We rocked PARCC!

We had a busy morning. Students are excited to be PARCC busters in our music video coming to you SOON! We also had a science lesson on the rock cycle. Students are in the middle of a hands on activity where they are the rock going through the cycle. Science vocabulary words discussed were weathering, lithification (cementing), and melting. Rocks go through all sorts of things before becoming another type of rock. 

Then we had a HUGE discussion about the PARCC assessment. Students will have 90 minutes for three sessions of ELA. Ryan reminded us not to think about the time and do your best. Cecilia shared it is always better to work your hardest than rushing through to get to the last story. Teddy said you usually do finish if you take your time. Anisha said it was important not to rush to get to the last story because then you could make more mistakes with the earlier stories. Then I shared the major differences between the PARCC and MCAS. Claudia said some questions have multiple answers. Devin told us that instead of questions being numbered 1 . . . 2. . . 3 there is 1 with a part A and a part B. Jeevan explained that the open responses have much lengthier boxes to write in. Jacob said the people who created the test sometimes trick you and if you do not go back and reread the paragraph you could get it wrong. Lexie added in MCAS you have as much time as you need and PARCC you do not. 

We then read two stories and went through the questions whole class. Oliver told us the questions ask for two answers for one question and there might be more answer choices than on the MCAS. Ava said these questions asked you to prove your answers with supporting details. This is why I stressed to students in their reading work to always provide evidence from the story. Tomorrow we will be practicing the open response. Ben let us know that the open responses are on both stories we read versus the MCAS which focuses on one story. 

Though we did not have the most exciting lesson we learned a lot about what the assessment looks like. Students were appreciative to see this. We will continue working on this throughout the week. If you would like to see what the assessment looks like visit: 

http://www.parcconline.org/