California Fourth Grade Writing Test...
In the state of California, writing tests are administered to all fourth and seventh grade students. Our school’s test will take place on Tuesday, March 6th. There are four strands from which our single writing prompt may be chosen: narrative (fictional story), response to literature, summary, and information report. These are based on Grade Four Writing Applications (see page 32) and are chosen each year by the State of California. Regardless of the prompt, students will need to pay attention to the following items: grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. You can see the full scoring rubric here.
If the prompt given is a narrative, scorers are looking for a beginning, middle, and end to the story as well as many details used to describe the experience. Students are encouraged to begin brainstorming details by thinking of their five senses (smelling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and feeling). A sample narrative prompt: “Imagine that you are asked to keep an elephant for a week. Write a story about your unusual experiences with your elephant (2002).”
If the prompt is a response to literature, students will be scored based on how well they show their understanding of the story and their use of examples from the story to prove this understanding. Students may go back to the story at any point in order to clarify, find examples, etc. They are encouraged to take notes to the side of the story in order to briefly summarize each paragraph or section as well as identify key phrases. A sample response to literature prompt: “In the story, two good friends are annoyed with each other’s bad habit. What would be a good title for this story, and why? Use examples from the story to support your answer (2008).”
If a summary prompt is presented, students’ writing will be assessed for how well they state the main ideas of the article, identify the most important details that support the main ideas, and the use of a student’s own words in writing the summary. This refers to paraphrasing, a positive quality. Summaries are typically 1/3 the original size of the text. Summary prompt: “Write a summary of the article.”
Information reports are usually not a part of this standardized test, as they would require a great deal of time to construct. Also, in order to be fair and consistent, the content used to create each report must be extensive and uniform for all students across the state.
Notice! Spring Picture Day will take place on Monday, February 27th. If you would like photos, please be sure that you send money with your child. Only prepaid orders will be taken! There will be no make-ups or re-takes.
Meet Stanley Yelnats, the main character in our newest homeroom novel, Holes. Stanley has been sent to a juvenile detention facility called Camp Green Lake. As the synopsis from Scholastic.com informs readers, … “Not only is the place not a camp, but it’s not green and there’s no lake: it’s in the middle of the Texas desert! Stanley’s suspicious when the warden tells him the punishment task of digging holes in the sand all day is for ‘building character.’ What’s the warden hiding? Stanley is determined to dig up the truth. Cleverly crafted with three stories that intersect time, this award-winning tale of friendship and trust is not to be missed.”
Congratulations to our classroom spelling champions Giovanni and Dallas as well as our alternate Travis! Good luck! Parents, if you’d like to attend this year’s bee, please meet us in the cafeteria on Wednesday, February 22nd at 9:00 AM!
Two-digit multiplication and long division are our most hard-hitting math topics in Trimester Two. We are required to know all of our multiplication and division facts, steps, and word problem clue words. In order to help facilitate practice at home, please use the following links. They provide notes to print out, activities to follow step-by-step, and clue words to help indicate whether a problem is division or multiplication. We have two weeks until our benchmark exams.
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful break and are excited to come back to school! I know I am! While you were gone, we had two DonorsChoose proposals funded! We’re going to receive a set of student dictionaries for students to keep, as well as a large supply of glue sticks to keep us going until the end of the year! Yay! See you soon and be sure to have your two AR chapter books ready to quiz!!!
Welcome to Winter Break! I hope everyone has a joyous holiday! As your children are aware, we do have a few items of homework over the next two weeks. All are simple, but essential!
Our current Accelerated Reading goal is 22.5 points. Our Accelerated Math goal is 36 objectives. 15.8 AR points and 26 AM objectives are required for a passing grade. If your child is behind, time will be given during recess and/or lunch to attain this week's goal. 
