Keys to preparing students for the new Texas standardized S.T.A.A.R. Test

Well Chosen Ideas

The first key to getting a four on the new S.T.A.A.R. Test is development.....the D in D.O.C.  (Development, Organization, and Conventions)  

 The scoring guide is written and designed for teachers, because of its difficulty level.  Think about these points as you train your students this coming year in writing.  The ideas they choose must be very well chosen.  Since the graders have to score anywhere from 100 to 200 papers per day per person, it is crucial the students put some thought into their main points and ideas.   

Let me prove my point by sharing an experience I had once as a consultant.  I was asked to analytically score a hundred compositions for a campus and the prompt was, Write about a time you were proud.  Over 75 students chose to respond with the same idea!  They had just taken the benchmark in Reading and Math on the two previous days.  The majority of them wrote about being proud because they passed their benchmark tests!  If that is happening that often in ONE school, imagine what is happening at the state level with over 300,000 students!   

Allow me the opportunity to work with your campus/district in providing high quality research based staff development on writing original well thought compositions! Contact "The Write Prescription" for more information about in-school trainings.
Look at our products at www.thewriteprescription.com or on TpT under The Write Prescription/Bill MacDonald!

Teacher Training for the new Texas S.T.A.A.R. Test

There are three keys to getting a four on the new S.T.A.A.R. test.  One way to remember them is the acronym D.O.C. (Development, Organization, and Conventions).
Bugs Bunny used to exclaim all the time, "What's up, Doc!"  Imagine you the teacher being a doctor for your patients, the students.  Each week you write a set of prescriptions, better known as lesson plans, to help your students improve their writing skills.

Be sure to call us contact us and ask for information on how to teach students the process of writing to perform well on the S.T.A.A.R. test.  You may also find out more information about our on-campus writing staff development seminars.  We can work with teachers or with students while the teachers observe.

Look at our products at www.thewriteprescription.com or on TpT under The Write Prescription/Bill MacDonald!

 

LET'S ROLL Sentence Structure Learning Game

Let's Roll is a Sentence Structure Learning Game for your students to play in the classroom.

In this fun activity, the students will have the challenge of coming up with sentences that match the total of the die that are thrown.  For example, if a six is thrown, the student would need to come up with a six word sentence using a pre-determined topic.  If the topic was fear, then this might be the sentence: I flew out of that room!
The more difficult the sentences are those that need to be just one or two words.  They can be fragments in this case.  This game can also be played by having students pull out colored plastic numbers, usually magnetic, that can be bought for under a dollar.

Teaching Volume Classroom Poster

Teaching Volume Classroom Poster, a photo by The Writing Doctor on Flickr.

Just one example of The Writing Doctor's new mathematics posters for elementary classroom.
The entire set is now available in "The Write Prescription" online.  
See this poster and all our other products at www.thewriteprescription.com or
on www.teacherspayteachers.com  under The Write Prescription/Bill MacDonald

Teaching students to be concise writers.

Let’s Eat!
Everyone loves to eat, talk about eating, and even to buy food! Here is a fun variation of my "less is more" activity.  We all have to go shopping, so ask the students to save a copy of a receipt from a store with at least ten items on it. Usually, within a week, everyone will have a receipt to work with.For the lesson, ask each student to pick two or three items and go into great detail when explaining what it is. The shopping list is the specific, to-the-point example and the student’s version would again be the non-example.
This activity reminds me of a commercial I saw several times about a man and his wife ordering dinner in a restaurant from a waiter. The man communicates his entire order to the waiter in about three seconds, but when the attention shifts to the woman, we realize that this is going to take awhile! From the very first question, “How would you like your meat?” she responds with, “Well, when you say medium, what do you really mean? Sometimes I ask for medium rare and the cow's practically still mooing, and in other restaurants the meat is burnt to a crisp when I ask for medium!” She then proceeds in the same manner with her responses to every other thing that she orders. So we have the non-example!
This activity can also easily be done with a Christmas wish list written by the students. Just have them write both versions so they can get used to telling the difference between fully explaining something and just writing a brief explanation and moving on.

Teaching students to ELABORATE their ideas in creative writing.

Elabor8!

One way to work on developing ideas at the beginning of the year is for the students to actually count sentences as they develop an idea. This can work with specific writing concepts such as developing a setting or the feelings and emotions that a character is going through. Many teachers cringe upon seeing the word elaborate and would rather refer to it as developing an idea, but if you'll indulge me, this term is used simply for the "8" in the title. Whether working in groups or on their own, the students are given a topic to write on and cannot stop or switch to another topic until they have completed eight sentences that flow well and relate directly to the topic. Let me show you an example with the emotion nervous.

I was so scared I thought I might pee my pants! My legs trembled as I stood like a statue, not knowing what to do. Sweat began to drip from my forehead and back, and my arms were starting to shake from the anticipation of what might be waiting for me on the other side of the door. My legs were heavy lead weights as I forced them forward one baby step at a time. "Oh God, please help me!” I whispered quietly, over and over. My heart was now beginning to race, and I felt that at any moment it was going to explode. Turning the handle slowly, I pulled the door open and as I nervously peeked into the strange room, my eyes bulged out of their sockets at what I saw.

Developing ideas in this way not only creates a more complete story, but engages the reader more fully because he is actually able to see the writer behind the writing. Compare this to a writer who merely states, "I was really scared!" BIG DIFFERENCE! The trick here again is knowing when it is important to "elabor8", and when it might be more appropriate to say it in a word and move on to the next idea.
  Look at our products at www.thewriteprescription.com or on TpT under The Write Prescription/Bill MacDonald!

Fun Interactive Story Development Student Exercise!

Stuck on You!  A story development game for your students.

This activity is a very strong hands-on visual that allows the students to see and hear whether their ideas are developed or not. You will need to purchase a set of paddle sticks with the suction cups on one side and the rubber ball that comes with it. Give the paddles to two students to hold, standing about ten feet apart. Have another student read an essay, and as long as the author is talking about the same idea, keep the ball stuck to one paddle. As soon as he switches to a new idea, have the student holding the ball pass it to the person with the other paddle. The ball will again stay there until the author switches to another idea. When a student writer needs more practice with development, you will notice that the balls will be moving back and forth very quickly. As they are taught to develop more fully, they will only have a few passes back and forth for the entire paper. Yes, the students will have a blast, but they will really learn how to develop each idea more completely before jumping to the next one.