Helpful TAKS Sites
"StateTest-taking" Strategies, Resources and Links
Research Associates Aaron Kercheval and Sharon Newbill (2002) reported the key effective test preparation strategies included:
According to Douglas Reeves (2004), "Even if the state test is dominated by lower-level thinking skills and questions are posed in a multiple-choice format, the best preparation for such tests is not mindless testing drills, but extensive student writing, accompanied by thinking, analysis, and reasoning" (p. 92). Emphasis on literacy was another key effective practice in Ohio's improved school districts (Kercheval & Newbill, 2002). In other words, good instruction is the best test preparation!
Advice to Students
Benchmark Tests
School-wide Strategies
Writing a Great Composition
First, use the overhead projector to show your students an example of typical (i.e. boring) writing. You can either use writing samples from previous years of teaching or use writing samples showing a 0, 1, 2, and 3 from released tests from the previous year... I would not recommend using samples from your current students.
After we read a 0, 1 and 2 together, ask them to tell you what they noticed about these pieces of writing. Amazingly, they will be able to identify boring and uninteresting writing. Then, ask them to raise their hands if they think some of their compositions tended to be like the examples shown.
Then, show them an example of a 3 paper, emphasizing that this student was the same age as them, and that they could write like this, too. Have them identify the strong points of the composition such as vivid verbs (word choice), imagery, parallelism, and the point of view.
Tell them that the point of writing is to make your reader see the same exact picture that you had in your head when you wrote the words. So, if you just mention a "dog," how are they going to know the color, size, and personality of the dog you envisioned if you don't tell them specifically?
Use this anticipatory set to build your students' confidence and convince them that they too can, and will, write like this soon.
This next step seems so simple and works so effectively. First, choose a topic for this lesson's creative writing assignment. Use anything that is familiar and interesting to the students...
Ask the students to close their eyes and visualize standing in a particular landscape. Ask them to look around and notice what's above them, at their feet, behind them, on all sides. What's moving? What is in the background? What colors do they see? What small things and large things do they see? What do they hear, smell, feel, taste? What mood are they in? The more details you solicit, the better this visualization will work.
After the details of the visualization are solidified in their minds, ask them to open their eyes and describe what they saw.
Write their responses on a blank overhead or on the board. Coach the students to add "magic words" to their descriptions. Eliminate boring words such as "good," "bad," and "went." Help them mold their sentences into active, energetic works of art. After the first sentence or two, the students should start doing this more on their own.
Each time, before they write, we visualize the scene of the story which helps them add details to their sentences. They strive to increase their vocabulary so that they can use more and more magical words in their work.
We've banned certain words (good, bad, said, went) and brainstormed magic words to replace these boring old standbys. The new words hang around the room for the kids to pull from as they write.
Have a place in the room where they can share "sparkling words or sentences" from the books or poems they read in class. Have the students use some of the “sparkling words, phrases or sentences” in their compositions.
Writers get people interested in reading what he or she has written by creation an interesting opening.
Descriptive Writing: Painting Words With a Stroke of the Pen
Descriptive writing includes many vivid sensory details that paint a picture and appeals to all of the reader's senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste when appropriate. Descriptive writing may also paint pictures of the feelings the person, place or thing invokes in the writer.
Descriptive writing often makes use of figurative language such as analogies, similes and metaphors to help paint the picture in the reader's mind.
Descriptive writing uses precise language. Use specific adjectives and nouns and strong action verbs to give life to the picture you are painting in the reader's mind.
Descriptive writing is organized. Some ways to organize descriptive writing include: chronological (time), spatial (location), and order of importance. When describing a person, you might begin with a physical description, followed by how that person thinks, feels and acts.
"When you're writing a story, you're painting a picture in your mind and it's just the techniques that are different. Doing a painting is almost like doing a really short story – one really clear image."
-John Bramblitt, blind artist
"The Pen" by Muhammad al-Ghuzzi, from the anthology This Same Sky, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye (Aladdin, 1996). He wrote, "Take a pen in your uncertain fingers...the whole world is a sky-blue butterfly..." Reading the poem helps students to make some personal connections.
Some prompts that teachers may use when they want a descriptive piece of writing are:
Long Essay Writing Assignment for TAKS
Choose one of the prompts below:
o Write an essay explaining how stories can help people.
o Write an essay about the best way to express yourself.
o Write an essay about the importance of dreaming.
o Write an essay about the importance of being yourself in a group.
o Write an essay about the importance of being generous.
o Write an essay about the power of a child’s imagination.
o Write an essay about a time someone was heroic.
o Write an essay about your own personal hero.
o Write an essay about how a single event can change the way you feel about someone.
o Write an essay about a time you helped another person.
o Write an essay about a time you felt like part of a community.
o Write an essay about why it is important to be aware of the world around you.
o Write an essay about how respect can bring people together.
o Write an essay about what community means to you.
o Write an essay about the importance of following your dreams.
o Write an essay about what makes a person interesting.
Use the following list to make your writing more exciting to the reader:
o Write at least one and a half pages—two is better.
o Focus on one example only.
o Elaborate on that sample.
o Use all your senses to describe that event.
o Start you essay by using a question, a dialogue, a quotation, a sound or a poem.
o Use metaphors, similes, foreshadowing or flashbacks.
o Use active, exciting verbs.
o Use adjectives to describe.
Grammar Links on the World Wide Web for 7th Graders
Pronoun Usage | Linking v. Action Verbs | Adverb Usage | Use of Modifiers |
Tense Usage | Adjective Usage | Sentence Combining | Sentence Connectors & Transitions |
Subordinate Conjunctions *Subordinate Conjunctions Rules, Lists | Ambiguous Pronoun References *Ambiguous Pronoun References Interactive Rules | Nominative v. Objective Pronouns *Nominative v. Objective Pronouns Quiz 1 *Nominative v. Objective Pronouns Quiz 2 | Coordinating v. Correlative Conjunctions *Coordinating v. Correlative Conjunctions Info + quiz |
Grammar Links on the World Wide Web for 8th Graders
Possessive Nouns | Apostrophes | Quotation Marks | Punctuating Dialogue |
Plural Nouns | Lie v. Lay | Indefinite Pronouns | Singular/plural Pronouns |
Pronoun-antecedent Agreement *Pronoun-antecedent Agreement Quiz 1 *Pronoun-antecedent Agreement Quiz 2 *Pronoun-antecedent Agreement Quiz 3 | Prepositional Phrases | Parallelism | Sit v. Set (+ others!) *Quiz 1 (see above) |
Grammar Resources on the World Wide Web for 9th Graders
Pronoun Shifts | Direct Objects | Indirect Objects |
Subject Verb Agreement *Subject Verb Agreement Practice Exercise 1 *Subject Verb Agreement Practice Exercise 2 *Subject Verb Agreement Practice Exercise 3 | Active Voice *Active Voice Tense Usage Quiz | Passive Voice |
Comma Splices and Fused Sentences | Predicate Adjective *Predicate Adjective Interactive Definitions | Predicate Nominative |
Inverted Word Order | Voice Shifts | General Comma Usage |
Grammar Exercises for 10th Graders on the World Wide Web
Participles and Participle Phrases | Irregular Verbs | Semi | |
Who v. Whom | Relative Pronouns | Adjective Clauses | Notorious Confusables |
Noun Clauses | Subordinating Conjunctions | Adverb Clauses | Faulty Comparison |
Grammar Links on the Web for 11-12th Graders
Comma Splices | Dangling Modifiers *Placement Q1 (see grade 7) *Placement Q2 (see grade 7) |
Hyphens & Dashes | Infinitives |
Gerunds | SAT Grammar Skills |
HSPA Editing & Revising Skills | Sentence Combining Exercises |
