Currents in Literacy

The MCAS Tests in English Language Arts: How to Prepare for Them; How to Survive Them

By Elaine Bukowiecki

During the spring of 1998, the state of Massachusetts instituted a new standardized test to measure students' academic achievement in the fourth, eighth, and tenth grades. The Masachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) is intended to evaluate progress in the implementation of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. Teachers and students have been anxious about this new and untried test, but also knew they had to prepare for it quickly.

This past winter, as part of my work for the Hood Literacy Project, I was asked by the fourth-grade teachers and the principal of the Hardy School in Arlington, Massachusetts to help prepare the fourth-grade students for the language arts section of the MCAS test. Since I had been working in both of these classrooms as part of my faculty work for the Hood Project, I looked forward to assisting these fourth graders with the MCAS test. In order to guide this test preparation, I turned to the Massachusetts guidelines and practice book for MCAS.

I worked in each of these fourth-grade classrooms one day a week for approximately two months. I chose to do "Think Alouds" to model for the students how to read the sample MCAS passages and to answer the sample questions. "The think aloud process makes thinking public and gives students a model for the kind of thinking that a reader may do while reading text[s]" (Davey, 1983 as cited in Roe, Stoodt, & Burns, 1998, p. 138). After using the Think Aloud process to model reading and response to questions from the MCAS practice booklet, I created practice examples of my own which followed the MCAS pattern: the reading of an expository passage and a narrative or poetry selection regarding the same topic followed by the answering of questions (multiple choice, short essay answer, and a longer essay response). I also guided these fourth graders in the writing section of the test.

Although these weekly MCAS practice sessions gave these fourth-grade students some confidence as they were administered the MCAS test in May, I knew the fourth-grade teachers and other teachers involved in the testing needed further help on how to guide and prepare their students for this state-mandated testing. When I was invited to present a workshop at the Summer Literacy Institute at Lesley University regarding the reading and language arts portions of the MCAS test, I decided to expand the initial Think Aloud practices I did with the Hardy School students. Janet Sullivan and Marilyn Sullivan, the two fourth-grade teachers whose classes I worked with last winter, also shared their experiences with the workshop participants.

The results of this planning lead to the creation of a series of instructional suggestions. These lessons could be incorporated into intermediate-grade and middle school language arts curricula. These activities specifically reflected certain Massachusetts Language Arts Curriculum Framework Standards. The following are the lesson suggestions taken directly from the handout I distributed at the Literacy Institute.

Activities Directly Connected to the Massachusetts Language Arts Frameworks:

Language and Literature Component

Standard 8: Students will decode accurately and understand new words encountered in their reading material.

Activities:

1. Decoding: Before students read a selection in a basal reader or a chapter in a trade book, the teacher will model for the students various strategies "good" readers do when they come to a word they do not know:

a. Use Context: Try to figure out the word from the other words around it.

b. Use Structural Analysis: Break the word into smaller parts such as root word, prefixes, suffixes, contractions, compound words.

c. Use Phonics: Break the words into individual letters and sounds.

2. Vocabulary Practice: Before, during, and/or after reading, focus on particular words which may cause difficulty. Some suggested vocabulary activities:

a. Actual Objects and Concrete Experiences.

b. Semantic Feature Analysis (Pittelman et al., 1991).

c. Concept maps (Lapp, Flood, & Farnan, 1996).

d. Semantic Maps (Heimlich & Pittelman, 1986).

e. Venn Diagrams: For Comparing Words and Concepts (Nagy, 1988).

Standard 9: Students will identify the basic facts and essential ideas in what they have read, heard, or viewed.

Activity: After reading a particular selection in a basal reader, a content area text or a chapter in a trade book, ask the students factual questions based upon the reading. These questions could be based on these words: "Who, What, When, Where, Why, How." The answers to these questions can be given in writing or orally. The teacher should guide the students to refer back directly to the text to find the answers to these questions.

Standard 10: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the characteristics of different genres.

Activity: The teacher will guide the students through the reading of various literary genres: fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, folktales, fairy tales, historical fiction, mysteries, poetry, etc. By wide reading, the teacher and students will discuss the specific attributes of each genre.

Standard 11: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of theme in literature and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

Activity: After reading a trade book, a basal reader selection, and/or a poem, the teacher and students will talk about the selection's theme. What do we mean by theme? What are some specific examples of the theme in this text? How does this theme connect to the students' own lives?

Standard 12: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

Activity: Before reading, the teacher and students will talk about the elements of a narrative story: setting, characters, plot, problem, resolution. After reading a trade book and/or a basal reader selection, the teacher and students will identify these story grammar elements found in the text. (Note: Not all story grammar elements may be easily identifiable.) If the students are reading a trade book, discussion should focus on character and plot development.

Standard 13: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure, elements, and meaning of nonfiction or informational and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

Activity: When the students are reading nonfiction (textbooks and informational trade books), the specific types of organizational patterns found in nonfiction should be identified: cause/effect, compare/contrast, chronological order, problem/solution, definition. The students and teacher should discuss the characteristics of each text type.

Standard 15: Students will identify and analyze how an author's choice of words appeals to the senses, creates images, suggests mood, and sets tone.

Activity: The teacher and students will practice the "creating a picture in your mind" technique after reading. Either orally, in writing, or through art, the students should record which type of images, mood, etc. the author created by his/her words. Poetry, trade book chapters, and basal reader selections can be used for this activity.

Standard 17: Students will interpret the meaning of literary works, nonfiction, films, and media by using different critical lens and analytic techniques.

Activity: The students can use various media for interpretation: questions, discussion techniques, art, music, drama, film.

Composition Component

Standard 19: Students will write compositions with a clear focus, logically related ideas, and adequate detail.

Activity: To help with the pre-writing stage and organization of ideas, the teacher may wish to introduce to students various types of graphic organizers.

Standard 20: Students will select and use appropriate genres, modes of reasoning, and speaking styles when writing for different audiences and rhetorical purposes.

Activity: The strong connection between reading and writing is well researched. After focusing on a particular genre in reading, the students should write in that same genre. During mini-lessons in the Writers Workshop, the teacher can address the importance of purpose in writing.

Standard 21: Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph development, level of detail, style, tone, and word choice in their compositions after revising them.

Activity: During the revision stage of the writing process, each of the various elements of this standard can be addressed. Also, in mini-lessons, the teacher and students can talk about the various elements of this standard. Finally, when reading, students and the teacher can look for the various components of this standard in the different texts they are reading.

The MCAS test is part of Massachusetts public school education, at least for the foreseeable future. Therefore, classroom teachers need to do everything possible to prepare their students for this test, without completely disrupting daily instruction and curriculum at the same time. The suggestions in this article are beginnings to this MCAS preparation. It is now up to classroom teachers to find optimal ways for bringing MCAS preparation and results into their daily instruction and curricula.

References

Heimlich, J. E., & Pittelman, S. D. (1986). Semantic Mapping: Classroom Applications. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Lapp, D., Flood, J., & Farnan, N. (1996). Content Area Reading and Learning. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Nagy, W. E. (1988). Teaching Vocabulary to Improve Reading Comprehension. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association.

Pittelman, S. D., Heimlich, J. E., Berglund, R. L., & French, M. P. (1991). Semantic Feature Analysis: Classroom Applications. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Roe, B. D., Stoodt, B. D., & Burns, P. C. (1998). The Content Areas (Sixth Edition). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Elaine Bukowiecki is an Assistant Professor at Lesley University and has taught classes on literacy there for eight years. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation.