Tips for Using the English Benchmark Assessmentsimages.pcmac.org/SiSFiles/Schools/AL/DaleCounty/GeorgeW...you done before. Tell you what? About the rabbits. George snapped, You ain

©2008 by ACT, Inc. Permission granted to reproduce this page for QualityCore® educational purposes only.

Tips for Using the QualityCore® English Benchmark Assessments Each QualityCore® course has its own set of Benchmark Assessments based on the QualityCore Formative Item Pool. There are four to five multiple-choice assessments, consisting of 15 to 25 items (and associated passages) organized by genre. There is also a separate 45-minute constructed-response assessment, consisting of a single prompt, similar to what students might take as part of a QualityCore End-of-Course Assessment. The assessments are presented as a PDF file to maintain the visual consistency of graphics, special characters, and symbols. Each assessment is “bookmarked” for easy navigation through the PDF file. Each Benchmark Assessment is introduced by a cover page that lists the item Identification Number (ID), the correct answer (Key), the cognitive level, and the alphanumeric code for the ACT Course Standard measured by that item. (See the applicable ACT Course Standards document.) The scoring criteria and a scoring rubric (when applicable) follow the constructed-response prompt.

QualityCore® Benchmark Assessment English 9 – Benchmark 1 – Fiction

The following pages contain one of the Benchmark Assessments for this course. The table below gives the ID number for each item, the correct answer (Key), the cognitivelevel, and the alphanumeric code for each ACT Course Standard measured by the item. (The language associated with each code appears in the ACT Course Standards document for this course.) The items in this PDF file appear in the order presented in the table. Multiple-choice (MC)directions follow the table and are followed by a name sheet and the MC items.

ID Key Cognitive

Level Standard 00133-00 00133-01 D L2 A.5.c

A.6.b A.6.c

00133-02 C L2 A.5.c A.5.h A.6.b

00133-03 D L2 A.5.e 00133-04 A L3 A.3.a

A.5.a B.2.a

00133-05 D L3 A.5.c A.6.c

00133-06 B L3 A.5.c A.6.c B.3.c

00111-00 00111-01 C L2 A.5.c

A.6.c 00111-02 A L2 A.5.c 00111-03 D L2 A.5.c

A.6.c 00111-04 A L2 A.5.c

A.5.e 00111-05 B L3 A.5.h

A.6.c 00111-06 D L3 A.5.a

A.5.e 00139-00 00139-01 B L2 A.8.d

© 2008 by ACT, Inc. Permission granted to reproduce this page for QualityCore® educational purposes only.

00139-02 D L2 A.5.h A.6.b

00139-03 B L3 B.3.b B.3.c

00139-04 B L2 A.5.c A.6.c

00139-05 D L2 A.5.f 00139-06 C L3 A.5.c

A.5.h


Directions: Each passage in this test is followed by several questions. After reading a passage, choose the best answer provided for each question and circle the corresponding letter. You may refer to the passages as often as necessary.


Name: Date: Teacher: Class/Period:

00133-00

Trespass

The day the Garcías were one American year old, they had a celebration at dinner. Mami had baked a nice flan and stuck a candle in the center. “Guess what day it is today?” She looked around the table at her daughters’ baffled faces. “One year ago today,” Papi began orating, “we came to the shores of this great country.” When he was done misquoting the poem on the Statue of Liberty, the youngest, Fifi, asked if she could blow out the candle, and Mami said only after everyone had made a wish.

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What do you wish for on the first celebration of the day you lost everything? Carla wondered. Everyone else around the table had their eyes closed as if they had no trouble deciding. Carla closed her eyes too. She should make an effort and not wish for what she always wished for in her homesickness. But just this last time, she would let herself. “Dear God,” she began. She could not get used to this American wish-making without bringing God into it. “Let us please go back home, please,” she half prayed and half wished. It seemed a less and less likely prospect. In fact, her parents were sinking roots here. Only a month ago, they had moved out of the city to a neighborhood on Long Island so that the girls could have a yard to play in, so Mami said. The little green squares around each look-alike house seemed more like carpeting that had to be kept clean than yards to play in.

Down the block the neighborhood dead-ended in abandoned farmland that Mami read in the local paper the developers were negotiating to buy. Grasses and real trees and real bushes still grew beyond the barbed-wire fence posted with a big sign: PRIVATE, NO TRESPASSING. The sign had surprised Carla since “forgive us our trespasses” was the only other context in which she had heard the word. She pointed the sign out to Mami on one of their first walks to the bus stop. “Isn’t that funny, Mami? A sign that you have to be good.” Her mother did not understand at first until Carla explained about the Lord’s Prayer. Mami laughed. Words sometimes meant two things in English too. This trespass meant that no one must go inside the property because it was not public like a park, but private. Carla nodded, disappointed. She would never get the hang of this new country.

Adapted from Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. © 1991 by Julia Alvarez.

©2008 by ACT, Inc. Permission granted to reproduce this page for QualityCore™ educational purposes only.

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00111-00

About the Rabbits

Lennie spoke craftily, “Tell me—like you done before.”

“Tell you what?”

“About the rabbits.”

George snapped, “You ain’t gonna put nothing over on me.”

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Lennie pleaded, “Come on, George. Tell me. Please George. Like you done before.”

“You get a kick outta that, don’t you? Awright, I’ll tell you, and then we’ll eat our supper . . . .”

George’s voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake1 and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they’re on some other ranch. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to.”

Lennie was delighted. “That’s it—that’s it. Now tell how it is with us.”

George went on. “With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that cares about us. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody cares. But not us.”

Lennie broke in. “But not us! An’ why? Because . . . because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.” He laughed delightedly. “Go on now, George!”

“You got it by heart. You can do it yourself.”

“No, you. I forget some a’ the things. Tell about how it’s gonna be.”

“O.K. Someday—we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and—”

“An’ live off the fatta the lan’,” Lennie shouted. “An’ have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.”

“Why’n’t you do it yourself? You know all of it.”

“No . . . you tell it. It ain’t the same if I tell it. Go on . . . George. How I get to tend the rabbits.”

“Well,” said George, “we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof—Nuts!” He took out his pocket knife. “I ain’t got time for no more.” He drove his knife through the top of one of the bean cans, sawed out the top and passed the can to Lennie. 1money used to purchase a piece of land Adapted from John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men. © 1965 by John Steinbeck.


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00139-00

Seventeen Syllables

The first Rosie knew that her mother had taken to writing poems was one evening when she finished one and read it aloud for her daughter’s approval. It was about cats, and Rosie pretended to understand it thoroughly and appreciate it no end, partly because she hesitated to disillusion her mother about the quantity and quality of Japanese she had learned in all the years now that she had been going to Japanese school every Saturday (and Wednesday, too, in the summer). Even so, her mother must have been skeptical about the depth of Rosie’s understanding, because she explained afterwards about the kind of poem she was trying to write.

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50 See, Rosie, she said, it was a haiku, a poem in which she must pack all her meaning into seventeen syllables only, which were divided into three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. In the one she had just read, she had tried to capture the charm of a kitten, as well as comment on the superstition that owning a cat of three colors meant good luck.

“Yes, yes, I understand. How utterly lovely,” Rosie said, and her mother, either satisfied or seeing through the deception and resigned, went back to composing.

The truth was that Rosie was lazy; English lay ready on the tongue but Japanese had to be searched for and examined, and even then put forth tentatively (probably to meet with laughter). It was so much easier to say yes, yes, even when one meant no, no. Besides, this was what was in her mind to say: I was looking through one of your magazines from Japan last night, Mother, and towards the back I found some haiku in English that delighted me. There was one that made me giggle off and on until I fell asleep—

It is morning, and lo! I lie awake, comme il faut,1sighing for some dough.

Now, how to reach her mother, how to communicate the melancholy song? Rosie knew formal Japanese by fits and starts, her mother had even less English, no French. It was much more possible to say yes, yes. 1properly, as is necessary Adapted from “Seventeen Syllables” by Hisaye Yamamoto. © 1988 by Hisaye Yamamoto DeSoto.


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QualityCore® Benchmark Assessment English 9 – Benchmark 2 – Nonfiction


ID Key Cognitive

Level Standard 00138-00 00138-01 D L2 A.5.e 00138-02 A L2 A.5.a

A.5.e 00138-03 B L2 A.5.b

A.5.c 00138-04 B L2 A.5.e 00138-05 A L3 A.6.c

B.3.c 00138-06 C L3 A.5.f

A.6.b B.3.a

00089-00 00089-01 B L2 A.8.d 00089-02 D L2 A.8.d 00089-03 C L2 A.5.e 00089-04 C L3 A.5.h

A.6.c 00089-05 A L2 A.5.h

A.6.c 00089-06 D L3 A.5.h

B.3.a 00090-00 00090-01 D L2 A.6.a

A.6.c 00090-02 C L3 B.3.d 00090-03 B L2 A.5.h

A.6.a 00090-04 A L3 A.6.c


00090-05 B L2 A.5.f A.6.b

00090-06 C L3 A.5.h B.3.a





00138-00

Fast Food Nation

Over the last three decades, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society. An industry that began with a handful of modest hot dog and hamburger stands in southern California has spread to every corner of the nation, selling a broad range of foods wherever paying customers may be found. Fast food is now served at restaurants and drive-throughs, at stadiums, airports, zoos, high schools, elementary schools, and universities, on cruise ships, trains, and airplanes, at gas stations, and even at hospital cafeterias. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music—combined.

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Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk in, get in line, study the backlit color photographs above the counter, place your order, hand over a few dollars, watch teenagers in uniforms pushing various buttons, and moments later take hold of a plastic tray full of food wrapped in colored paper and cardboard. The whole experience of buying fast food has become so routine, like brushing your teeth or stopping for a red light. It has become a social custom as American as a small, rectangular, hand-held, frozen, and reheated apple pie.

Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every day without giving it much thought, unaware of the subtle and not so subtle ramifications of their purchases. They rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them. They just grab their tray off the counter, find a table, take a seat, unwrap the paper, and dig in. The whole experience is transitory and soon forgotten. People should know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction. They should know what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns. As the old saying goes: You are what you eat.

Adapted from Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation. © 2002 by Eric Schlosser.


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00089-00

What I’ve Missed With My Camcorder

I am a card-carrying parent of this generation—a memory-card-carrying member, that is. My husband and I started early: as soon as we found out I was pregnant, we began poring over ratings of video cameras alongside cribs and changing tables. And while the furniture gathered dust in the nursery as we waited for the baby, the video camera was pressed into action.

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As our family has grown, we’ve continued documenting it. Whatever our children’s roles have been in holiday programs, recitals and sporting events, our roles have been as recorders of these experiences. We are part of the herd in the back of the auditorium, holding devices aloft, alternately beaming smiles from the side of the camera and glancing into the viewfinder to keep our kids in frame. Some of our tapes are labeled—FIRST STEPS, EATING PEAS, DANCING AT GRANDPA’S HOUSE, DEER IN YOSEMITE—but recent tapes are simply dated.

Recently I hit a rough patch with my 11-year-old daughter. I forgot to bring the video camera to a performance at her school—not entirely accidentally, given the resentful air between us—and felt no imperative to stop to buy a disposable camera.

Late in the program, her class took the stage—my daughter at the center, with her own microphone. They began to sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” At

the conclusion of the first, grand operatic chorus, my daughter stepped forward. With a small grin, bright eyes and a quality of self-possession that I had never seen in her before, she focused into the darkened audience and began to sing the solo part. She sang in a high, clear soprano voice that stunned me. I don’t recall taking a breath. She didn’t waver. She didn’t rush. She didn’t make any embarrassed-looking, apologetic gestures for taking ownership of the stage—of herself—in those moments. At the conclusion, I was crying. I felt as if I were vibrating. This was not because her voice had been so good. It was because it had been so much her own.

I could have kicked myself for not bringing the video camera, but a friend suggested otherwise: that not filming was what allowed me to have the unadulterated joy of this experience. Freed from the demand to document what was happening, I could live it. I think of other instances when I’ve caught glimpses of the people my children are developing into—moments that come when I don’t expect them and haven’t prepared myself to receive them. When I found my daughter sobbing on the sofa at 4 years old, watching the film “Benji,” and she tearfully explained, “He doesn’t have anyone to love him,” there was no video to capture it, but my memory of it is indelible, and recalling it still makes me catch my breath.

Adapted from Dana Chidekel, “What I’ve Missed With My Camcorder.” © 2007 by Newsweek, Inc.


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00090-00

Light Pollution

This week Mars was closer to Earth than it had been for 60,000 years. But if you ventured out at night to look for ice caps and canals, chances are you saw only a slightly brighter and more pinkish smudge than usual. That’s because 99 percent of Americans (and Europeans) live in places tainted by light pollution, according to NASA. Two-thirds of American homes no longer have a view of silky strands of the Milky Way—we’ve “lost” 2,000 stars.

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Light pollution comes in three basic types: skyglow, light trespass, and glare. Skyglow is the one that drowns out the stars. It is caused by poorly designed, unshielded and improperly aimed fixtures, like street lamps and billboards with bottom-mounted lights that “uplight” the advertisement. As the light floods upward, it reflects off airborne dust and moisture particles, obscuring the heavens.

Light trespass hits closer to home: it is light that crosses property lines, like a neighbor’s security floodlight that illuminates your backyard. Glare is caused by too much illumination applied to one area, like overly bright retail signs or high-wattage floodlights along highways. The American Automobile Association has cited glare as a contributing factor in traffic accidents.

Why has America gone night-light crazy? In part, because fear of the dark is as old as humanity. Now, thanks to Mr. Edison and the brothers Klieg, the fear of evening crime is leading us to replace the night with an orange-ish twilight zone. But do these bright lights make us safer? Only in our imaginations. The “more light is better” myth has been shot down in a number of studies. Overlighting does not reduce crime; it merely alleviates fear of crime, possibly creating a false sense of security. Excessive lighting can actually increase danger because it creates deep shadows where criminals can lurk.

Light pollution is also linked to sleep disorders, and it can disrupt plant and animal life, including the nesting and hatching patterns of endangered loggerhead turtles on Florida’s beaches. And it is a terrible waste of energy and money.

A generation ago, few Americans thought about excess noise or fertilizer runoff; most communities today have rules to fight those types of pollution. Now it’s time to recognize light pollution as a danger to our quality of life and our pocketbooks. I’d like to see the Milky Way again, wouldn’t you?

Adapted from Charles Lockwood, “Heavens Above, Parking Lot Below.” © 2003 by The New York Times Company.


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QualityCore® Benchmark Assessment English 9 – Benchmark 3 – Poetry


ID Key Cognitive

Level Standard 00141-00 00141-01 A L1 A.8.b 00141-02 C L3 A.3.d

A.5.e 00141-03 C L3 A.5.f

A.5.h 00141-04 D L2 A.3.d 00141-05 A L2 A.8.d 00141-06 B L3 A.5.f

A.6.b 00141-07 D L2 A.5.a

A.6.b 00128-00 00128-01 D L2 A.3.d

A.5.e 00128-02 B L2 A.5.a 00128-03 A L2 A.5.c

A.5.f A.6.b

00128-04 C L2 A.3.d A.5.e

00128-05 A L3 A.3.d A.5.e

00128-06 C L3 A.5.f A.5.h

00143-00 00143-01 B L2 A.3.d 00143-02 C L2 A.5.h

A.6.c 00143-03 C L3 A.5.e


00143-04 C L2 A.6.b 00143-05 A L2 A.3.d

B.2.a 00143-06 B L3 A.3.d

A.5.e B.3.e





00141-00

Countee Cullen was an African American poet who wrote in the first decades of the twentieth century, a time when African Americans had little social power. From the Dark Tower

We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep 5

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Shall we beguile1 their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made eternally to weep.

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars is no less lovely being dark, And there are buds that cannot bloom at all In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds. 1to soothe or charm

Countee Cullen, “From the Dark Tower.” © by the Amistad Research Center.


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00128-00

Nelson, My Dog

Like the cat he scratches the flea camping in fur. Unlike the cat he delights in water up to his ears. He frolics. He catches a crooked stick— On his back he naps with legs straight up in the air. Nelson shudders awake. He responds to love 5

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From head to tail. In happiness His front legs march in place And his back legs spark when they push off. On a leash he knows his geography. For your sake he looks both ways before crossing, He sniffs at the sight of a poodle trimmed like a hedge, And he trots the street with you second in command. In the park, he ponders a squirrel attached to a tree And he shovels a paper cup on his nose. He sweeps after himself with his tail, And there is no hand that doesn’t deserve a lick. Note this now, my friends: Nelson can account the heritage of heroic dogs: One, canines lead the blind, Two, they enter fire to rescue the child and the child’s toy, Three, they swim for the drowning, Four, they spring at the thief, Five, they paddle ponds for the ball that got away, Six, for the elderly they walk side by side to the very end, Seven, they search for bones but stop when called, Eight, they bring mud to all parties, Nine, they poke among the ruins of a burnt house, Ten, they forgive what you dish out on a plate.

Nelson is a companion, this much we know, And if he were a movie star, he would do his own stunts— O, how he would fly, climb the pant legs of a scoundrel And stand tall rafting on the white-water rivers! He has befriended the kingdom of animals: He once ran with wolves but admittedly not very far, He stepped two paces into a cave and peeked at the bear, He sheltered a kitten, He righted the turtle pedaling its stumps on its back, Under the wheeling stars he caravanned with the mule, He steered sheep over a hill, He wisely let the skunk pass, He growled at the long-bearded miser, He joined ducks quacking with laughter, Once he leaped at a pheasant but later whined from guilt.

Nelson’s black nose is a compass in the wilds. He knows nature. He has spied spires of summer smoke, He circled cold campfires, He howled at a gopher and scratched at the moon, He doctored his wounds with his tongue, He has pawed a star of blood left in the snow. He regards the fireplace, the embers like blinking cats,


This too we know about Nelson. True, he is sometimes tied to parking meters And sometimes wears the cone of shame from the vet’s office. But again, he is happiness. He presents his belly for a friendly scratch. 55

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If you call him, he will drop his tennis ball, Look up, and come running, This muddy friend for life. When you bring your nose To his nose for something like a kiss, You can find yourself in his eyes.

Gary Soto, “Nelson, My Dog.” © 2007 by Gary Soto.


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00143-00

The Fawn

There it was I saw what I shall never forget And never retrieve. Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to believe, He lay, yet there he lay, Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft small ebony hooves, 5

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The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.

Surely his mother had never said, “Lie here Till I return,” so spotty and plain to see On the green moss lay he. His eyes had opened; he considered me.

I would have given more than I care to say To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend One moment only of that forest day:

Might I have had the acceptance, not the love Of those clear eyes; Might I have been for him the bough above Or the root beneath his forest bed, A part of the forest, seen without surprise.

Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he depart That jerked him to his jointy knees, And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling On his new legs, between the stems of the white trees? Edna St. Vincent Millay, “The Fawn.” © 1956 by Norma Millay Ellis.


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QualityCore® Benchmark Assessment English 9 – Benchmark 4 – Drama


ID Key Cognitive

Level Standard 00101-00 00101-01 B L2 A.3.c

A.5.e 00101-02 B L3 A.5.c

A.6.b 00101-03 C L2 A.5.h

A.6.b 00101-04 D L2 A.8.d 00101-05 A L3 A.3.c

B.3.a 00101-06 D L3 A.3.c

A.5.e A.6.c

00160-00 00160-01 C L2 A.5.c

A.5.e 00160-02 A L3 A.5.f

A.6.b 00160-03 C L2 A.5.a

A.6.b 00160-04 C L2 A.6.b 00160-05 C L2 A.3.c

A.5.e 00160-06 B L3 A.5.c

A.6.c





00101-00

In this passage, Roxane does not know that Cyrano is the true author of the love letters she thinks are from Christian.

Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano:

I’ve come to ask Roxane, as I do every day whether her soulmate is still a model of perfection.

Roxane [Coming out of the house]: 5

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Oh, he’s so handsome! And such a brilliant mind! I can’t tell you how much I love him!

Cyrano [Smiling]: You feel that Christian has a brilliant mind?

Roxane: Even more brilliant than yours!

Cyrano: I won’t contest that.

Roxane: I don’t believe there’s anyone in the world who can match him in saying those sweet nothings that mean everything. Sometimes he seems distracted and his inspiration falters, then all at once he says exquisite things to me!

Cyrano [Incredulously]: Really?

Roxane: Just like a man! Because he’s handsome, you think he has to be dull-witted!

Cyrano: Does he speak well about matters of the heart?

Roxane: Not well—superbly!

Cyrano: And how does he write?

Roxane: Even better than he speaks! Just listen to this! [Reading from the letter] “The more you take of my heart, the more I have!” [Triumphantly] There, what do you think of that?

Cyrano [Unenthusiastically]: Oh . . .

Roxane: And this: “Since I need a heart with which to suffer, if you keep mine, send me yours!”

Cyrano: First he has too much heart, then not enough. He can’t seem to make up his mind.

Roxane [Stamping her foot]: You’re exasperating! You only talk like that because you’re jealous . . .

Cyrano [Starting]: What?

Roxane: . . . of the way he writes! Listen to this and tell me if you think anything could be more tender: “Believe me when I say that my heart cries out to you, and that if kisses could be sent in writing, you would read this letter with your lips.”

Cyrano [Smiling with satisfaction in spite of himself]:

Well, those lines are . . . [Catches himself and continues in a disdainful tone.] . . . rather affected.

Roxane: And listen to this . . . .

Cyrano [Delighted]: You know all his letters by heart?

Roxane: Every one of them!


Cyrano [Twisting his mustache]: That’s quite flattering.

Roxane: He’s a master of eloquence! 80

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Cyrano [Modestly]: Let’s not exaggerate. . . .

Roxane: A master!

Cyrano [Bowing]: Very well, then, a master!

Adapted from Edmond de Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac [Lowell Bair, Trans.]. © 1972 by Lowell Bair.


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00160-00

In this scene, a new high school student is introduced during gym class. Clueless

Principal: Miss Stoeger? Got another one. Ladies, we have a new student with us. This is Tai Frasier.

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Tai, you don’t have time to change, but you could hit a few balls in those clothes.

Amber: She could be a farmer in those clothes.

Cher: Dee, my mission is clear. Would you look at that girl? She is so adorably clueless. We have got to adopt her.

Dionne: Cher, she is toe-up. Our stock would plummet.

Cher [motions to Tai]: C’mere. Yeah, c’mere. Hang with us.

Tai: Oh, thank you.

[Scene changes to the girls walking down the main path at the school.]

Cher [voice over]: So, we decided to show Tai the ropes at Bronson Alcott High School.

Cher: That is Alana’s group over there. They do the T.V. station. They think that’s the most important thing on Earth. And that’s the Preppie Mafia. You can’t hang with them unless you own a BMW. And there’s Elton in the white vest, and all the most popular boys in the school.

Dionne: Including my boyfriend. Ain’t he cute?

Tai: Yeah.

Cher: If you make the decision to date a high school boy, they are the only acceptable ones.

Tai: Cher, which one of them is your boyfriend?

Cher: As if!

Dionne: Cher’s got attitude about high school boys.

Cher: It’s a personal choice every woman has got to make for herself.

[Murray approaches the girls.]

Murray [To Dionne]: Woman, lend me five dollars.

Dionne: Murray, I have asked you repeatedly not to call me Woman!

Murray: Excuse me, Miss Dionne.

Dionne: Thank you.

Murray: OK, but street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns do have mocking, but not necessarily misogynistic,1 undertones.

Tai: Wow! You guys talk like grown-ups.

Cher: Oh, well, this is a really good school. Oooh, project! I’ve got an idea. Let’s do a makeover!

Tai: No, no.


Dionne: 80

85

Oh, c’mon! Let us! Cher’s main thrill in life is a makeover, OK, it gives her a sense of control in a world full of chaos.

Cher: Pleeeaaase?

Tai: Sure. Why not?

1having anti-woman qualities or purpose Adapted from Amy Heckerling, Clueless. © 1995 by Amy Heckerling.


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QualityCore® Benchmark Assessment English 9 – Benchmark 5 – Usage and Mechanics


ID Key Cognitive

Level Standard 00113 C L3 B.6.a

B.6.b 00174 C L3 B.6.b 00126 C L2 B.6.b 00097 D L3 B.6.b 00095 A L2 B.6.c 00107 C L2 B.4.f 00165 C L3 B.4.f 00118 A L2 B.4.c 00163 C L3 B.4.a 00152 C L3 B.4.a 00120 C L2 B.4.a 00162 D L2 B.5.e 00157 A L2 B.5.d 00115 D L2 B.5.d

B.5.f B.5.e

00146 B L3 B.5.d B.5.f

00094 C L2 B.5.c 00105 D L3 B.5.c

B.5.d 00112 B L3 B.5.b


Directions: Choose the best answer provided for each question and circle the corresponding letter.



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QualityCore® Benchmark Assessment English 9 – Benchmark 6 – Essay: Reflective Narrative

The following pages contain one of the Benchmark Assessments for this course. This particular Benchmark Assessment is a 45-minute essay that mirrors the constructed-response portion of theQualityCore End-of-Course Assessment. (For other, less demanding constructed-response tasks, see the Formative Item Pool for this course.) The scoring rubric appears at the end of this assessment. The scoring rubric can be included or excluded at your discretion.


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Please use the space below to write your response(s) to the writing assignment provided by your teacher. If there are multiple tasks to the question, please clearly label the number or letter of each task in the column to the left of your answers. If you need additional pages for your response, your teacher can provide them. Please write the name of the writing assignment here: _____________________________________

Task

QualityCore® Analytic Scoring Rubric for English 9 Purpose: To Present a Reflective Narrative

Reflective Narrative Development Organization Language

Score: 6 Responses at this score pointdemonstrate effective skill in writing a reflective narrative.

The response demonstrates an insightful and thorough understanding of the reflective narrative task and memorably describes and critically analyzes an experience of meaningful reflective significance. Reflection in the response is integrated, embedded in a way that clearly leads the reader from specific personal experience to the abstraction that underlies it.

The response describes an appropriate experience in memorable detail. Reflective ideas are thoroughly explained. The response maintains an effective balance between describing the experience and relating it to the abstract.

The response achieves unity through a natural progression of ideas, sequenced through lines of thought rather than external organizational patterns. The response provides closure, leaving the reader with something to think about.

The writing is engaging, using strong and expressive sentences with varied structure. The response uses precise, imaginative, and metaphoric language in addition to strong verbs and sensory images. Although there may be a few minor errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics, meaning is clear throughout the response.

Score: 5 Responses at this score pointdemonstrate competent skill in writing a reflective narrative.

The response demonstrates a thoughtful understanding of the reflective narrative task, successfully describes and analyzes an experience of meaningful reflective significance, and clearly expresses integral connections between personal experience and abstract ideas.

The response describes an appropriate experience with strong detail. Reflective ideas are clearly explained. The response maintains a balance between describing the experience and relating it to the abstract.

The response offers a well-sequenced beginning, middle, and end, with a logical progression of ideas. The response provides closure, leaving the reader with something to think about.

The writing is clear, and sentences have varied structure. Language is evocative, with strong verbs, sensory images, and figurative language. There are a few errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics, but they are rarely distracting and meaning is clear.

Score: 4 Responses at this score pointdemonstrate adequate skill in writing a reflective narrative.

The response demonstrates understanding of the reflective narrative task, adequately describes and analyzes an experience of reflective significance, and establishes a connection between personal experience and more general ideas.

The response describes an appropriate experience with some original detail. Reflective ideas are adequately explained. The response mostly maintains a balance between describing the experience and relating it to the abstract, although one may be slightly underdeveloped.

The response offers a clear beginning, middle, and end, although it may seem restricted by an organizational formula. Ideas are logically grouped throughout the response. The response includes a clear and adequate closing.

The writing is clear, with a little sentence variety and some successful use of sensory imagesand figurative language. There are some distracting errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics, but meaning is usually clear.

Score: 3 Responses at this score pointdemonstrate some developing skill in writing a reflective narrative.

The response demonstrates limited understanding of the reflective narrative task, attempts to describe and analyze an experience of reflective significance with limited success, and suggests a connection between personal experience and more general ideas, although reflection is brief or unclear.

The response describes an appropriate experience but offers few and mostly mundane details. Reflective ideas are only somewhat explained. The response is poorly balanced; either the description of the experience or the reflection is significantly underdeveloped.

The response shows evidence of organization but tends to digress at times. Most ideas in the response are logically grouped. The response offers an underdeveloped or unsuccessful closing.

The writing is clear, but general, and lacks sentence variety. Creative or descriptive language use is minimal or ineffective. Errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics are distracting and occasionally impede understanding.

Score: 2 Responses at this score pointdemonstrate inconsistentor weak skill in writing a reflective narrative.

The response demonstrates little understanding of the reflective narrative task. Any attempt at description and analysis of an experience of reflective significance is inaccurate, confusing, or unclear. The response lacks connection between personal experience and more general ideas.

The response reports rather than describes an appropriate experience. Explanations of reflective ideas are incomplete or unclear. The response is not balanced; either the description of the experience or the reflection is significantly underdeveloped or absent.

The response shows some evidence of organization but is somewhat confusing. Only some ideas are logically grouped in the response. The response offers a weak closing.

The writing is generally understandable, but sentence structure and word use are basic.Little or no creative or descriptive language is attempted. Errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics are frequently distracting and sometimes impede understanding.

Score: 1 Responses at this score pointdemonstrate little or no skill in writing a reflective narrative.

The response demonstrates no understanding of the reflective narrative task, does not describe and analyze an experience of reflective significance, and offers no connection between personal experience and more general ideas.

The response may not describe an appropriate experience, may lack explanation of reflective ideas, or may be comprised entirely of a description of the experience.

The response shows little or no evidence of organization and little or no logical grouping of ideas. The response is missing a closing.

The writing is not clear and may be confusing or hard to follow. The descriptive nature of the task is unacknowledged. Errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics are frequently distracting and significantly impede understanding.

Score: 0 Unscorable: response is blank, off-topic, illegible, or written in another language.

Answer Key

Documents

Tips for Using the English Benchmark Assessmentsimages.pcmac.org/SiSFiles/Schools/AL/DaleCounty/GeorgeW...you done before. Tell you what? About the rabbits. George snapped, You ain