Writing an OER or SAQ
As the year progresses, you may want to cover up sentence stems and ideas and "quiz" students on ways to start their A, P, and E portion. You can also have them add post-its to the poster with sentence stems they come up with themselves. You may also want to recommend they put an "A," "P," and "E" to the left of the 10 line box every time they write so they remember to include it. Last but not least, encourage them to write the OER question at the top of next text and to highlight quotes they can use to answer it as they read. That way, they save time on STAAR. When they need to answer the OER, they can look back at their quotes vs. re-reading the entire text.
Breaking Down the "E"Encourage students to use a stem like "This is important because..." Have students think about (1) the text first, then how/why it is applicable/important to (2) them and the (3) world in general. Use visuals (see image at right). The last step is linking (L) it back to the "A" with a stem like "This shows..." or embedding it within a sentence.
Example: (A) The tone of the text is serious/somber. (P) In the text, (title), the author states, "(Proof/text quote here)." (E) This is important because in the text (1), people ignored the person who was homeless. (2) I've seen people ignore or walk by a homeless person and pretend like they don't exist. (3) The author wants the world to know that (L - link) it is a serious problem, which is why it deserves such a somber tone. |
This is a great folder that has lots of resources for answering an OER (Open Ended Response), or SAQ (Short Answer Question).
Should we stop having students write OERs & SAQs simply because STAAR stopped testing them? Absolutely not! They are great ways to have students substantiate their thinking in written form. Click here to see released STAAR OERs and Crossover OERs. Building Your OER Support Wall:
Text + Your/Your Life + WorldFor students who need help with the "E" portion, try using a visual like this:
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Crossover OER's
Add to your OER Support wall (above, right) with the following Crossover resources:
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Try a few generic OER/SAQ questions over text sets:Or use a few of these already prepared ones:
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Need More Texts/Questions? Try Digital.Readworks.org
About Digital.Readworks.org
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With the grading tool on Digital.Readworks.org, you can click "Correct" for an OER that earned the rubric score 3, .75 for a 2, .50 for a 1, or .25 for 0. Students can then edit their work to re-submit.
When all students submit work, it grades the M/C questions for you and lumps all the OERs together so you can grade them at one time without needing to click on each individual student. |
The three most common STAAR questions are about...
THEMEHere is a folder of resources for how to teach theme.
Get in the habit of pushing students to go from a "topic" to a theme. It's usually easy for students to come up with a one word topic that the text is about. But what is the message that the author is giving about that topic? |
TONEGive students a tone word list and post some around your wall. Also, use this folder of resources for how to teach tone.
Get in the habit of challenging yourself and your students to use one tone word a day to describe some part of their day, the lesson, or themselves. |
INFERENCEThis is perhaps the most challenging concept for students to grasp. Probably because there's not a clear cut answer! Here is a folder of resources to help you teach inference to your students.
My TpT (Teachers Pay Teachers) store (below) also has some great inference activities: |