School Improvement in Maryland
What do the assessments test? English

Reading, Reviewing & Responding to Texts | Composing in a Variety of Modes | Controlling Language | Evaluating Content, Organization, & Language Use of Texts |

 
The High School Assessments student's knowledge of Core Learning Goals at the indicator level. Some indicators have assessment limits which indicate more specifically what will be assessed. Assessment items and other instructional resources at the indicator level can be viewed in the CLG Toolkit.

Goal 1 Reading, Reviewing and Responding to Texts

The student will demonstrate the ability to respond to a text by employing personal experiences and critical analysis.

Expectation

1.1 The student will use effective strategies before, during, and after reading, viewing, and listening to self-selected and assigned materials.

Indicators

1.1.1 The student will use pre-reading strategies appropriate to both the text and purpose for reading by surveying the text, accessing prior knowledge, formulating questions, setting purpose(s), and making predictions.

Assessment limits:
  • Recognizing the implications of text features
  • Linking appropriate experiences and prior knowledge about the topic, author, or type of material to the text
  • Identifying an appropriate purpose for reading the text
  • Identifying questions a reader would expect to be answered by reading the text
  • Identifying topics of discussion that may enhance a reader's understanding of a text

1.1.2 The student will use during-reading strategies appropriate to both the text and purpose for reading by visualizing, making connections, and using fix-up strategies such as re-reading, questioning, and summarizing.

Assessment limits:
  • Using visual aids
  • Making connections between ideas within the text
  • Making connections between ideas within the text and relevant prior knowledge
  • Identifying the organizational pattern of the text
  • Focusing on similarities or differences in organizational patterns, text/author's purpose, and relevant prior knowledge within or across texts
  • Identifying the meaning of above-grade-level words as they are used in context
  • Identifying the appropriate meaning of multiple-meaning words as they are used in context
  • Identifying the meaning of phrases as they are used in context
  • Predicting the development of ideas that might logically be included in the text

1.1.3 The student will use after-reading strategies appropriate to both the text and purpose for reading by summarizing, comparing, contrasting, synthesizing, drawing conclusions, and validating the purpose for reading.

Assessment limits:
  • Summarizing, comparing, contrasting, and synthesizing significant ideas in a text
  • Summarizing or synthesizing significant ideas across texts and drawing conclusions based on the information in more than one text
  • Drawing conclusions based upon information from the text
  • Confirming the usefulness or purpose for reading the text
  • Predicting the development, topics, or ideas that might logically be included if the text were extended

1.1.4 The student will apply reading strategies when comparing, making connections, and drawing conclusions about non-print text.

Assessment limits:
  • Recognizing the implications of non-print text such as photographs, posters, art reproductions, cartoons, and stills from film or stage productions
  • Identifying an appropriate purpose for viewing non-print text
  • Confirming the usefulness or purpose for viewing a non-print text
  • Evaluating non-print text as it relates to a print text
  • Focusing on similarities and/or differences in purpose and effect across texts
  • Summarizing, comparing, drawing conclusions about, and synthesizing significant ideas between print and non-print text

1.1.5 The student will identify specific structural elements of particular literary forms: poetry, short story, novel, drama, essay, biography, autobiography, journalistic writing, and film.

Expectation

1.2 The student will construct, examine, and extend meaning of traditional and contemporary works recognized as having significant literary merit.

Indicators

1.2.1 The student will consider the contributions of plot, character, setting, conflict, and point of view when constructing the meaning of a text.

Assessment limits:
  • Determining the significance of the following as each contributes to the meaning of a text
    • plot sequence of events (including foreshadowing and flashback), cause-and-effect relationships, and events that are exposition, climax or turning point, resolution (Students will not be asked to label events.)
    • characters' defining traits, motivations, and developments throughout the text
    • details that provide clues to the setting, the mood created by the setting, and the role the setting plays in the text
    • conflicts that motivate characters and those that serve to advance the plot
    • the perspective of the author or speaker as well as the effects of first or third person narration and multiple narrators within and across text(s)

1.2.2 The student will determine how the speaker, organization, sentence structure, word choice, tone, rhythm, and imagery reveal an author’s purpose.

Assessment limits:
  • Identifying and/or explaining the significance of the following as each contributes to the author's purpose
    • a particular speaker in a text
    • the arrangement of ideas in a particular way
    • the arrangement of words or phrases
    • words that convey author's purpose
    • syntax, words, and syllables that create rhythm to reveal the meaning of the text
    • implied meaning or particular image associated with a particular word or phrase

1.2.3 The student will explain the effectiveness of stylistic elements in a text that communicate an author's purpose.

Assessment limits:
  • Identifying and/or explaining the effect and/or effectiveness of the following as each contributes to the author's purpose
    • repetition
    • exaggeration
    • parallelism
    • allusion
    • analogy
    • figurative language
    • transitions
    • choice of details
    • syntax
    • organizational patterns
    • structural features

1.2.4 The student will identify and/or explain connections between and among themes and/or styles of two or more texts.

Assessment limits:
  • Analyzing the similarities or differences in styles (e.g., formal, informal, conversational, scholarly, journalistic, poetic) of two or more texts
  • Analyzing the similarities or differences in themes of two or more texts
  • Analyzing the ways in which different texts illustrate a similar theme

1.2.5 The student will extend or further develop meaning by explaining the implications of the text for the reader or contemporary society.

Assessment limits:
  • Identifying and/or explaining ideas and issues of a text or across texts that may have implications for readers or contemporary society
  • Extending ideas found in a text or across texts by connecting them to ideas that have personal or societal relevance

1.2.6 The student will extend or further develop meaning by comparing texts presented in different media.

Expectation

1.3 The student will explain and give evidence to support perceptions about print and non-print works.

Indicators

1.3.1 The student will explain how language and textual devices create meaning.

1.3.2 The student will interpret a work by using a critical approach (e.g., reader response, historical, cultural, biographical, structural) that is supported with textual references.

1.3.3 The student will identify features of language that create tone and voice.

Assessment limits:
  • Analyzing the effects of certain words and phrases on the tone or voice of a text or across texts
  • Identifying similarities or differences in the overall tone created by language choices throughout a text or across texts

1.3.4 The student will explain how devices such as staging, lighting, blocking, special effects, graphics, language, and other techniques unique to a non-print medium are used to create meaning and evoke response.

1.3.5 The student will explain how common and universal experiences serve as the source of literary themes that cross time and cultures.

Assessment limits:
  • Identifying the experiences, emotions, issues and ideas in a text or across texts that give rise to universal literary themes
  • Considering the influence, effect, or impact of historical, cultural, or biographical information on a text (will not be dependent on student's prior knowledge)

1.3.6 The student will assess the literary merit of a text.

Date: 8/2004