nor do all paragraphs state the main idea(s) explicitly. Therefore, students need to learn strategies that will help them determine what is important and to look for evidence that supports or contradicts their assumptions. As a result, students must be flexible as they read. They must consider the relationships between and among sentences, determine how the ideas presented fit together as a whole, try various reading strategies to comprehend the text (e.g., rereading, asking questions, changing rate of reading), rethink their assumptions and viewpoints, and wait to make a final decision about the meaning of the text. Students need to read carefully when text is dense, composed of abstract concepts and myriad details and facts that are interrelated to the main

idea(s) of the passage. Students also need time to determine “the picture” the author is trying to convey. With informational texts, teachers can emphasize special features such as section headings, illustrations, tables, charts, graphs, maps, and diagrams to help students develop a better understanding (visualize an image) of specific ideas or key points to be learned. With narratives, teachers can engage students in discussions that relate plot and character to the students’ own experiences, creating opportunities for understanding and stimulating students to read more. The type of material, the reader’s interest in the material, together with the purpose for reading, influence how a reader will approach a text. Typically, the purposes of informational writing are to explain facts or concepts, tell the reader about new ideas, or persuade the reader to rethink or change his or her viewpoint. Students need to be given guidance when reading in order to determine whether they must concentrate on important details, broad ideas, or both. But motivating students—getting them enthusiastic about learning—is the key. The kinds and combinations of skills students need in order to read a narrative passage are often similar to the ones they need in order to read and understand an expository passage. The distinctions between these two types of skills are related to the degree to which the skills are applied. Indeed, the characteristics of narrative and expository texts often lead to specific types of questions. Informational texts tend to include a sizable amount of data and facts, and test questions developed for these types of texts typically probe for understanding of important facts and concepts. So a teacher can find out what interests students, what the students already know a good deal about, and play to those strengths—such as by finding more challenging readings on the same or similar subjects and having the class discuss them. A similar strategy can bring students along in their appreciation and understanding of narratives.

37

WHAT ARE SOME STRATEGIES H ELPING STUDENTS READ EFFECTIVELY?

FOR

Reading is a recursive process, one in which students make meaning by becoming actively involved as they read—noting facts and ideas and determining how that information is related; making and verifying predictions when reading; and reassessing their understanding as they gain new knowledge, information, and insights. Students should be actively engaged when reading, involved in a variety of activities that will build their understanding of a text before, during, and after reading. Prereading strategies help students to access and build upon their prior knowledge, preparing them to read. During-reading strategies build students’ conceptual understanding of a text, developing their fluency and comprehension. Postreading strategies encourage students to synthesize and summarize the information read and to extend the reading experience (Guillaume, p. 483). The strategies below could be used before, during, and after reading a text. These strategies could help students develop literal-comprehension and reasoning skills similar to those listed in Table 1 (pages 8–13) in this guide. Prereading strategies:

Previewing the Text. Students could preview a text, noting the title, authors’ names, and date of the publication. In addition, the students and their teacher could scan the passage, noting topics introduced and the organizational structure(s) used in the passage. Students could also search for words and phrases that are italicized as well as those that stand out as intriguing or unfamiliar. Asking Questions. Students could generate a list of questions based on their preview of the passage. Students could revisit their list of questions after reading the passage, identifying which questions are and are not sufficiently answered by information in the text.

38

During-reading strategies:

Asking Metacognitive Questions. The teacher could help his or her students develop metacognitive skills—to know when they do and do not understand a text—developing a range of strategies to help them better comprehend a text. Students could be reminded to ask and answer three questions as they read a text: What strategies am I using to help myself understand the text? Why did I select those particular strategies? How well did the strategies help me, if at all? Students could share the strategies they used, evaluating the effectiveness of each strategy in terms of building their understanding of the text. Being Alert to Imagery. Students could reread a text, searching for phrases or sentences that provide sensory details—details that help them to see, hear, or feel what the author is trying to say. Students could also identify parts of the text that were confusing to them, perhaps working with a group of peers to come up with analogies that would help them visualize the ideas or concepts being discussed in the text. Postreading strategies:

Synthesizing. Students could take the information or skills they have learned and apply it to a new situation. Making Connections. Students could compare information stated in a passage to what is stated in a textbook or other source. Students could be encouraged to recognize and determine similarities (consistencies and agreements) and differences (inconsistencies and contradictions) between the texts.

WHAT KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS ARE LOW-SCORING STUDENTS READY TO LEARN?

WHAT STRATEGIES/MATERIALS CAN TEACHERS USE IN THEIR CLASSROOMS?

For students who score 13 or below on the EXPLORE Reading Test, their target achievement outcomes could be a combination of the College Readiness Standards listed in the 13–15 (on p. 34) and 16–19 (below) ranges. Additional information will need to be reviewed to determine which skills in the 13–15 range students can and cannot demonstrate. For example, if there are several skills students cannot demonstrate in the 13–15 range, students should focus on them first, and then possibly work on some from the 16–19 range as needed. The College Readiness Standards for the 16–19 range include the following:

According to Bryan Goodwin, senior program associate at the Mid-continent Research Education Laboratory (McREL), “it is important to note that improving the performance of disenfranchised students does not mean ignoring other students. Indeed, many of the changes advocated—such as making curricula more rigorous and creating smaller school units—will benefit all students” (Goodwin, 2000, p. 6). Means and Knapp (1991) express a similar view:

■


■


■


■


■

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships within a single paragraph in uncomplicated literary narratives

■


■


By no means should these be seen as limiting or exclusive goals. As stated earlier, it is important to use multiple sources of information to make instructional decisions and to recognize that individual students learn at different rates and in different sequences. What’s important is to get students reading—and writing.

A fundamental assumption underlying much of the curriculum in America’s schools is that certain skills are “basic” and must be mastered before students receive instruction on more “advanced” skills, such as reading comprehension, written composition, and mathematical reasoning. . . . Research from cognitive science questions this assumption and leads to a quite different view of children’s learning and appropriate instruction. By discarding assumptions about skill hierarchies and attempting to understand children’s competencies as constructed and evolving both inside and outside of school, researchers are developing models of intervention that start with what children know and provide access to explicit models of thinking in areas that traditionally have been termed “advanced” or “higher order.” (p. 1) Pages 42–51 provide a teacher-developed activity that could be used in a classroom for all students, not just those who have scored low on a standardized assessment like EXPLORE. This activity encourages students to develop a better understanding of theme by having them view one or more video clips, participate in class discussions, and read and interpret one or more texts. In addition, students use the think-aloud method to work through a text and its meaning, journal writing to help develop their personal interpretation of a text, and art to represent key passages in a text and to articulate the theme(s) presented. The activity provides both embedded and summative assessments to evaluate student learning.

39

HOW I S

THE

ACTIVITY ORGANIZED?

A template for the instructional activity appears on page 41. Since the instructional activity has multiple components, an explanation of each is provided below.

A

The primary Reading Strands are displayed across the top of the page.

The Guiding Principles section consists of one or more statements about instruction, assessment, thinking skills, student learning, and other educationally relevant topics.

B

The Title and Subject Area(s)/Course(s) information allows you to determine at a glance the primary focus of the activity and whether it might meet the needs of your student population.

C

The Purpose statement describes knowledge and skills students may have difficulty with and what will be done in the activity to help them acquire that knowledge and skills.

D

The Overview section provides a brief description of how the knowledge and skills listed in the purpose statement will be taught and suggests an estimated time frame for the entire activity.

E

The Links to College Readiness Standards section indicates the primary knowledge and skills the activity will focus on. These statements are tied directly to the strands listed at the top of the page.

F

The next section, Description of the Instructional Activity, is divided into three interrelated parts: Materials/Resources, Introduction, and Suggested Teaching Strategies/Procedures. The section provides suggestions for engaging students in the activity, and gives related topics and tasks. The activity addresses a range of objectives and modes of instruction, but it emphasizes providing students with experiences that focus on reasoning and making connections, use community resources and real-life learning techniques, and encourage students to ask questions—questions leading to analysis, reflection, and further study and to individual construction of meanings and interpretations.

G

40

Valuable Comments/Tips from Classroom Teachers are provided for the activity. As the title indicates, this text box includes ideas from current classroom teachers.

H

The Suggestions for Assessment section offers ideas for documenting and recording student learning. This section describes two types of assessments: Embedded Assessments and Summative Assessments. Embedded Assessments are assessments that inform you as to where your students currently are in the learning process (a formative assessment that is primarily teacher developed and is integral to the instructional process—at times the instruction and assessment are indistinguishable). The second type of assessment is a Summative Assessment (a final assessment of students’ learning), which provides a description of the knowledge and skills students are to have mastered by the end of the activity and the criteria by which they will be assessed.

I

The Links to Ideas for Progress section provides statements that suggest learning experiences (knowledge and skills to be developed) that are connected to the Suggested Strategies/Activities.

J

The Suggested Strategies/Activities section provides a brief description of ways to reteach the skills or content previously taught or to extend students’ learning.

K

This teacher-developed activity provides suggestions, not prescriptions. You are the best judge of what is necessary and relevant for your students. Therefore, we encourage you to review the activity, modifying and using those suggestions that apply, and disregarding those that are not appropriate for your students. As you select, modify, and revise the activity, you can be guided by the statements that appear in the Guiding Principles box at the beginning of the activity.

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strand(s):

A

Guiding Principles

Suggestions for Assessment

I

Embedded Assessment (name of assessment)— ■

Embedded Assessment (name of assessment)—

B

Summative Assessment (name of assessment)—

■

ENHANCING STUDENT LEARNING Links to Ideas for Progress

J

■

TITLE

C

Subject Area(s)/Course(s) Purpose

D

Overview

E

■ ■ Suggested Strategies/Activities

K

Links to College Readiness Standards

F

■ ■ ■

Description of the Instructional Activity

Materials/Resources

G

■ ■ ■

Introduction— Suggested Teaching Strategies/Procedures—

Comments/Tips from Classroom Teachers

H

41

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Supporting Details; Generalizations and Conclusions

Guiding Principles

Links to College Readiness Standards ■


■


■

Draw simple generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, an so on in uncomplicated passages

■


■ “As a critical thinker, you do not simply . . .

form an interpretation to see what it is based on and whether that basis is adequate.” (Paul & Elder, 2001, p. 171) ■ “If students are to craft a more enriched

understanding they must be taught how to experience a broad continuum of thoughts, bordered on one side by authors’ intended meanings and on the other side by their personal applications of text to their lives.” (Block, 1999, p. 99)

Description of the Instructional Activity

Materials/Resources

THEME? WHAT’S IT HAVE TO DO WITH M E?

■

DVD or VCR player and video clips

■

“Theme? I Can’t Even Think of a Title . . .” by Becci Davis

Purpose

■

Index cards

Identifying and expressing a story’s theme can be difficult for students. This activity can help students to identify and connect key pieces of information in a text (ideas and details). Students will develop a personal interpretation—explain the meaning of a text based on their views or life experiences—and then work to identify and express the theme(s) in the text as suggested by the words or images presented by the author.

■

Pencils and erasers

■

Copies of a short story for entire class (see suggestions on p. 44)

■

Short stories or novellas (student choice)

■

Journal Entry Sheet (p. 49)

■

Watercolor paper or heavy-gauge paper

■

Watercolor paints, brushes, and palettes

■

Plastic cups, water, and paper towels

■

Optional Assessments:

Eighth- and Ninth-Grade English/Language Arts

Overview Students will think and talk about the concept of theme and then examine a literary text with the help of their teacher and peers. They will select a short story or novella to read independently and then write a series of journal entries that will lead to a final, cumulative entry. The entries will help students examine ideas (images and details) they find significant and meaningful, allowing them to make personal connections to the text and to determine a story’s theme(s). This two-week activity (ten 45-minute class periods) utilizes several instructional methods, including discussion, writing, and painting.

42

✓

Post-Discussion Reflection Sheet (p. 47)

✓

Teacher-Student Conference Notes (p. 48)

✓

Checklist for Daily Journal Entries (p. 50)

✓

Rating Scale for Final Journal Entry (p. 51)


Introduction—To begin the activity, view portions of one or more video clips (e.g., an animated cartoon, television show, or scenes from a movie). While watching the clip, students should think about (and be prepared to answer) the following questions, which will help develop their ability to make reasonable conclusions and generalizations: ■

What images or details are revealed in the clip?

■

What do these images/details seem to convey about life or human nature?

■

What life experiences have you had that may have shaped your thoughts/observations?

Have students share their thoughts about each question with a peer first and then with the class; record students’ responses to the second question on the board. Encourage students to think of other movies (or books) they have recently reviewed that have a similar message. Time permitting, introduce (or review) the term theme—defined here as a unifying observation about life or human nature that is supported by elements in a text. Then, read aloud to students all or portions of an article by Becci Davis in which she questions her understanding of theme (“Theme? I Can’t Even Think of a Title . . .” can be accessed at http://www.hodrw.com/theme.htm).

Suggested Teaching Strategies/Procedures— Briefly summarize what was taught the day before and complete the activity, if necessary. Then, distribute index cards to the class, giving students five minutes to write down at least one question or comment they have about theme. These questions or comments will be used by students as they engage in a whole-class Socratic seminar (for more information about Socratic teaching, see http://www.uu.edu/ centers/faculty/resources/article.cfm?ArticleID=73 or http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~ctl/documents/ Socratic%20Seminar/socraticsemwkshpinfo.htm). Have students turn in the index cards at the end of the period. Help facilitate the whole-group discussion by asking a key question and then encouraging students to share their thoughts or pose their own questions.

The purpose of a Socratic seminar is to help students to explore key aspects of a topic or issue, express their ideas/opinions in a clear manner, and evaluate the logic of their own and others’ thinking. If students have difficulty with the key question—in this case “What is theme?”—follow up with a related question, such as “When you watch a video or read a piece of fiction, what are you hoping to discover (see, feel, or learn)?” If a student’s response to a question or comment seems unclear or unrelated to the topic, either restate the question or restate the student’s response. Alternatively, ask the student to either provide additional supporting information or give an example to clarify the response. It is helpful to construct a list of questions prior to the discussion, using these questions when appropriate. For example, you could raise some of the following questions (adapted from Paul, Binker, Martin, & Adamson, 1995) during the discussion: ■

Is theme like the moral of a story (a statement usually at the end of the story that indicates a lesson to be learned)? Why or why not?

■

What is the difference between the moral of a story and the main idea of a text?

■

Could a piece of art, the decorations selected for a school dance, or an advertisement have a theme? Why or why not?

■

Are there themes that are universal (experienced by many people from different cultures)?

■

Where could we look to verify our interpretation or definition of theme?

■

Why should we study the concept of theme?

■

Which of the student-generated statements recorded during the previous day’s session do you think are good examples of theme? Why or why not?

After the discussion, give students the PostDiscussion Reflection Sheet on page 47 to complete as a homework assignment; this sheet would help to gauge students’ current level of understanding about the concept of theme.

43


The next part of the activity (a think-aloud) could take two full class periods. Read aloud and analyze portions of a short story such as “Raymond’s Run” by Toni Cade Bambara or “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros while students follow along with their copy. After reading the first paragraph, stop and model the thinking being done. For example, when applicable ■

share the images the paragraph evoked,

■

restate the information presented in the paragraph,

■

identify parts of the paragraph that are confusing,

■

identify and demonstrate strategies that might alleviate the confusion (e.g., reading on),

■

determine the primary function of the paragraph (e.g., to introduce a main point or a recurring idea, add supporting details, describe a character or situation),

■

■

predict the paragraph’s importance to the story as a whole, or draw conclusions about the literary elements used in the paragraph.

Encourage students to pose questions during and after the think-aloud, such as “Can you explain that a little more?” or “Could the paragraph also mean…?” (for more information about think-alouds see http://www.indiana.edu/~crls/rogerfarr/mcr/usingta/ usingta.html). After modeling the think-aloud for several paragraphs (and provided that the class understands the process), ask students to assume the teacher’s role. The class would continue to listen as each paragraph is read aloud by a volunteer (or the teacher); pairs of students would be assigned a specific paragraph from the short story to think-aloud. After finishing the story, have students form small groups to determine the theme(s) of the story and how to clearly express them in writing. Each group member could write a paragraph to turn in that explains one of the story’s themes and how it relates to his or her life. After students have internalized the think-aloud method, have them select their own short story or novella to read in class (and complete out of class, if necessary). For the next two or three class periods, students will read independently, stopping periodically

44

to identify passages in their text that they feel are significant and to record their thoughts in a journal (see the Journal Entry Sheet on page 49). These entries will help students to identify and express the theme(s) of the story, which they will also represent through painting. While the teacher can set a specific length for the journal entries, leaving the length up to the students allows them the freedom to more fully explore their ideas. To assist students in their journal writing, the teacher and students could collaborate to produce a sample journal entry using the text from the think-aloud activity. The daily journal entries require the following elements: ■

passages copied from the text (a phrase, sentence, or even a paragraph, with page references for each quotation) that the student finds significant or meaningful;

■

an explanation of what each selected passage means and its relationship (importance) to the story; and

■

a description of why each selected passage is significant to the student.

Depending on how much time is available, students may use 10–20 minutes working on their journal entries. Time could also be set aside for a periodic group sharing or discussion of students’ journal entries. After finishing their reading selection, the students will review their journal entries, working to synthesize the information recorded into a final entry. The final entry should summarize the main points of the text, describe the relationship between ideas, and provide a general statement that expresses the theme(s). Some students may need to spend an entire class period thinking, writing, and revising their writing. Bind each student’s entries together and then assess them using a checklist like the one located on page 50 for the daily entries and the rating scale on page 51 for the final journal entry. The checklist primarily focuses on students’ thought processes and ability to support their thinking rather than the mechanics of the writing. Use the last two class periods for students to create a visual representation of their journal ideas (a sketch or collage of pencil sketches to be painted). Each student should begin by creating one or more


pencil sketches that reflect his or her interpretation of the short story or novella read (adapted from Short, Harste, & Burke, 1988, pp. 528–536). The sketches should represent those the student described in the journal entries. Some of the passage text could also be incorporated into the images, if desired, with appropriate documentation included.

Comments/Tips from Classroom Teachers Students who do not like to draw or paint could be allowed to use a computer to create a digitized collage, or to use found objects or materials—like string, newspapers, photographs, etc.—to create a collage.

After completing the final journal entry, every student could be given a piece of paper, brushes, and enough paint to share with a small group. Another way to manage the supplies is to break into small groups and have one student from each group collect enough materials for his or her group. A group of four can share two watercolor palettes, but everyone will need paper and a brush. A paper towel placed under each piece of paper will minimize the mess. When they are ready to paint, the students can begin to fill in their collage. Fortunately, watercolor paints are very forgiving, and errors and accidents can be easily fixed with a bit of paper towel or with water. The paintings will need to dry overnight. In the morning, pigments should be dry enough to safely continue working without ruining the previous day’s work. Alternatively, the teacher could invite the high school art teacher, a parent or volunteer, or a local artist to assist with this part of the activity. As an option, students could present their images to the class and discuss the choices they made in designing them. For example, the students could describe the images they drew to symbolize key parts of the text or the colors they used to connote a specific mood, tone, or theme. After presentations conclude, all the images could be posted on a bulletin board or chalkboard to exhibit the works, or the images could be used as the cover for the students’ series of journal entries.


Embedded Assessment (Class Discussion)— A Socratic seminar can be assessed using several methods. The teacher could look at the effectiveness of students’ participation (e.g., responding to and extending ideas of others, proposing counterexamples) or could assign specific roles to different students. For example, one or more students may be asked to only observe the discussion, looking for “spark plugs”—innovative ideas that cause the whole group to look at something in a new way. The observers would be responsible for jotting down the person’s name, what he or she said, and what impact it had on the discussion. Each observer would share his or her thoughts with the class after the discussion. A final option is to have students complete a PostDiscussion Reflection Sheet (see page 47). This worksheet requires students to reflect on their past and current thinking about the concept of theme. Embedded Assessment (Informal Teacher Notes)—While the class is reading silently, hold brief conferences with individual students (see TeacherStudent Conference Notes on page 48). Ask each student to talk about a portion of the text currently being read. Jot down notes as to how well each student is comprehending the text, identifying significant points, and connecting the information to what has previously been read. Summative Assessment (Checklist for Daily Journal Entries)—A checklist, which should be given to students prior to their journal writing, could be used to assess students’ journal entries (see page 50). This type of assessment allows you to assess students’ understanding of their selected text, their concept of theme, and their ability to apply that knowledge to their reading selection. Summative Assessment (Rating Scale for Final Journal Entry)—A rating scale, which should be given to students before they write their final journal entry, could be used to assess students’ writing (see page 51). This type of assessment allows you to assess students’ ability to connect key pieces of information in order to arrive at a plausible interpretation and to support their interpretation using evidence from their selected text.

45


ENHANCING STUDENT LEARNING Links to Ideas for Progress ■

Identify details in a challenging text that confirm or disprove conclusions drawn by the author or narrator and by the students themselves or their peers

■

Explain in their own words the significance of specific information in written or nonprint sources

■

Identify interrelationships between and among people, objects, events, or ideas in written or nonprint sources

46

Suggested Strategies/Activities An essay that focuses on ideas or questions raised by the students (in their journal entries) or by the teacher (in class) is a challenging way to extend the assignment. Any text that engages students and allows them to connect their own lives to the characters, plot, and themes, regardless of the difficulty level, provides an excellent opportunity to examine patterns and relationships. Using evidence (details) from the text just read, students could connect one or more themes of the text to their own life, or they could describe something they learned from the text and how it might impact their attitude or behavior toward others.

Post-Discussion Reflection Sheet

Name: ______________________________________________ Period: _________________ Date: _________________

Directions: Write a thoughtful response to what went on during the class discussion by answering the following questions. 1. What were your thoughts about the concept of theme before the discussion?

2. What did you learn during the discussion that you did not know or consider before?

3. What was the most important point you made during the discussion? OR Was there a point that you wanted to make but were uncomfortable voicing to the group?

4. What questions do you have about theme that are still unanswered?

5. Based on your current understanding of theme, what features would you say distinguish it from the concept of main idea?

47

Teacher-Student Conference Notes

Name: ______________________________________________ Period: _________________ Date: _________________

Directions: Note students’ thoughts based on the prompts below. 1. Tell me about the paragraph you are currently reading, including any questions or concerns you have.

2. Does this paragraph contain key pieces of information? Please explain.

3. How does this paragraph (information you just learned) relate to the previous sections of the short story?

4. What observations about life or human nature does the text support so far?

48

Journal Entry Sheet

Name: ______________________________________________ Period: _________________ Date: _________________

Directions: Copy passages from the text (a phrase, sentence, or even a paragraph) that you find significant or meaningful, including the page number from which each passage (quotation) is taken. Provide an explanation of the meaning of each selected passage, including its relationship to the story, and why it is significant to you, personally. Title of Short Story or Novella:

Page

Passage (quotation) copied from the text word for word

Explanation of selected passage (quotation), including its relationship to the story

Significance of selected passage (quotation) to you

49

Summative Assessment—Checklist for Daily Journal Entries

Name: ______________________________________________ Period: _________________ Date: _________________

Directions: Read each criterion and then circle either Y for Yes or N for No for each day’s journal entry. Subtotal the number of Yeses circled for each criterion and then add the total number at the bottom of the sheet. Comments can be provided to the right of each criterion.

Criteria

Scoring

Daily Journal Entries:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

Y or N

1. Recorded passages from their selected text on a daily basis Subtotal (Yeses):

2. Documented passages from text appropriately (page references provided) Subtotal (Yeses):

3. Located meaningful (thought-provoking) passages from the text Subtotal (Yeses):

4. Provided a clear explanation of each passage’s meaning Subtotal (Yeses):

5. Provided clear, logical reasons for selecting each passage Subtotal (Yeses):

Total:

50

Comments

Summative Assessment—Rating Scale for Final Journal Entry

Name: ______________________________________________ Period: _________________ Date: _________________

Directions: Read each criterion and then note the degree of evidence a student has demonstrated for each using the following rating scale: Exemplary evidence (3), Partial Evidence (2), Little Evidence (1). Comments can be provided to the right of each criterion. Provide student with a rating based on his or her total score.

Criteria

1.

Rating

Comments

Provided a brief summary of the main points of the text, using previous entries

2.

Explained relationship between the passages recorded and the text as a whole

3.

Focused final entry on key areas of the text

4.

Developed a general statement that suggests the underlying theme(s) of the story

5.

Incorporated specific ideas/details from text (passages previously recorded) to support generalization

Total Score

Rating for Journal Writing (circle one):

Novice (1–5)

Practitioner (6–10)

Advanced (11–15)

51

INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES FOR EXPLORE READING WHY ARE ADDITIONAL I NSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES I NCLUDED? The set of instructional activities that begins on page 54 was developed to illustrate the link between classroom-based activities and the skills and understandings embedded in the EXPLORE Reading Test questions. The activities are provided as examples of how classroom instruction and assessment, linked with an emphasis on reasoning, can help students practice skills and understandings they will need in the classroom and in their lives beyond the classroom. It is these skills and understandings that are represented on the EXPLORE Reading Test. A variety of thought-provoking activities, such as small- and large-group discussions, analysis of materials read, and both independent and collaborative activities, are included to help students develop and refine their skills in many types of situations. The instructional activities that follow have a similar organizational structure as the one in the previous section. Like the other activity, these activities were not developed to be a ready-to-use set of instructional strategies. ACT’s purpose is to illustrate how the skills and understandings embedded in the EXPLORE Reading Test questions can be incorporated into classroom activities.

For the purpose of this part of the guide, we have tried to paint a picture of the ways in which the activities could work in the classroom. We left room for you to envision how the activities might best work for you and your students. We recognize that as you determine how best to serve your students, you take into consideration your teaching style as well as the academic needs of your students; state, district, and school standards; and available curricular materials. The instructional activities are not intended to help drill students in skills measured by the EXPLORE Reading Test. It is never desirable for test scores or test content to become the sole focus of classroom instruction. However, considered with information from a variety of other sources, the results of standardized tests can help you identify areas of strength and weakness. The activities that follow are examples of sound educational practices and imaginative, integrated learning experiences. As part of a carefully designed instructional program, these activities may result in improved performance on the EXPLORE Reading Test—not because they show how to drill students in specific, isolated skills but because they encourage thinking and integrated learning. These activities can help because they encourage the kind of thinking processes and strategies the EXPLORE Reading Test requires.

53

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Supporting Details; Generalizations and Conclusions

■

What words would you use to describe the mood created by the piece?

■

Which details seem to convey that feeling?

■

What is the artwork’s overarching theme or message?

Guiding Principles ■ “[Summarizing] involves evaluating the importance of each piece of information in the text, identifying high-level, general concepts that organize low-level details, and then integrating all the important information into a coherent schema.” (Chapman, 1993, p. 56) ■ “Just like reading words, reading the world requires understanding the symbolic nature of objects as signs to be interpreted.” (Kutz & Roskelly, 1991, p. 191) ■ “Balancing the immersion in direct experience must be opportunities for learners to look back, to reflect, to debrief, to abstract from their experiences what they have felt and thought and learned.” (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 1993, p. 7)

CRAFTING EFFECTIVE TITLES College Readiness Standards ■


■


■


■


Description of the Instructional Activity The teacher might contact several local artists (or the art teacher and student artists from the school’s art department) who work in different mediums (e.g., painting, drawing, sculpture, photography). The teacher could invite them to the class on different days, asking them to bring a completed artwork (or a small selection of works). Students could form small groups, analyzing each artist’s work and discussing the following questions: ■

54

What do you see? Feel? Hear?

Each group could record their answers to assist them in synthesizing their ideas and predicting the artwork’s title. The groups could compare titles, discussing their impressions of and perspectives on the artwork, how their interpretations are influenced by their personal experiences, and how a title can serve varied purposes (e.g., to inspire, to inform). Afterward, each artist could discuss his or her work with the class, disclose the title and identify its significance, and give his or her purpose for creating the piece. Students could talk with each artist, asking questions about his or her work and discussing the limitations and strengths of the medium (what can and cannot be done in the medium). Students could apply what they have learned as they study various literary genres, responding to such questions as “What can you do with a poem that you can’t do with a novel?” or “What happens when you take an idea from an essay and turn it into a play script?” (Pirie, 1997, p. 25). Next, students could analyze the title of a cassette or CD that they are unfamiliar with. Each student could write informally on the following questions and then exchange his or her viewpoint about the title in a small group: ■

What is the intended purpose of the title?

■

What images does the title evoke?

■

What does the title imply about the artist or the songs included on the cassette or CD?

Each group could be given the list of songs included on the cassette or CD and a copy of a different song’s lyrics. Each group could review its song, identifying words or phrases that either support or contradict its title. The groups could come together to share their insights about their songs as well as to determine the intended goal or purpose of the cassette or CD title (e.g., to summarize the type of songs on the cassette or CD, to pique listeners’

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Supporting Details; Generalizations and Conclusions

interest). Students could be encouraged to look at the title from other viewpoints (e.g., those of the artist, a parent, a corporate sponsor), considering how social and economic factors can affect one’s perceptions. For example, an artist may select a title that indicates how changes in his or her life have affected his or her music, whereas a marketing executive might select a title that is catchy and will be easily remembered. Finally, each student could read a novel of his or her choice or from a teacher-generated list. The novel should contain chapters that are numbered but not titled, as do The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare and Tangerine by Edward Bloor. Students could read each chapter, stopping throughout to question, to reflect, and to identify key ideas and how these ideas contribute to the meaning of the book as they are coming to understand it. Students might use self-stick removable notes, journals, or graphic organizers (a visual representation of complex or interrelated ideas) to record their ideas and impressions. After reading each chapter, students could create a title for the chapter; students would need to decide what purpose each title should play in the novel (e.g., to imply or explicitly state a main idea, to summarize the chapter). Students could form small groups to compare and defend their chapter titles. After finishing his or her book, each student could develop a table of contents, using the chapter titles generated earlier. Students could review their table of contents, then create a new title for the book, providing a rationale for their decision (Broida, 1995). Suggestions for Assessment

Performance Assessment—After reading the novel and writing the table of contents, each student could share with the class one chapter title along with its rationale. Each student’s table of contents and rationales for the chapter titles could then be turned in to the teacher for review. Multiple-Choice Questions—While reading his or her selected novel, each student could write down questions about the novel’s plot, characters, or message. These questions could help students identify key ideas and how those ideas relate to the story’s theme. Students might construct multiplechoice answers to their questions, creating a rationale for each question’s best response.

Peer Evaluation Checklist—Students could be asked to generate a list of skills necessary for a group to function productively. Such skills might include “responds to and extends the ideas of others” and “takes turns and respects the rights of others.” The list of skills could be turned into a checklist that students could use to evaluate their discussion group’s participation and collaborative skills as they discuss various types of materials (written or visual). Ideas for Progress ■

Work with peers to formulate a concise statement about the central idea(s) suggested in written or nonprint sources (e.g., films, artwork)

■

Explain in their own words the significance of specific information in written or nonprint sources

■

Analyze techniques used by the author of a text to reveal or conceal his or her point of view

■

Write, exchange, and answer a series of questions that examine significant details presented in a text

Suggested Strategies/Activities Students could pretend they are analysts, identifying and evaluating the main ideas and supporting details presented in a speech. The students could review various texts to determine the qualities that make a speech exemplary. Students might also listen to speeches that are considered exemplary (http://www.historychannel.com/speeches). Using the information gathered, the class could create a list of criteria to evaluate speeches. Then, the class could listen to and view a recorded speech, stopping the videotape as needed to ask and answer questions they have about the speaker and speech: the speaker’s presentation style and use of nonverbal cues, the purpose of the speech, the content of the message, and the main points and supporting details of the speech. As a group, the students could determine the effectiveness of the speech and its message. Students could review the criteria they generated to determine whether such criteria would also apply when evaluating editorials in their local newspapers. Students could respond to an editorial they feel strongly about, writing their own “letter to the editor,” which could be sent to the newspapers for possible publication.

55

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships; Generalizations and Conclusions

Guiding Principles ■ “Reading always involves critical perception, interpretation, and rewriting of what is read.” (Freire & Macedo, 1987, p. 36) ■ “Anything that we wish to teach or to have children learn needs to be embedded in multiple, rich, interactive experiences where most of what is to be learned is left openended, ready for discovery by and consolidation within the learner.” (Caine & Caine, 1997, p. 119) ■ “Assessment is an opportunity to put our theories rather than our students continually to the test.” (Bintz & Harste, 1994, p. 276)

TELLING TALES College Readiness Standards ■

Order sequences of events in uncomplicated passages

■

Identify clear cause-effect relationships in uncomplicated passages

■

Understand implied or subtly stated cause-effect relationships in uncomplicated passages

■


Description of the Instructional Activity Students could be drawn into a discussion about folktales or fairy tales, discussing those that were told or read to them as children. Some possible questions might be: ■

What is the appeal of tales?

■

What tale(s) do you remember vividly? Why?

■

Is there a character from a tale that you are able to relate to? Why? Why not?

■

If you had a chance to interview characters from several tales, whom would you interview and what questions would you ask?

56

Each student could read a tale of his or her choice and record the sequence of events, identifying the event(s) that caused or led to the end result and determining which event was the most significant. Using this information, students could create a list of “what if” questions about their tale, such as: What would have happened if the wolf had first tried to blow down the house of the third little pig? . . . if the magpies had not flown Ling Li’s wedding robe to the Phoenix Fairy? . . . if Possum, instead of Turtle, had bragged about slaying the wolf? To help spark students’ imaginations, the teacher could bring in books that provide humorous variations on well-known fairy tale themes, such as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Scieszka or Wolf Story by McCleery. Students could break into small groups to share the questions they have developed, discussing what might have happened if the sequence of events had changed, if one event had not occurred, or if a different event had taken place. Using a graphic organizer, each student could map out the events, then indicate which ones would be affected by each of their “what if” questions and why and how events would be affected. The teacher might read aloud an excerpt from The Ordinary Princess by Kaye or Building Blocks by Voigt. Students could identify a connection between the book and a folktale or fairy tale and then predict the sequence of events that follows in the book, proposing possible cause-effect relationships. Students could be encouraged to read the book to see if their predictions mirrored the choices made by the author. Next, students could listen to a radio or television broadcast of a news or sports event. Students could discuss the techniques used by the announcer to keep listeners tuned in, the perspective (and possible bias) of the announcer, and the importance of providing accurate and detailed information to inform listeners of the events as they are unfolding and the resulting effects. Imitating the style of the event they heard, students could pretend to be announcers, finding partners to be their co-commentators on a “breaking” folktale or fairy tale. Students could write their script first, using a familiar tale, and then practice their commentary. Students could either perform their

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships; Generalizations and Conclusions

commentary in front of the class, perhaps even using microphones as props, or tape record it for the class to listen to.

Ideas for Progress ■

Identify similarities and differences between people, objects, events, or ideas, drawing accurate conclusions

■

Determine factors that have clearly influenced the outcome of a situation

■

Analyze the sequence of events in written or nonprint sources


Rating Scale —Students could rate their own and each other’s folktale or fairy tale commentaries using a rating scale. The scale could assess students’ ability to maintain the listeners’ attention; to provide specific, accurate details; and to give thoughtful, evaluative comments about the sequence of events and causeeffect relationships (e.g., “The ugly duckling is moving toward the swans; they seem to be talking. It doesn’t look like the swans are laughing or making fun of the duckling. I’m not sure the duckling knows what to think, or how to respond because of all the teasing and taunting he has received in the past.”). Scoring Rubric —Students could use their “what if” questions to rework a folktale or a fairy tale, changing the events or the sequence of events as well as writing the tale from a different viewpoint, such as that of the troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Students could read their stories to elementary-age students, providing the younger children with a copy of all the stories for their classroom library. A scoring rubric could be used by the teacher and students to assess the organization, mechanics, and creativity of the stories. The criteria could be generated by the students and teacher.

Suggested Strategies/Activities Students could be asked to think about how the events in a folktale or fairy tale are similar to or different from cause-effect occurrences in nature or history (e.g., Chicken Little’s belief that the sky was falling and the witch trials in the late 1600s; the ugly duckling turning into a swan and the sky changing color at sunset). Working in small groups or independently, students could take a fairy tale and make it (penciling it out on paper) into a computer game or board game. Students would need to determine the events that could happen, their causes, and the effects. After the games are completed, students could play the games, grading them using a student-generated rubric.

57

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Supporting Details; Meanings of Words

Guiding Principles ■ “Words stand for concepts, which grow as we do. We acquire new vocabulary only as we can grasp the concepts denoted, which in turn depend on our experiences and general development.” (Tonjes & Zintz, 1987, p. 142) ■ “Emotions engage meaning and predict future learning because they involve our goals, beliefs, biases, and expectancies.” (Jensen, 1998, p. 93) ■ “Identifying significant learner outcomes that provide an adequate basis and framework for reliable assessment requires careful planning by educators, parents, students, and members of the school’s community.” (Baron & Boschee, 1995, p. 17)

ANALYZING RULES College Readiness Standards ■


■


■

Discern which details, though they may appear in different sections throughout a passage, support important points in more challenging passages

■


Description of the Instructional Activity At the beginning of the school year, the teacher could engage students in a discussion about rules: ■

Does a society (e.g., a nation, a group) need rules? Why? Why not?

human graph in which students move to a part of the room where others who share similar viewpoints are positioned. In order to better debate the topic, students could use cue cards to identify key points in their reasoning. Students could be given time to search the Internet or other sources for information that would help them answer questions they have about rules or the process of creating rules. After sharing this information in small groups, students could be encouraged to revisit their initial impressions about rules. Each student could select a book of his or her choice in which the character abides by or questions the rules, such as The Red Badge of Courage by Crane or Nothing But the Truth by Avi. Students could be encouraged to decipher the tone of the writing. Students could select several words that describe the tone (e.g., sarcastic, authoritative, analytical), identifying evidence in the text to support their conclusions. Later, students could go for a walk or take a field trip in order to search for written rules or regulations in their local environment: signs or notices in businesses, community buildings, schools, or recreational areas. (If this is not possible, the teacher could show slides of rules he or she has found in the community.) In a log, students could record rules that contain symbolic, humorous, unfamiliar, ambiguous, biased, or emotionally charged language. Students could compare the rules in small groups, noting similarities and differences in their wording. Each group could select a rule to analyze in detail (one they especially like or dislike), with each member reporting on one of the following topics to the rest of the class: ■

the rule’s purpose and intended audience(s)

■

the tone and wording of the rule

■

the impact certain words or phrases have had or might have on the thinking or behavior of people

■

the assumptions made about the need for the rule the implications and consequences of enforcing the rule

■

Who should be responsible for making and enforcing rules?

■

■

How are rules created? Worded?

Students could be encouraged to contact those institutions that have rules they strongly disagree with, determining the process to be followed in order to effect change.

Students could be given time to think about each question, discussing their assumptions and viewpoints with a partner. The class might create a

58

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Supporting Details; Meanings of Words

Students could also be encouraged to think about the concept of unwritten rules. Students could brainstorm a list of social rules that are not written down but are known and followed by students at their school. Students could interview their peers about the meaning and logic of the unwritten rules and the penalties for breaking them. Finally, students could review historical documents that contain rules or regulations from previous decades, sharing those of interest (e.g., rules that may seem unusual, outdated, or silly today). Students might want to investigate why a specific rule existed, connecting the wording of the rule to the attitude or point of view that dominated during that particular time or place. Students could select several unfamiliar or intriguing words or concepts to study in depth, searching for their origins and meanings in such books as The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories and Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories by Funk. Suggestions for Assessment

Performance Assessment—Students could discuss the kind of school they want to have and how their school’s existing rules and policies help or hinder progress toward their goal. Students could review their school’s disciplinary rules, discussing whether and how they could be worded better. Students could form small groups, drafting a letter to the principal that provides reasons for any suggested changes. The class could merge the ideas generated by each small group in order to create one letter to send to the principal. Students could be assessed on their ability to use language, in both the letter and the rules, that conveys a specific purpose in an appropriate tone. Anecdotal Notes—Throughout the school year, students could be asked to collect words or phrases from a variety of sources (e.g., field trips, advertisements, catalogs, articles, books). The words selected could be unfamiliar, figurative, or intriguing. Each student (or the class together) could determine how best to record, classify, and store the words (e.g., word wall, journal). Students could periodically share their words with the class, explaining why they chose a particular word or phrase, identifying its context and purpose, describing strategies they used to identify its meaning, identifying word patterns, and connecting the words to personal experiences. Students could make informal notes about their word collection, assessing what they have learned from putting it together.


Investigate the meanings of words and their possible effect(s) on the perceptions and behavior of people

■

Identify similarities and differences between people, objects, events, or ideas, drawing accurate conclusions

■

Determine how an inference might change based on the inclusion of additional information

■

Use various resources (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus) to explore connotations of familiar words or descriptive language

Suggested Strategies/Activities Students could form tentative conclusions about the effects of rules and then conduct an experiment that would test the extent to which a rule’s wording (positive or negative) affects people’s compliance with the rule. After reviewing the results of the experiment, students could reexamine their prior conclusions, making changes as needed. If allowed, students could create a list of rules for a particular class. The students could discuss how to monitor each rule in order to determine the effectiveness of each. The teacher could also share a rule she or he was asked to obey as a child. The teacher could ask for students’ help in writing the rule in poetic form as well as from a teenager’s point of view. Students could be asked to brainstorm vivid sensory details (e.g., colors, textures, shapes) and impressions they associate with the rule. The words and phrases suggested by students could be listed on the board. Next, the teacher could share several poems about objects and places (e.g., All the Small Poems and Fourteen More by Worth and Wordspinners by Maybury), encouraging students to compare and discuss the forms, cadences, and rhythms the poems have. Then, the class could create a poem using the words and phrases brainstormed earlier. Later, students could select a rule they have at home and experiment with writing it in poetic form (Marshall & Newmann, 1998). As an alternative, students could create a public service announcement about a rule in the form of a rap.

59

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships; Generalizations and Conclusions

Guiding Principles ■ “Readers bring to . . . reading, as they do to every activity, the accumulated knowledge and experiences of their lives.” (Kutz & Roskelly, 1991, p. 189) ■ “Critical thinkers scrutinize generalizations, probe for possible exceptions, and then use appropriate qualifications.” (Paul, Binker, Martin, & Adamson, 1995, p. 69) ■ “The art of teaching for meaning is to activate and facilitate the self-directed, pattern-finding nature of the brain.” (Caine & Caine, 1997, p. 118) ■ “Assessment never gives answers, only data on which we can make judgments.” (Bintz & Harste, 1994, p. 274)

EVALUATING CHARACTER TRAITS College Readiness Standards ■


■

Infer the main idea or purpose of straightforward paragraphs in more challenging passages

■

Understand relationships between people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages

■


Description of the Instructional Activity The teacher could begin the class by asking students to write informally about the following questions: What qualities (traits) in people do you admire, respect, or appreciate? Can you think of instances in which it would not be helpful to have one of those traits? Students could share their responses in small groups and then group the qualities into categories.

60

Students could also be asked to form generalizations about several of the qualities they discussed, with and without qualifiers (e.g., Some people are nice. People are nice.). The class could compare each group’s categories, discussing the shades of meaning of words. They could also discuss how qualifiers (e.g., some, usually) help to clarify generalizations. Next, students could look in more depth at the traits they listed, answering such questions as: ■

What types of activities or situations would foster the development of some of the traits discussed earlier?

■

Which qualities would be considered essential from the viewpoint of a lawyer? A politician? An entrepreneur?

■

What factors make obtaining these qualities difficult?

■

What is the relationship among one’s viewpoints, emotions, and actions?

Students could share their responses to these questions during a large-group discussion. The teacher could then read aloud to students the short novel Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days! by Manes. Students could discuss the kind of person the main character wants to be and the events that encourage him to embark on a do-it-yourself course in becoming perfect. Students could identify the qualities the main character shows throughout the story, comparing them to the qualities displayed by other literary characters that they are familiar with (e.g., characters who are good and not-so-good). The students might also discuss the difficulties the character encounters as he tries to achieve his goal, comparing those difficulties to ones they have experienced and identifying reasonable generalizations expressed by their peers during the group discussion. Next, students could discuss the concept of perfection, including how realistic this goal is and the role the mass media seem to play in shaping people’s expectations.

Linking Instruction and Assessment Strands: Main Ideas and Author’s Approach; Sequential, Comparative, and Cause-Effect Relationships; Generalizations and Conclusions

Later, students could look through catalogs and advertisements, clipping those pictures that suggest or represent an image of perfection or that encourage viewers to strive for perfection. Students could note the similarities and differences between the ads, discussing the techniques used to create the image of perfection, such as the use of emotional appeals, authority figures, or oversimplified statements. Students could be encouraged to think about the underlying purpose(s) of the ads, the credibility of the sources of information, the accuracy of the information, the similarities and differences in the statements made by advertisers of comparable products, and the factors that can influence a viewer to accept the ads’ messages. Suggestions for Assessment

Questionnaire —Students could create and respond to a questionnaire that encourages them to reflect on what they have learned about generalizations, what they still have questions about, and how the information learned can be applied to the real world (e.g., interpreting commercials or political cartoons). Rating Scale —A rating scale developed by the students could be used to analyze public service announcements also written by the students. As a class, students could select an issue (e.g., working teens, being a mentor) that each announcement would address. Each announcement could represent a different viewpoint: for example, the issue could be discussed from the viewpoint of a poet, a scientist, or a comedian. Students could work with partners to develop the announcement, using the information learned when they studied advertisements. The rating scale could assess the content of the announcement, the reasonableness of the generalizations included in the announcement, and the effectiveness of the announcement in representing a particular point of view.


Analyze the reasonableness of generalizations by reviewing information presented in the text and from other sources

■

Identify details in a challenging text that confirm or disprove conclusions drawn by the author or narrator and by the students themselves or their peers

■

Synthesize information in challenging texts, making valid generalizations or conclusions about people and situations

Suggested Strategies/Activities The students could make tentative generalizations regarding the buying habits of teenagers and their parents. Then, with the help of the language arts and the mathematics teacher, the students could develop a survey that examines the extent to which advertising affects people’s understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of similar products and their decision to buy the products. The students could look at several types of surveys before designing their own. Students would need to determine the population(s) to survey and the sample size. They would also need to discuss the types of questions to ask (e.g., open or closed), determining what information they want to learn and how best to phrase the questions. With the teachers’ help, the students would need to determine which statistical value, if any, best represents the data: mean, median, mode, or range. Finally, students could review consumer reports that compare products they mentioned in their survey. After reviewing both sets of information, students could revise their initial generalizations, making them more valid and complete.

61

PUTTING

THE

PIECES TOGETHER

ACT developed this guide to show the link between the EXPLORE Reading Test results and daily classroom work. The guide serves as a resource for teachers, curriculum coordinators, and counselors by explaining what the College Readiness Standards say about students’ academic progress. The guide explains how the test questions on the EXPLORE Reading Test are related to the College Readiness Standards and describes what kinds of reasoning skills are measured. The sample instructional activities and classroom assessments suggest some approaches to take to help students develop and apply their reasoning skills.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM H ERE? ACT recognizes that teachers are the essential link between instruction and assessment. We are committed to providing you with assistance as you continue your efforts to provide quality instruction. ACT is always looking for ways to improve its services. We welcome your comments and questions. Please send them to: College Readiness Standards Elementary and Secondary School Programs (32) ACT P.O. Box 168 Iowa City, IA 52243-0168

“A mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

62

WHAT OTHER ACT PRODUCTS SERVICES ARE AVAILABLE?

AND

In addition to the College Readiness Standards materials, ACT offers many products and services that support school counselors, students and their parents, and others. Here are some of these additional resources: ACT’s Website—www.act.org contains a host of information and resources for parents, teachers, and others. Students can visit www.explorestudent.org, which is designed to aid students as they prepare for their next level of learning. The ACT—a guidance, placement, and admissions program that helps students prepare for the transition to postsecondary education while providing a measure of high school outcomes for college-bound students. PLAN—a comprehensive assessment program designed to improve tenth-grade students’ postsecondary planning and preparation and to enable schools to assist students and their parents in this important process. WorkKeys ®—a system linking workplace skill areas to instructional support and specific requirements of occupations. TM

ACT Online Prep —an online test preparation program that provides students with real ACT tests and an interactive learning experience.

The Real ACT Prep Guide—the official print guide to the ACT, containing three practice ACTs. DISCOVER ®—a computer-based career planning system that helps users assess their interests, abilities, experiences, and values, and provides instant results for use in investigating educational and occupational options.

BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography is divided into four sections. The first section lists the sources used in describing the EXPLORE Program, the College Readiness Standards for the EXPLORE Reading Test, and ACT’s philosophy regarding educational testing. The second section, which lists the sources used to develop the instructional activities and assessments, provides suggestions for further reading in the areas of thinking and reasoning, learning theory, and best practice. The third section lists diverse literary works suggested by classroom teachers that could be used in conjunction with the instructional activities on pages 56–63. The fourth section provides a list of resources suggested by classroom teachers. (Please note that in 1996 the corporate name “The American College Testing Program” was changed to “ACT.”)

1. GENERAL REFERENCES Adams, A. (1973). [Letter to John Quincy Adams, May 8, 1780]. In L. H. Butterfield & M. Friedlaender (Eds.), Adams family correspondence: Vol. 3, April 1778–September 1780 (p. 313). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Airasian, P. W. (1991). Classroom assessment. New York: McGraw Hill. American Association for Higher Education, American College Personnel Association, & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. (1998, June). Powerful partnerships: A shared responsibility for learning. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.aahe.org/assessment/joint.htm American College Testing Program. (1992). Content validity of ACT’s educational achievement tests. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (1996a). Language arts for a successful transition to college: The content foundations of the ACT Assessment. Iowa City, IA: Author.

ACT. (1996b). Linking assessment to instruction in your classroom: Language arts guide to EXPLORE, PLAN, and the ACT Assessment. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (1998). Maintaining the content validity of ACT’s educational achievement tests. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2000). Content validity evidence in support of ACT’s educational achievement tests: ACT’s 1998–1999 national curriculum study. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2001). EXPLORE technical manual. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2002). Item writer’s guide for the EXPLORE Reading Test. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2002) Passage selection guide for the EXPLORE Reading Tests. Iowa City, IA: Author.

63

ACT. (2003). Content validity evidence in support of ACT’s educational achievement tests: ACT National Curriculum Survey 2002–2003. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2004). Crisis at the core: Preparing all students for college and work. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2005a). EXPLORE program guide. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT. (2005b). The real ACT prep guide: The only official prep guide from the makers of the ACT. [Lawrenceville, NJ:] Thomson Peterson’s. ACT. (2005c). Your guide to EXPLORE. Iowa City, IA: Author. ACT, & Council of Great City Schools. (1999). Gateways to success: A report on urban student achievement and coursetaking. Iowa City, IA: Authors. ACT, & The Education Trust. (2004). On course for success: A close look at selected high school courses that prepare all students for college. Iowa City, IA: Authors. Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Hamilton, R. L., & Kucan, L. (1998). Getting at the meaning: How to help students unpack difficult text. American Educator, 22, 66–71, 85. Billmeyer, R., & Barton, M. L. (1998). Teaching reading in the content areas: If not me, then who? Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory. Brewer, D. J., Rees, D. I., & Argys, L. M. (1995). Detracking America’s schools: The reform without cost? Phi Delta Kappan, 77 (3), 210–214. Burke, K. (1992). Significant outcomes. In K. Burke (Ed.), Authentic assessment: A collection (pp. 201–203). Palatine, IL: IRI/Skylight Publishing. Christenbury, L. (1998). Language arts: A chapter of the ASCD curriculum handbook. In ASCD curriculum handbook: A resource for curriculum administrators (pp. 120–133). Alexandria, VA: The Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. Dwyer, K., & Thompson, L. D. (1999). The journey of a reader in the classroom. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

64

Gay, G. (2000). Improving the achievement of marginalized students of color. In Including at-risk students in standards-based reform: A report on McREL’s Diversity Roundtable II (pp. 3–19). (A research-based paper presented at the November 1999 roundtable). Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Diversity/ 5007IR_DiversityRT2.pdf Goodwin, B. (2000). Raising the achievement of lowperforming students [policy brief]. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. Gray, W. S. (1960). The major aspects of reading. In H. M. Robinson (Ed.), Sequential development of reading abilities: Proceedings of the annual conference on reading held at the University of Chicago, 1960, Vol. 22 (pp. 8–24) (Supplementary educational monographs, No. 90). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Guillaume, A. M. (1998). Learning with text in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 51, 476–486. Hixson, J. (1993). At-risk. An excerpt from Redefining the issues: Who’s at risk and why. Revision of a paper originally presented in 1983 at “Reducing the Risks,” a workshop presented by the Midwest Regional Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/ atrisk/at5def.htm Holmes, O. W. (1960). The autocrat of the breakfasttable. Everyman’s Library, No. 66. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. (Original work published 1858) Ingersoll, R. (1998). The problem of out-of-field teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 79 (10), 773–776. Langer, J., Close, E., Angelis, J., & Preller, P. (2000, May). Guidelines for teaching middle and junior high school students to read and write well. Albany, NY: National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement. Lindquist, E. F. (1958). Some requirements of and some basic considerations concerning college entrance and college scholarship examinations (pp. 1–6). Unpublished manuscript.

McCollum, P. (2000). Immigrant students and standards-based reform: Examining opportunities to learn. In Including at-risk students in standardsbased reform: A report on McREL’s Diversity Roundtable II (pp. 20–34). (A research-based paper presented at the November 1999 roundtable). Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Diversity/ 5007IR_DiversityRT2.pdf McGee, L. M., & Richgels, D. J. (1985). Teaching expository text structure to elementary students. The Reading Teacher, 38, 739–748. May, F. B. (1990). Reading as communication: An interactive approach (3rd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill Publishing Company.

Noeth, R. J., & Wimberly, G. L. (2002). Creating seamless educational transitions for urban African American and Hispanic students (ACT Policy Report with the cooperation of the Council of Great City Schools). Iowa City, IA: ACT, Inc. Piccolo, J. A. (1987). Expository text structure: Teaching and learning strategies. The Reading Teacher, 40, 838–847. Ravitch, D. (1985). The schools we deserve: Reflections on the educational crisis of our time. New York: Basic Books. Sadowski, M. (2001). Closing the gap one school at a time. Harvard Education Letter, 17 (3),1–5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Means, B., & Knapp, M. S. (1991). Introduction: Rethinking teaching for disadvantaged students. In B. Means, C. Chelemer, & M. S. Knapp (Eds.), Teaching advanced skills to at-risk students: Views from research and practice (pp. 1–26). San Francisco & Oxford: Jossey-Bass.

65

2. REFERENCES FOR EXPLORE READING I NSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES Anderson, R. (2002). Ad dissection 101: Exposing media manipulation. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://website.education.wisc.edu/rla/ADSITE/ Avi. (1993). Nothing but the truth. New York: Avon. Bambara, T. C. (1992). Raymond’s run. In Gorilla, my love (pp. 23–32). New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1972) Baron, J. B., & Sternberg, R. J. (1987). Teaching thinking skills: Theory and practice. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. Baron, M., & Boschee, F. (1995). Authentic assessment: The key to unlocking student success. Lancaster, PA: Technomic Publishing Company. Bintz, W. P., & Harste, J. C. (1994). Assessment: Re-Visioning the future. In B. Harp (Ed.), Assessment and evaluation for student centered learning (2nd ed.). Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. Block, C. C. (1999). Comprehension: Crafting understanding. In L. B. Gambrell, L. M. Morrow, S. B. Neuman, & M. Pressley (Eds.), Best practices in literacy instruction (pp. 98–118). New York: Guilford Press. Brandt, R. (1995). Punished by rewards? A conversation with Alfie Kohn. Educational Leadership, 53 (1), 13–16. Broida, E. (1995). Name that chapter! In National Council of Teachers of English (Ed.), Teaching literature in high school: The novel (pp. 41–42). Standards Consensus Series. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Caine, R. N., & Caine, G. (1997). Education on the edge of possibility. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Critical Thinking Consortium. (2004). Journals. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/resources/ TRK12-remodelled-lesson-6-9.shtml#Journals

66

Critical Thinking Consortium. (2004). Writing argumentative essays. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/resources/ TRK12-remodelled-lesson-6-9.shtml/#Essays Chapman, A. (Ed.). (1993). Making sense: Teaching critical reading across the curriculum. New York: College Entrance Examination Board. Cisneros, S. (1991). Eleven. In Woman hollering creek and other stories (pp. 6–9). New York: Random House. Crane, S. (1990). The red badge of courage. Mineola, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1895) Davis, B. (n.d.). Theme? I can’t even think of a title. . . . Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.hodrw.com/theme.htm Drummond, T. (1994, 2002). A brief summary of the best practices in college teaching. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://northonline.sccd.ctc.edu/ eceprog/bstprac.html Facione, P. A. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Research findings and recommendations prepared for the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association). Fullerton, CA: California State University. Farr, R., & Conner, J. (n.d.). Using think-alouds to improve reading comprehension. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.indiana.edu/~crls/ rogerfarr/mcr/usingta/usingta.html Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Funk, W. (1992). Word origins and their romantic stories. New York: Random House. Greene, E. (1996). Ling Li and the phoenix fairy: A Chinese fairy tale. New York: Clarion.

Gubbins, E. J. (1985). Gubbins’ list of thinking skills. Hartford, CT: Connecticut State Department of Education, Division of Teaching and Learning. Herman, J. L., Aschbacher, P. R., & Winters, L. (1992). A practical guide to alternative assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Jensen, E. (1998). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Kaye, M. M. (1993). The ordinary princess. Friday Harbor, WA: Turtleback. Keefe, J. W., & Walberg, H. J. (Eds.). (1992). Teaching for thinking. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals. Kurfiss, J. G. (1988). Critical thinking: Theory, research, practice, and possibilities (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 2). Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Higher Education. Kutz, E., & Roskelly, H. (1991). An unquiet pedagogy: Transforming practice in the English classroom. Portsmouth, NJ: Boynton/Cook. McCleery, W. (1988). Wolf story (Reprint ed.). North Haven, CT: Linnet Books. (Original work published 1947) McKinney, C. (1995). Finding lessons in song. In National Council of Teachers of English (Ed.), Teaching literature in high school: The novel (pp. 70–71). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Manes, S. (1982). Be a perfect person in just three days! New York: Clarion. Marshall, S., & Newmann, D. (1998). A poet’s vision. Voices in the Middle, 1 (4), 7–15. Marzano, R. J. (1992). A different kind of classroom: Teaching with dimensions of learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Marzano, R. J., Brandt, R. S., Hughes, C. S., Jones, B. F., Presseisen, B. F., Rankin, S. C., & Suhor, C. (1988). Dimensions of thinking: A framework for curriculum and instruction. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Maybury, B. (1981). Wordspinners. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merriam-Webster, Inc. (1995). The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories. Springfield, MA: Author. Meyer, C. (1986). Teaching students to think critically. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. National Council of Teachers of English, & International Reading Association. (1996). Standards for the English language arts. Urbana, IL, and Newark, DE: Authors. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1995). Assessment standards for high school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. Newmann, F. M., Secada, W., & Wehlage, G. G. (1995). A guide to authentic instruction and assessment: Vision, standards, and scoring. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Newmann, F. M., & Wehlage, G. G. (1995). Successful school restructuring (Report to the public and educators by the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools). Madison, WI: Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Northeastern State University Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Conducting successful Socratic seminars (Engaging students in critical thinking). Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~ctl/documents/ Socratic%20Seminar/socraticsemwkshpinfo.htm Paul, R., Binker, A. J. A., Martin, D., & Adamson, K. (1995). Critical thinking handbook: High school. Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.

67

Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2001). Critical thinking: Tools for taking charge of your learning and your life. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

3. SELECTED LITERARY WORKS SUGGESTED BY CLASSROOM TEACHERS

Perrone, V. (Ed.). (1991). Expanding student assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Aaseng, N. (1992). Navajo code talkers. New York: Walker Publishers.

Pirie, B. (1997). Reshaping high school English. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Ross, G. (1995). How turtle’s back was cracked: A traditional Cherokee tale. New York: Dial. Scieszka, J. (1993). The stinky cheese man and other fairly stupid tales. New York: Viking Press. Short, K., Harste, J., & Burke, C. (1996). Creating classrooms for authors and inquirers (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Stiggins, R. J. (1994). Student-centered classroom assessment. New York: Macmillan College Publishing Company. Tonjes, M. V., & Zintz, M. J. (1987). Teaching reading thinking study skills in content area classrooms (2nd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown. Union University Center for Faculty Development. (n.d.). Classroom communication: Discussion tips. Retrieved June 3, 2005, from http://www.uu.edu/ centers/faculty/resources/article.cfm?ArticleID=73 Voigt, C. (1994). Building blocks. Friday Harbor, WA: Turtleback. Wolf, J. M. (1997). The beanstalk and beyond: Developing critical thinking through fairy tales. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Worth, V. (1994). All the small poems and fourteen more. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (1993). Best practice: New standards for teaching and learning in America’s schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

68

Adoff, A. (1995). Slow dance heart break blues. New York: Lothrop, Lee, & Shepard. Allen, P. G. (Ed.). (1990). Spider woman’s granddaughters: Traditional tales and contemporary writing by Native American writers. New York: Fawcett Books. Alvarez, J. (1992). How the Garcia girls lost their accents. New York: NAL-Dutton. Cisneros, S. (1991). The house on Mango Street. New York: Random House. De Jong, M. (1987). House of sixty fathers. New York: Harper Collins Children’s Books. Fang, L. (1995). The Ch’i-lin-purse: A collection of ancient Chinese stories. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Faurot, J. L. (Ed.). (1995). Asian-Pacific folktales and legends. New York: Simon & Schuster. Gallo, D. (Ed.). (1995). Join in: Multiethnic short stories by outstanding writers for young adults. Madison, WI: Demco. Hamilton, V. (1995). Her stories: African American folktales, fairy tales, and true tales. New York: Scholastic. Kingston, M. H. (1976). The woman warrior. New York: Knopf. Myers, W. D. (1983). Hoops. Madison, WI: Demco. Taylor, M. D. (1990). Mississippi bridge. New York: Dial.

4. RESOURCES SUGGESTED CLASSROOM TEACHERS

BY

Print Sources Brandt, D. (2001). Literacy in American lives. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press. Howard, G. R. (1999). We can’t teach what we don’t know: White teachers, multiracial schools. New York: Teachers College Press.

The Gateway to Educational Materials. http://www.thegateway.org Harvard Graduate School of Education. Research Projects. http://www.pzweb.harvard.edu/ Research/Research.htm International Reading Association. http://www.reading.org James Madison University. Internet School Library Media Center. http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/

Rose, M. (1989). Lives on the boundary: The struggles and achievements of America’s underprepared. New York: Macmillan.

Johns Hopkins University & Howard University Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR). http://www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/index.htm

Wilhelm, J. D. (1996). You gotta be the book: Teaching engaged and reflective reading with adolescents. New York: Teachers College Press.

Learning to Read: Resources for Language Arts and Reading Research. http://toread.com

Wilson, B. L., & Corbett, H. D. (2002). Listening to urban kids: School reform and the teachers they want. New York: SUNY Press.

National Women’s History Project. http://www.nwhp.org

Websites (All retrieved by ACT June 3, 2005.) Cloudnet. Multicultural Lesson Plans and Resources. http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/ edmulticult.htm Davis, B. G. (1993). Motivating students. In Tools for Teaching (chap. 23). http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/motivate.html

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Lab National Network. http://www.nwrel.org/national PBS TeacherSource. http://www.pbs.org/teachersource U.S. Department of Education Resource Organizations Directory. http://bcol02.ed.gov/Programs/EROD/ org_list.cfm?category_ID=SEA

The Educator’s Reference Desk. http://www.eduref.org

69

Appendix Passages Corresponding to Sample Test Questions

Prose Fiction passage corresponding to sample test question found on page 20

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from John Steinbeck’s novel The Red Pony (©1961, 1965 by John Steinbeck).

35

40

5

When the triangle sounded in the morning, Jody dressed more quickly even than usual. In the kitchen, while he washed his face and combed back his hair, his mother addressed him irritably. “Don’t you go out until you get a good breakfast in you.”

10

He went into the dining room and sat at the long white table. He took a steaming hotcake from the platter, arranged two fried eggs on it, covered them with another hotcake and squashed the whole thing with his fork.

15

20

25

His father and Billy Buck came in. Jody knew from the sound on the floor that both of them were wearing flat-heeled shoes, but he peered under the table to make sure. His father turned off the oil lamp, for the day had arrived, and he looked stern and disciplinary, but Billy Buck didn’t look at Jody at all. He avoided the shy questioning eyes of the boy and soaked a whole piece of toast in his coffee. Carl Tiflin said crossly, “You come with us after breakfast!” Jody had trouble with his food then, for he felt a kind of doom in the air. . . . The two men stood up from the table and went out into the morning light together, and Jody respectfully followed a little behind them. He tried to keep his mind from running ahead, tried to keep it absolutely motionless. His mother called, “Carl! Don’t you let it keep him from school.”

30

70

They marched past the cypress, where a singletree hung from a limb to butcher the pigs on, and past the black iron kettle, so it was not a pig killing. The sun shone over the hill and threw long, dark shadows of the tree and buildings. They crossed a stubble-field to shortcut to the barn. Jody’s father unhooked the door

45

and they went in. They had been walking toward the sun on the way down. The barn was black as night in contrast and warm from the hay and from the beasts. Jody’s father moved over toward the one box stall. “Come here!” he ordered. Jody could begin to see things now. He looked into the box stall and then stepped back quickly. A red pony colt was looking at him out of the stall. Its tense ears were forward and a light of disobedience was in its eyes. Its coat was rough and thick as an airedale’s fur and its mane was long and tangled. Jody’s throat collapsed in on itself and cut his breath short. “He needs a good currying,” his father said, “and if I ever hear of you not feeding him or leaving his stall dirty, I’ll sell him off in a minute.”

50

55

60

Jody couldn’t bear to look at the pony’s eyes any more. He gazed down at his hands for a moment, and he asked very shyly, “Mine?” No one answered him. He put his hand out toward the pony. Its gray nose came close, sniffing loudly, and then the lips drew back and the strong teeth closed on Jody’s fingers. The pony shook its head up and down and seemed to laugh with amusement. Jody regarded his bruised fingers. “Well,” he said with pride—“Well, I guess he can bite all right.” The two men laughed, somewhat in relief. Carl Tiflin went out of the barn and walked up a side-hill to be by himself, for he was embarrassed, but Billy Buck stayed. It was easier to talk to Billy Buck. Jody asked again— “Mine?”


Prose Fiction passage corresponding to sample test question found on page 21

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from Sandra Cisneros’s first novel The House on Mango Street (©1984 by Sandra Cisneros).

5

The house on Mango Street is ours and we don’t have to pay rent to anybody or share the yard with the people downstairs or be careful not to make too much noise and there isn’t a landlord banging on the ceiling. But even so, it’s not the house we’d thought we’d get.

10

We had to leave the flat on Loomis quick. The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn’t fix them. We were using the washroom next door and carrying water over in empty milk gallons. That’s why we moved to Mango Street.

15

20

25

30

35

Our parents always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn’t have to move each year. And our house would have running water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside like the houses on T.V. And we’d have a basement and at least three washrooms so when we took a bath we didn’t have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed. But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight little steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side. There are stairs in our house, but they’re ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom, very small. Everybody has to share a bedroom.

40

Where do you live? she asked. There, I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there?

45

50

There. I had to look to where she pointed—the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded. I knew then I had to have a house. One I could point to. The house on Mango Street isn’t it. For the time being, Mama said. Temporary, said Papa. But I know how those things go. I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story about a girl who didn’t want to belong.

55

60

We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, but what I remember most is Mango Street, sad red house, the house I belong but do not belong to. I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. I write it down and Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free.

Once when we were living on Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out front. The laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE’RE OPEN so as not to lose business.

71


Social Science passage corresponding to sample test questions found on pages 17 and 19

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from Jake Page’s article “Fly away, fly away, fly away home” (©1990 by the Smithsonian Institution).

5

10

15

20

25

30

72

Officially they are called “European starlings,” with a fitting scientific name: Sturnus vulgaris. They are one of the most successful birds in the world. There are an estimated 600 million of them on the globe, of which one-third inhabit North America. The United States houses about three starlings for every house cat. A century ago there were no starlings here. Like most of us they are recent immigrants. In 1890, a lunatic (we can now say for certain) named Eugene Schieffelin brought 80 of the birds to this country from Europe and on March 6 released them in Central Park in New York City. He released 40 more in April 1891. There is a rumor that Schieffelin had devised a crazed scheme to introduce into this country all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. . . . By 1891 twenty starlings had made it to Staten Island. In 1896 they were in Brooklyn, and two years later they were on their way in all directions. . . . Bird people began to look upon the starling with wariness. In 1917, ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush wrote: “As undesirable qualities are often accentuated when a bird is introduced into a new country, we cannot view the introduction of the starling without some apprehension.” Referring to the bird’s “general fitness for the battle of life,” Forbush insightfully pointed out that the starling thrives especially in cultivated lands, and that in Europe it had had thousands of years to adapt to such places as well as to the propinquity of large numbers of people, while the native American songbirds with whom the starling was already seen to be competing had had only a couple of centuries of such learning conditions. . . .

35

40

45

50

55

By 1959, the same year that Alaska was admitted to the Union, there were starlings in San Diego: Manifest Destiny for starlings, achieved in a mere 69 years. Today, from Alaska to northern Mexico, there is hardly a place they do not go, even the beach. They are often found in the company of grackles, blackbirds and other avian lowlifes. In March, hundreds, even thousands of members of this demimonde gather in the skeletal trees around my house and in the pasture, jostling and shrieking, suddenly to gust up and swarm in the air like insects, only to settle down in other trees nearby as the unmusical chorus continues. . . . Some experts say that starlings actually provide great benefit from the “economic” standpoint. The chief enemy of the clover weevil, they also serve to control cutworms and Japanese beetles (another import). Half their diet is insects of one sort or another, mostly ground-dwelling insects, but they will pick off the occasional wasp or bee as well. Thus, they are said to be the farmer’s friend. But you can have, at any given moment, too many friends around. When a flock of starlings, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, swarms into a cherry orchard or vineyard and methodically takes the entire season’s fruit crop, the farmer or vintner would probably prefer the mercies of a few enemies.


Social Science passage corresponding to sample test question found on page 18

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from Ray Broekel’s article “Land of the Candy Bar” (©1986 by Forbes Inc.).

5

10

15

20

25

30

The candy bar as we know it was born in America. So too, many centuries earlier, was chocolate itself. Mexican natives cultivated the cocoa bean for more than twenty-five hundred years before Hernán Cortés took it to Spain with him in 1528. Spanish royalty drank a cold, sweetened beverage made from the beans, but they liked it so much they kept it a secret from the rest of Europe for the remainder of the century. Not until the 1840s did a British firm . . . make the first chocolate bar. The candy bar, agglomerating a variety of flavors and textures—almost always including chocolate—in one piece, was a purely American invention. . . . Milton Snavely Hershey, the father of the modern candy bar, had already built a successful business in caramels when he first saw German chocolate-making machines at the 1893 Chicago world’s fair. He ordered some for his factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and began turning out chocolate bars the next year. By the turn of the century he was through with caramels. He made not just plain chocolate and milk-chocolate bars but also innovative items like almond bars, kisses, and chocolate cigars. By 1911 his company had sales of five million dollars a year; by 1921 it was making four times that.

35

40

45

50

55

World War I. Nearly every confectioner in the land turned out a candy bar, choosing a name that might reflect a news or sports event, a popular hero, a food, a place, or even a popular saying of the age. . . . The industry began on the East Coast but quickly fanned out across the country. Since the basic ingredients were dairy products, Chicago became the natural hub for candy bars, and Milwaukee and Minneapolis were major producers. The Depression brought lean times to the candybar business, and not until the late 1930s did the industry begin to recover. When war struck again, the makers of candy bars once more were pressed into service supplying the troops. Hershey made “field ration D,” a refined chocolate that didn’t melt at high temperatures, and it was packed in kits for soldiers, sailors, and Marines. On the home front, as the supply of chocolate dwindled, manufacturers struggled to concoct new bars from ingredients such as peanuts and marshmallows and gave them patriotic names like Torpedo. If World War I made candy bars a major industry, World War II made them a worldwide symbol of America. The GI handing out candy bars to children came to stand for liberation everywhere. Hershey bars became an international wartime currency.

Such dazzling success begat swift competition, and soon a multitude of companies was making bars of chocolate combined with caramel, marshmallow, peanuts, crisped rice, and anything else that might sell. . . . Throughout the first two decades of the century, a bewildering variety of candy bars appeared on shelves across the country, most of them fleetingly. There have probably been more than one hundred thousand different candy bars sold in the United States, including some thirty thousand that existed only in the years just after

73


Social Science passage corresponding to sample test question found on page 20

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from Phillip M. Hoose’s article “A Stand for the Ages” (©1988 by The Nature Conservancy).

5

10

15

20

25

30

74

The township of Pittsburg, which occupies much of New Hampshire north of the White Mountains, was not explored by white people until 1787. It was a remote frontier without a permanent Indian settlement. A tradition of independence started early up there: while New Hampshire and Canada bickered for half a century over their common boundary, Pittsburg residents got tired of waiting to hear to whom they belonged. In 1824, with no one in particular listening, they declared themselves to be “The United Inhabitants of the Indian Stream Territory.” It took the state militia weeks to hear about it and months to dissolve it. Those who first explored the Upper Connecticut Valley described it as a paradise for wildlife. Yet by 1840, the year the last wolf wandered into a trap set by Edward Spaulding of Lancaster, much had changed. The great clouds of passenger pigeons that darkened the trees at dusk were already gone. Beaver too had been temporarily eliminated, and moose—the passive ungulates [animals with hooves] that early settlers had hailed as “an endless supply of meat”—were all but eradicated. A few woodland caribou hung on until the 1880s when, it is said, a hunting party ambushed the last few on Second Connecticut Lake. By 1825 much of the white pine available for construction was gone, and spruce saw logs—which produced sturdy boards for covering and finishing homes—became the rage. Piano companies bought the best spruce logs in a harvest and fashioned them into sounding boards. Even language was affected: people

35

40

45

50

55

60

“spruced up” when they went out. By 1844 entrepreneurs were purchasing water power to float logs down the Connecticut River, and a network of railroads had begun to climb up the Connecticut Valley, over the White Mountains, and into the boreal forest of far northern New Hampshire and eastern Maine. In 1888 a group of New York investors bought up 125,000 acres of Coos County timberland and formed what they called “The Connecticut Valley Lumber Company.” (This firm Coos County Historian Albert Barker described at the time as a corporation “whose policy is to gobble up every little tract of spruce timber they can lay their hands on. . . .” “At the rate of its present destruction,” Barker wrote, “the time is coming in the near future when spruce in the country will be as scarce as pine is now.”) Connecticut Valley Lumber’s loggers reached the East Inlet of Second Connecticut Lake in 1898. They entered a 10,000-acre watershed, never cut, with massive softwoods in the lowlands, surrounded by low hills of yellow birch, sugar maple, and other hardwoods. They set up their camps, dammed up East Inlet Stream, and began to cut down spruce trees. They gave up within a few weeks. Success depended on their ability to float logs down to the company’s mills and rail system. However, 1898 was an extremely dry spring, and after the winter’s meltwater spilled through the loggers’ dam and disappeared, East Inlet Stream could do little more than trickle over the logs. The men left the logs beached between the dam and Second Connecticut Lake and hiked out.


Humanities passage corresponding to sample test question found on page 17

5

10

15

20

25

HUMANITIES: This passage is adapted from Donald Hall’s book Fathers Playing Catch with Sons (©1985 by Donald Hall).

30

The scene I remember . . . happened when [my father] was twenty-five and I was almost one year old. So I do not “remember” it at all. It simply rolls itself before my eyes with the intensity of a lost memory suddenly found again, more intense than the moment itself ever is.

35

It is 1929, July, a hot Saturday afternoon. At the ballpark near East Rock, in New Haven, Connecticut, just over the Hamden line, my father is playing semipro baseball. I don’t know the names of the teams. My mother has brought me in a basket, and she sits under a tree, in the shade, and lets me crawl when I wake up. My father is very young, very skinny. When he takes off his cap—the uniform is gray, the bill of the cap blue—his fine hair is parted in the middle. His face is very smooth. Though he is twenty-five, he could pass for twenty. He plays shortstop, and he is paid twenty-five dollars a game. I don’t know where the money comes from. Do they pass the hat? They would never raise so much money. Do they charge admission? They must charge admission, or I am wrong that it was semipro and that he was paid. . . . There, where this Saturday afternoon of July in 1929 rehearses itself, my slim father performs brilliantly at shortstop. He dives for a low line drive and catches it backhand, somersaults, and stands up holding the ball. Sprinting into left field with his back to the plate, he catches a fly ball that almost drops for a Texas Leaguer. . . . When he comes up to bat, he feels

40

45

50

55

lucky. The opposing pitcher is a side-armer. He always hits side-armers. So he hits two doubles and a triple, drives in two runs and scores two runs, and his team wins 4 to 3. After the game a man approaches him, while he stands, sweating and tired, with my mother and me in the shade of the elm tree at the rising side of the field. The man is a baseball scout. He offers my father a contract to play baseball with the Baltimore Orioles, at that time a double-A minor league team. My father is grateful and gratified; he is proud to be offered the job, but he must refuse. After all, he has just started working at the dairy for his father. It wouldn’t be possible to leave the job that had been such a decision to take. And besides, he adds, there is the baby. My father didn’t tell me he turned it down because of me. All he told me, or that I think he told me: he was playing semipro at twenty-five dollars a game; he had a good day in the field, catching a ball over his shoulder running away from the plate; he had a good day hitting, too, because he could always hit a sidearmer. But he turned down the Baltimore Orioles offer. He couldn’t leave the dairy then, and besides, he knew that he had just been lucky that day. He wasn’t really that good. But maybe he didn’t even tell me that. My mother remembers nothing of . . . the afternoon with the sidearmer, of the offered contract. Did I make it up? Did my father exaggerate? Men tell stories to their sons, loving and being loved. I don’t care.

75


Humanities passage corresponding to sample test questions found on pages 18 and 20

HUMANITIES: This passage is adapted from C. Walter Hodges’s book Shakespeare’s Theatre (©1964 by C. Walter Hodges).

5

10

15

20

25

76

One entered The Globe [Theatre] as a rule through the main entrance, though certain privileged people were admitted by way of the tiring-house door at the back. These people would pay the highest prices to be allowed to sit in the gallery over the stage, or even sometimes upon the stage itself where, according to one writer of the time, they were often a nuisance, not so much because they took up too much room on the stage (it was a large stage and there was room to spare) as because by talking and playing cards and showing off their clothes they drew too much attention to themselves and to their dandified bad manners. But the ordinary people going in at the main gate would pay one penny . . . to a man who stood there with a box, and for this they could go through into the yard. From the yard they could if they chose go up into the galleries, paying more money to other gatekeepers at the gallery stairs. In some parts of the galleries there were private rooms, like boxes in a modern theatre. Thus the cheapest part of the house was the open yard where one had to stand, and the customers here were contemptuously called “Groundlings.” The audience was chiefly of men. Women did sometimes go to the public playhouse, suitably escorted, but generally they were not thought very respectable if they did so. When The Globe was crowded for a popular show it could hold a surprising number of spectators. A full house has been reckoned at about 2,500 people.

30

35

40

45

50

Here then is the time, while the audience [is] still coming in, to look around us at the setting in which Shakespeare’s greatest plays were first put on the stage, under his own direction. . . . For this performance the gallery over the stage is needed by the actors and by the musicians, who can be seen there, already tuning their instruments, so there are no spectators there, though one or two gentlemen have taken their places on stools at the back of the stage. . . . In the centre of the stage you may just see the trap door which led down to (or up from) the underneath, the part traditionally known as the “Hell.” This was often used for the emergence of ghosts or devils, but it had other uses, such as for the gravediggers in Hamlet. Above the stage we see the ceiling of the Heavens, embossed with stars and painted with signs of the Zodiac, and other heavenly devices. . . . [From here] a heavenly being, like Jupiter in Cymbeline, [could descend] in a cloud-wrapped throne, to the sound of thunder (a cannonball rolled in the loft above) which help[ed] to cover the creaks of the winches which let him down. Above the ceiling and above the whole theatre stands the hut which holds the machinery for all this, and, at the side of the hut, a man with a trumpet is ready to blow the First Sounding. This warns us that the players are ready. At the Third Sounding the play will begin.