Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Preparing Students for the PARCC and for College Writing with Synthetic and

Analytic Writing Prompts

Michael Goeller & Lynda Dexheimer

Writing Program, Rutgers University

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Rutgers Writing Program Core Principles

• Read complex non-fiction essays about ideas.

• Focus on teaching strategies rather than skills.

• Design problem-posing assignments that put texts into conversation.

• Implement an active learning pedagogy.

• Teach revision as a creative and collaborative process.

• Address grammar as controlling error in the context of writing.

• Use grading and commenting to encourage revision and student growth.

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Good Academic Questions…

How might the excerpt from Vincent Parrillo’s “Causes of Prejudice” help us to understand or interpret the prejudice on display in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird? Can “self-justification” help to explain some actions and statements in the text? Which comes first, discriminatory acts or self-justification?

•Are open-ended, usually beginning “how” or “why” •Require students to make an independent claim•Direct them to terms from the reading to frame analysis•Require textual evidence for support•And give them multiple texts to synthesize

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PARCC Expectations Include…

• Texts Worth Reading“The assessments will use authentic texts worthy of study and that are motivating and engaging to read, instead of artificially produced or commissioned passages.”

• Questions Worth Answering“Including sequences of questions that draw students into deeper encounters with texts (as in an excellent classroom), rather than sets of random questions of varying quality.”

• Items that Allow for Expression of Divergent Thinking

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Sample 11th Grade PARCC Writing Question

Question: Both John and Abigail Adams believed strongly in freedom and independence. However, their letters suggest that each of them understood these terms differently based on their experiences. Write an essay that explains their contrasting views on the concepts of freedom and independence. In your essay, make a claim about the idea of freedom and independence and how John and Abigail Adams add to that understanding and/or how each illustrates a misunderstanding of freedom and independence. Support your response with textual evidence and inferences drawn from all three sources.

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The PARCC Requires an Academic Response

• Though it does not ask “how” or “why,” or even ask a question, the prompt does direct students to “make a claim about the idea of freedom and independence” in relation to the readings.

• The prompt directs students to examine competing notions of the terms “freedom” and “independence” to make an argument and at least choose a side in the debate.

• The prompt explicitly directs students to use “textual evidence and inferences drawn from all three sources” – thus providing a synthesis of multiple texts.

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Why Is Synthesis So Valuable?

• Connecting and synthesizing are how we develop new ideas, which are the basis of independent claims.

• Students need to practice learning new, unfamiliar ideas through independent reading, but they also have to apply those ideas to understand them well.

• Non-fiction texts about ideas offer students academic frames for analysis.

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Close Reading Strategies

• Pick juicy passages

• Jump right in, don’t give background

• Reread, and reread, and reread again!

• Have students read with a pencil

• Have them annotate the text

• Look for key terms

• Attend closely to grammar

• Look for repetitions and contradictions

• Actively interpret the text

• Ask “How” and “Why” questions of the text

• Connect to other information or passages

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From The Family, Sex and Marriage in England

The incompatibility of domestic patriarchy with the political theory of contractual obligation became so glaring that the moral theologians were forced to modify their position. In 1705 Bishop Fleetwood set out the new doctrine, which in effect undermined the traditional absolute authority of the father and husband. ‘There is no relation in the world, either natural or civil and agreed upon, but there is a reciprocal duty obliging each party.” I only mention this to make it very evident that the obligation of children to love, honor, respect and obey their parents is founded originally upon contract, with mutual rights and obligations, whose nature could be debated endlessly.

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From Romeo & Juliet

CAPULET Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,

Alone, in company, still my care hath been

To have her match'd: and having now provided

A gentleman of noble parentage,

Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,

Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,

Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;

And then to have a wretched puling fool,

A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,

To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,

I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'

But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:

Graze where you will you shall not house with me…

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From Magic’s “Rude”

Knocked on your door with heart in my hand

To ask you a question

'Cause I know that you're an old fashioned man yeah yeah

'Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life? Say yes, say yes 'Cause I need to know

You say I'll never get your blessing till the day I die

Tough luck my friend but the answer is no!

Why you gotta be so rude?

Don't you know I'm human too

Why you gotta be so rude

I'm gonna marry her anyway

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A Synthesis Question for Shakespeare

Question for Writing

Though the background conflict in Romeo and Juliet is between the Montagues and the Capulets, readers of Lawrence Stone will recognize a more central conflict between children and parents, especially when it comes to the control of marriage and choice of spouse. How might such conflicts arise from differing perspectives, between what Stone describes as the “patriarchalism” of the older generation and the increasing “affective individualism” of the younger generation? And what should we make of the continued existence of patriarchal tendencies, as seen in Magic’s popular song “Rude”?

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Brian Mooney, High Tech High SchoolNorth Bergen, NJWhen Kendrick Lamar released his sophomore album, To Pimp A Butterfly (2015), I was in the middle of teaching a unit on Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye (1970). My freshmen students were grappling with some big ideas and some really complex language. Framing the unit as an “Anti-Oppression” study, we took special efforts to define and explore the kinds of institutional and internalized racism that manifest in the lives of Morrison’s African-American characters, particularly the 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove and her mother, Pauline. We posed questions about oppression and the media – and after looking at the Dick & Jane primers that serve as precursors to each chapter, considered the influence of a “master narrative” that always privileges  whiteness.

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The National Context, 2014-2015

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Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly

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Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

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Assignment for Writing

What kinds of oppression do black people experience when the collective voice of society tells them they must adhere to white standards of beauty? How is the influence of the “Black Is Beautiful” cultural movement of the 1960s visible in both Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye (1970) and Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)? Consider how both authors comment on how oppression manifests itself as internalized racism.

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Responses

•https://bemoons.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/part-2-high-school-students-write-essays-on-kendrick-lamars-album-to-pimp-a-butterfly/

•“The best writing my students have ever produced.”