High Performance in High Poverty Schools: 90/90/90 and Beyond
- Teaching informational writing is the key to success in high poverty schools (see 90/90/90 Report; 90% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch, 90% of students are part of an ethnic minority, and 90% met district or state standards)
- Informational writing, including short constructed responses and extended responses, should be used across curriculum
Short Constructed Responses – short, clear, and concise; requires few sentences
- Sentence One: This (map, picture, bar graph, pie chart, table) about __ (provide title) _ (choose correct verb) that _________.
- Sentence Two and Three: Provide more details, integrate, or interpret data.
Extended Responses – somewhat longer; requires more detail; options includes four to six sentences, a paragraph, a bullet list, or multiple paragraphs
- Use Power Verbs (“Improving Student Performance with Powerful Instructional Writing” p. 10); see http://www.visualthesaurus.com/wordlists/36 for a possible teaching idea
- “On a regular basis students are encouraged to write complete sentences in each content area. Students should be able to demonstrate in writing how they arrived at an answer, how they solved a problem, etc. This could easily be accomplished at the end of any class period. Students could write a sentence or two about a fact they learned, or a problem they solved.”
Cause/Effect Writing
- Review good examples (see “Selection Six: Deadly Waves – The Power of Tsunami”); identify literary elements of genre, slowly looking at title, subheadings–making predictions about text, before reading; read as a whole class and small groups before doing independent work
- With writing, start with smaller chunks and build up; model as a whole class and coach through small groups before requiring independent work.
- Use graphic organizers; see “Constructed Response the Way I See It” (p. 29), “Constructed and Extended Responses Let’s Describe It/Key Words” (p. 30), and “Constructed and Extended Responses Main Ideas/Details” (p. 31). These all help students to focus on the key details.
Learning Through Reflection 