One of the 8th grade "Reading Choice Tasks" was publicly released, so I do not feel I am divulging any secrets here. In a "Reading Choice Task," at least at the 8th grade level, students are presented with four short stories, and a little blurb about each one. Students are asked to choose one of the stories to read, (perhaps they could be poems or short plays?) and then they have to answer 5-7 questions about the selection they read.
In my opinion, to prepare students for the reading choice task, you need to do these things:
1) Make sure kids have had plenty of experience with reading entire selections on their own. If kids have been read aloud to all along, or they have read two or three paragraphs, then stopped for discussion or to answer "guided reading questions," then they need to have the experience of reading an entire selection such as a short story on their own, and then answering stance questions about what they have read.
2) Make sure kids have experience with how to make a good selection. Kids are given about 5 minutes to decide which story they are going to read, and frankly, all of them will be about the same length, with the same type of difficulty. They need to be taught to look at the blurbs, decide on one, and go with it. They will not have enough time to change their minds and start a new one if they don't like the first one after they finish reading it.
3) Study the proficiency levels for reading for your grade, so you know the types of skills the students have been assessed for in the past. Then make sure that students are being taught these skills. Students will not be able to answer questions about "character development" or "point of view" if they have not had any experiences like that before.
4) Study the types of stance questions that might be asked about reading selections, and give kids experiences with more than just the global stance.
5) Model, model, model. Do a story together. Do questions and answers together. Then give kids independent practice. Give lots of feedback.
6) Develop your own practice "reading choice task" using appropriate short selections for your grade level. Score their responses and give feedback!
7) Make sure kids are using evidence from the text to support their answers. Teach them comma-quote if you have not already.
8) Give kids timed reading assignments, where they have to read an entire selection and answer stance questions about the selection in a given amount of time, such as 35 minutes.
9) Study the suggestions for reading from MSDE.