LI SIG Meeting on December 8, 2014

Organizing committee in attendance: Kathleen Lange-Madden, Jennifer

Fitzgerald, Rhoda Webb, Jeanne Arango, and Sonya Merian; 38 MATSOL
members and one guest
Jennifer Fitzgerald at 9:00, shared how to support writing the WIDA
way.
The ACCESS test is different from MCAS. Are ELL students
misinterpreting the prompts and failing to develop their full writing
potential on the ACCESS for ELLs? ACCESS is more visually supported,
could this be misinterpreted by ELLs?
Developing and aligning a student friendly WIDA writing rubrics with a
LI schools/districts writing program in Jennifers district. Show
ELLs the WIDA writing expectations and develop a rubric to bridge
English language development features for colleagues and ELLs.
Where do they intersect?
6 Traits of Writing
Write Steps
Ideas: Describe actions,
thoughts, and feelings
Organization: Recounts sequence
of events, use of temporal words,
provides a sense of closure
Voice:

Describes thoughts and

feelings

Word Choice:

Details, adjectives,
adverbs

Sentence Fluency: Uses simple and

compound sentences

Conventions: Capitals,
punctuation, and spelling

WIDA Writing Rubric

Academic Language Features
Levels 1-6
Linguistic Complexity:
Information is cohesion and
relationship between ideas and
variety of sentences that make up
register, genres, and text types

Language forms and Conventions:

The grammatical structures,
patterns, syntax, and mechanics
associated with sentence length,
meaning and use.

Vocabulary Usage: The specificity

of words, phrases, expressions,
multi-meaning words, collocations
(cognates), in a given text.

Kathy LM at 9:20 shifted the group to looking at how we could look at

the WIDA writing rubric.
Shared the ESL progress report and the WIDA writing rubric
with two students who are third grade at level 5, and said
that they will work on writing through that lens throughout
the year. Had the students talk about their writing after:
photosynthesis is a technical word, but child used
plants...
Teachers pay Teachers Website: A teacher wrote student
friendly WIDA writing rubrics, and for a cost one can
download level 1, level 2, etc.
Broke up into grade span groups:
High school: 6
Middle: 6
Upper elementary: 6
1-2 elementary : 6
Reconvened at 10:30. Work collected, copied and will be
posted on LI reference page
Rhoda Webb, at 10:45 Opened meeting for Questions & Answers
ACCESS for ELLs 2015
Test recertification ACCESS 2.0(online)
ACCESS Training Link
Deadline for ordering a test for a new student?
What do ESL license teachers need to do to get SEI license?
Need to email ELAR with any licensure questions.
RETELL
Training will end as of June 30, 2016 as a funded mandate.
Developed new course for those teachers, who had an ELL, but
could not take the course, then they can take this course.
Different modules will be developed to train people for training
others in the district for 15 PDPs.
CAPs, vouchers, or slots? LI Districts have not been able to
fulfill Cohort training obligations. What do educators need to
know?