During testing, the LU Icon will often appear
by itself next to several lines where a written
answer is expected. For example, after students
have read about the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving,
they may have to write a response to this question:
1) Tell how the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving dinner is different
from the way people today celebrate Thanksgiving. Use an example
from the reading to support your answer.
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The above question is a sample of one that might be contained in a task that integrates social studies, reading, and writing. The presence of the icon and the language contained in the question cue us that this question will be scored for three things: once for a social studies concept, once for language usage, and once for reading. This means that this one written answer will be scored by three different readers, and each reader is trained to score for that discipline. This is known as sequential scoring.
How do we know this? First of all, the task has a social studies focus. The question deals with a social studies concept and probably addresses Social Studies Outcome 1, Indicator 1.2, Grade 3. Therefore, it will be scored for the student's understanding of our own Thanksgiving versus the first Thanksgiving. See attached social studies rubric.
Second, it will be scored for language usage because of the presence of the icon. The icon is applied after the task is field tested. It indicates that in field testing, students generally responded to this question with enough writing that a language usage score could be applied to this answer. Those scorers will use the Language in Use Rule (LU Rule) to score this answer. Since this is a different, separate score, it is imperative to clue kids in that even if they do not know the answer, or only know part of the answer, they should write their answers using their best spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation, and sentence structure, since it will be scored separately for that. A lousy content/concept answer can still get a high LU score.
Third, the last sentence tells us that this question will also be scored for reading. The cue for this is that students must use examples from their reading (often stated as evidence from the text) to support their answer. The reading scoring tools tell us that if students do not use any evidence from the text, they will not score even a 1, which is a satifsfactory score. Here, the students must be taught that if that cue appears, they need to use the comma-quote strategy such as In the second paragraph, it says that... Or, they write And the author said, "... If kids cannot handle comma/quote, they need to be taught sentence starters to prove that they are pulling evidence from the story to support their answer. Unless this is done, the scorers have no way of knowing if the student was drawing upon background knowledge from a filmstrip he saw, or whether he actually read the story preceding the question.
What implications do these cues have for us? First of all, we need to start writing questions for kids that contain the cues. Whenever they need to respond with several sentences in a written answer, the LU icon should be pasted next to the response. Then, the response is scored for understanding and for language usage.
Second, kids need to practice using evidence from the text to support an answer. Post thecomma-quote strategy in the classroom, and teach them how to do it. Insist that they go back to the text, find the evidence, and copy it into their answers. Xerox sections of the text, and teach the kids to use highlighters to find evidence, highlight it, and plug it into their answers.
All of the above strategies are just good teaching. They can be applied to all classroom situations. They can be done completely outside of any tasks. Make them a part of your daily routines. Click here for the Limited Writing Process Icon.