Purpose: To better prepare our students for the CCSS and the GA Milestones Assessment, our writing diagnostics have a new type of writing prompt that focuses on a key instructional shift---writing grounded in evidence from the text. Because the GA Milestones will not include “stand alone” writing prompts, students will be expected to read one or two passages and then write a composition that includes evidence from the text(s) in the response. This kind of prompt demands more than writing skills alone. Now students must read texts carefully to determine what evidence is most relevant and then create an organized, well-written composition that incorporates that evidence. The diagnostic prompts introduce evidence-based writing to students by asking them to use text(s) to support their ideas about a given topic.
Testing Window:
August 5, 2015 - August 14, 2015 (On-Demand Writing-1 Class Period)
Input Scores into Infinite Campus by September 28, 2015.
(The grading session will be closed.)
Test Administration
Test administrators may read aloud the Writer’s Checklist, the Writing Directions, and the Writing Topic.
However, the reading passages on the writing test must not be read aloud or signed to students, except for those students with the accommodations.
Materials Needed
two pencils,
the writing prompt,
a page for taking notes (brainstorming/outlining),
two rough-draft pages, and
two final draft pages.
Scoring Procedures
- Use the APS Condensed Rubric to score each of the 6 Trait writing domains.
- Input the scores into Infinite Campus.
- After scoring the student papers, please provide the students with feedback and collect the essays.
