As you know the 4th and 5th Grade FSA Florida Writing Test is coming up very soon. This is the time of year that practicing for FSA Writing is really important to push the students to practice their writing skills and to improve in any way they can. The problem most teachers face is not knowing where to start when they are at this point in teaching FSA Writing, to give them the last boost that they need before the writing test. I think it’s very important to look at past writing tests and writing samples from the students to see their areas of need.
I have always felt that teaching students to write a solid introduction and conclusion are two of the easiest ways to improve or boost scores. If students can earn the points in these areas they are more likely to get a high enough score to be considered passing. If you notice a trend of students struggling with either having a strong introduction or strong conclusion I suggest taking time to get them to work on those two areas.
Speaking from personal experience, don’t overdo the writing practice even at this point. Some teachers just give prompt after prompt and have the kids write but if you don’t take time to give feedback needed in between (or teach mini-lessons) to help them grow, those prompts will just burn them out. We need to give students a direction to really focus on so they can grow as writers.
March Madness Test Prep
One thing I do is “trick” the kids into completing extra writing activities. How do I do this? Glad you asked. Well, March Madness comes right before the writing test and one of the areas my students always struggle with is elaboration. They struggle to elaborate but also to cite text evidence and explain what they are citing. This is huge on the FSA writing test because the students need to be able to cite text properly and elaborate about what they cite. One of my favorite activities each year is reading about March Madness and taking the time to cite text evidence and explain the citations used. Why do they enjoy this so much? Well, it’s simple, it’s an engaging topic and not what they are used to reading in class. Since they LOVE the topic, they are fully engaged. Then I show them how this relates to their essays.
Another engaging way I practice and prepare my students for the FSA Writing test is letting the kids work in small groups and creating fun competitions. Of course they are friendly competitions but the kids get excited to see who can work together to create the best essay. I always look closely at writing samples from students before forming groups. If I know that one student is excellent at writing introductions I make sure I pair that student up with some students that might be struggling in that area. I even chat with them about helping each other improve in certain areas. It’s amazing how much growth I see using these activities. Once they start working with a small group of 2 to 3 people it really does change the entire learning environment. I find that they don’t even realize they’re actually writing an essay when they write as a group. I have even turned this into a tournament situation like March Madness. Of course I didn’t have the 68 teams starting off like the tournament but I started with the Elite Eight (or Final Four) depending on how many students and groups I wanted for the classes. Then each time they wrote an essay together there would be winners from both sides of the brackets. Then the winners would compete with each other. In the past I have had classes that can’t handle this competition so only use this method if you know your class can handle friendly competitions and work nicely together over multiple work sessions. I also ensure them that in the end they will all be winners and earn “trophies” or rewards.
Engaging Writing Prompt Idea
Throughout the year I have used some very boring passages and passages that didn’t have full details in there so the students really had to think about the writing process, what information they would use, and how they could work with the resources they were given. I picked some topics that weren’t engaging and that I knew the background knowledge might be lacking. If you haven’t done that already, you may want to choose a more difficult passage and prompt. This may help them handle it if that’s what they get as a prompt on the writing test. If you have already exposed them to some of these passages and prompts then this is the time to find engaging articles that are on topics the kids enjoy. One of my favorite topics to do at this time, especially when they’re writing in groups, is video games and if they are harmful or helpful. Opinion writing is pretty hard to do with a group because they have to decide on one opinion to write about (sometimes I even assign them an opinion) but they absolutely love video games as a topic. It will keep them engaged and you will see some great essays produced using this topic. Free Video Game Article, Paired Article Source 2
No matter how you choose to prep for the FSA writing test just remember that the essays do not have to be perfect. They need to be organized and the students need to stay on topic. I feel like if they can do those two things well, they will be OK. I’m not saying we don’t want them to spell everything properly, to use stronger conventions, to fully elaborate, etc. but having an organized essay and staying on topic will get them some of the basic points to build a strong foundation. Everything else that they do is just an added bonus that will help them score even higher.
You've Got This
From one teacher to another, please don’t over stress about this test and just know that you have provided your students with ample opportunities to practice and see how they have grown as writers from the beginning of the year. If you don’t feel you provided them everything they needed, please make this a practice of focus for next year. We can’t expect every fourth and fifth grade student to score an 8 or higher on the FSA Writing test but what we can expect is for them to show growth from the first day they walked into our classroom. If you think all of your kids can show this type of growth go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. Then take the last few weeks before the writing test and see what you can do to help them grow even more! You’ve got this!
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