Be a ROQC STAAR

The SAQ

As an English teacher, I look at the SAQ (short answer question) and think that those are the easiest questions on the whole test. Just give an opinion and prove it. Seems simple enough. But to our kids, it's excruciating work, and several just skip them altogether. And, in my experience, some teachers say that skipping them isn't the end of the world. I have heard a teacher tell a student, "Just get more multiple choice questions right, and you'll be fine." I couldn't believe my ears. When I look at the SAQs, I see multiple choice questions, just without the choices. To me, if a student can't answer an SAQ, then there's no hope of just getting more MC questions right. However, when we look at data, we see the majority of our kids are getting one out of three points for each SAQ. And that's just plain awful. There's no way to sugar coat that. Teachers who believe that the SAQ's are so tricky and misleading that the kids just don't get it, so they should just get more multiple choice correct to counter the low scores they'll get on the SAQ are fooling themselves. So, if they can't skip them, we need to give them the tools they need to answer them successfully. 

The Origins of ROQC (pronounced roxy)

During my years in my inner city school, which will remain nameless, other teachers showed me the APE strategy. It looks like this:

Look, how cute!

     A -- Answer

      P -- Proof

      E -- Explain

But, to get kids to remember what they were actually supposed to do when using this strategy, my cute little APE turned into a massive 400 pound gorilla. I had to write this:

 

Not so cute

        A -- Answer -- rephrase the question and give opinion

        P -- Proof -- quote from the story

         E -- Explain -- connect to life lesson

Needless to say, APE was very cumbersome. The kids could remember what each of the letters meant, but they had to remember even more things to know how to use those letters. It just wasn't working. In my third year trying to manage this APE in my classroom, I had an epiphany. I looked at the letters on all my notes for my pneumonic and realized the solution was there all along, and ROQC was born. 

       
   

          A -- Answer -- Rephrase the question and give Opinion

          P -- Proof -- Quote from the story

          E -- Explain -- Connect to life lesson

But, I had to test it. I tried it on my Saturday school tutoring students first. These were students who had never taken the TAKS before. We were proactive in our remediation (at least I was) and through classroom assessment I decided who should come to Saturday school. I had about ten students coming regularly. So I created a foldable that included notes for ROQC, SAQ questions from excepts, we even did some cutting and pasting just for good measure. Saturday school ran for four weeks before the TAKS.  When the day finally came, I knew they were ready. I had five out of ten of those students pass the TAKS that year. The five who didn't pass all made ones on their essay (back when that mattered so much), but ALL TEN made ALL TWOS on their SAQs and I knew it was because I threw out the APE and gave them ROQC. 

Introducing ROQC to the Masses

After that pivotal year six years ago, I knew I had to use ROQC in all my classes. And now, I have students who are teaching their junior teachers how to do it. It's become a campus wide initiative and it's working. 

I've introduced ROQC a few different ways throughout the years, but my favorite has been through the flip lesson. I made a video on the ELMO going through the steps of ROQC. The kids watch it at home and fill in their fill in the blank notes. Then the next day we read something short and answer the SAQs in class. Getting the notes the night before helps tremendously. 

Each time we do ROQC, the notes look something like this:

Our initial goal is to get a score point 2.  

After score point 2 mastery, we work toward getting a score point 3. 

Update: I made a video that I have the kids watch prior to class as a flip lesson. Here's the link. 

Scoring 

I am a staunch believer that teaching directly to the test is evil. However, not teaching to the test is equally evil. It's like sending a blindfolded kid into a shark tank with a bucket of chum around his neck. Expecting a student to just figure out how to take a test isn't the best test taking strategy. My job as a teacher is to teach ALL aspects, and that includes how to take a high stakes test, that includes, STAAR, ACT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, PPR, MCAT, NCE, BAR, and any other tests included in the educational alphabet soup. So, this means teaching the kids how SAQs are scored. 

My past naive self would hand out the SAQ rubric, have the kids turn it into "kid friendly" language and then say, "OK, now you know what they are looking for. Let's answer some SAQs." Now, I wish I could go back to all those kids and tell them I am so sorry for torturing them like that. I know there's nothing wrong with what I did, but I was missing a step. I showed them the what, but I never showed them the how, which is the most important part. Sure, go ahead, show them the rubric, have them do table talk about it, draw pictures about it, write a skit, whatever it is you do, but the next step should be "And this is how you accomplish all that." For me that's what ROQC did in my classroom. It gave them the how. And, it ended up being very simple. 

R+O= 1

R+O+Q= 2

R+O+Q+C= 3

Kids can see this, remember this, and do this. It's a formula, I know and formulas are of the devil bad. But, for the kid who can't fill those ten blank lines with anything, this formula is empowering. And with enough practice, the training wheels can come off.

Revising

Now, we rarely go through all this without trading papers and grading. I am a firm believer that #1 kids don't see the flaws in their own writing and #2 kids love pointing out the flaws in other kids' writing. 

Part of the fun, is figuring out where all the arrows will take you. 

TAKS vs. STAAR

You may be thinking, "but you created this from TAKS. STAAR is completely different." You are right, wise one. STAAR is more analytical, which makes ROQC work even better with those SAQ questions than with TAKS open-endeds. 

But, here's the real beauty of ROQC. It works with everything. It works with life itself. How often are we called on to make an assertion (R+O), back it up with evidence (Q), and then explain the impact (C)? ROQC puts a framework to the thinking we do everyday as adults. It lets kids in on the secret of how to analyze a situation, problem, argument, or text. This is so much more than a test taking strategy, but only if you show your kids the power it has in it.  

The Odyssey Happens Everyday

Eleven Dollars Well Spent

As a rule, I don't pay for lesson plans. If I can't find it/make it for free then you can count me out. When a colleague suggested that I check out the Curly Classroom, i took her advice spending hours scouring their blog for everything those great ladies give away for free. But, as I continued download after wonderful download, I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop. Then, those curly-headed sirens tempted me with the Odyssey Skills by Scene. And I needed it. 

Remember, I had just spent half of the previous month creating something like that for Romeo and Juliet and the thought of going through all of those painstaking hours again when all I had to do was hit the checkout button made forking over the cash an easy decision. I will not post any of the actual activities from the Skills by Scene; however, I will go through the supplements I added to "The Homecoming of Odysseus."

Homecoming Week

The students thought it very strange when they walked in my classroom and saw signs for Homecoming Week everywhere. (Next year I plan to make a tiny mum, or something like it, for everyone). They walked in and I had their attention immediately, mostly because they thought I had lost my marbles. But, if that's what it takes to get their attention in the third to last week of the school year, I will TOTALLY take it. 

Skills by Scene has great graphic organizers for different sections of Odysseus' Homecoming and I used the heck out of those things. I taped them up around my room as my "homecoming decorations" with directions and pointers to filling them out. (Next year, I'll add streamers.) And the best part was the kids got to do the rest of the work. I just sat back and watched it happen. Some days we "celebrated" homecoming in table groups, sometimes, they had partners, sometimes they were working individually, but it was a whole week of analysis, practical application of things they have learned throughout the year, and it was magical. 

But I couldn't let that be the end (mostly because I still had one more week to fill after Odysseus got home). That's where this article entered the scene. I wanted to bring the Odyssey into the modern era, and this New York Times article is the best. Thinking of Odysseus in terms of a veteran coming home made the Odyssey real for a lot of my kids. I saw their eyes grow wide as they thought about how their brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandfather, mom and dad were like Odysseus, this bigger than life hero. And... it's expository... double wham!

But I didn't stop there. There's this poem that has followed me through my life since college. Every year, I put my favorite quote from it in my room, on the class passes I give to students who go above and beyond, and on every recommendation I am asked to write. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Of course, it from "Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson. When I have a chance to teach this poem I take it, and I wasn't going to miss this chance. 

The E Word

We analyzed, we compared, we laughed, we watched this TEDtalk about veterans missing war, then we took a test. I know, so anti-climactic, but it's the end of the year and that's what we have to do. BUT I couldn't leave all our veteran day talk as just talk. I wanted the kids to put into action what we have been learning about. So, I spent all week before the test scaring them by saying the E word. You know the one... essay. Over and over I warned them about the scary essay at the end of the exam. It loomed until I had kids fill my tutoring time with questions about what it would be about, could they use a notecard, would they have to use text evidence. I have never had so much interest prior to a test. 

Then test day arrived. I handed out the test and all of them flipped it to the back and read the "essay" directions:

Letter Writing: Write a letter to a veteran. Be sure to stay within the requirements listed below (20pts).

Formatting Requirements:

·          Correct letter format

o   Greeting

o   Date

o   Paragraphs

o   Salutation

o   Signature

o   One full page

·          Content Requirements

o   You CAN:

§  Thank the veteran for his/her service

§  Offer encouragement

§  write about yourself

§  write about this assignment

o   You CANNOT:

§  Write about religion, politics, death or killing (this is a requirement used by Operation Gratitude)

     The letter is a requirement for the test; however, I hope to send them along to a veteran. If you DO NOT want me to send your letter, please write “DO NOT SEND THIS” at the top of your paper. I will still read/grade it based on the requirements outlined above. 

I got many kinds of looks. The knowing look, the eye roll (I like to think it's because I made such a HUGH deal of seemingly nothing), the appreciative smile, the sigh of relief. 

But the letters they wrote were truly thankful for the veterans who fought so they could be sitting in my classroom and taking a test, so they could enjoy movies, family, friends. So they could live free. I can't think of a better way to celebrate D-Day than by writing letters to those who deserve our respect,

honor, and gratitude.