Leveraging Technology To Support College Level Literacy
Through Secondary Writing Tasks in Science

The Challenge: How do we increase literacy and deeper learning in high school students across all content areas? And, how do we measure literacy so that we know students are college and career-ready?
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Are Your Students Ready for College and Career?

Students need writing across the curriculum, and teachers need College Readiness Assessment Rubrics that will help them to support their students' literacy skills in critical skills areas like Argument, Evidence, and Analysis.

Everyone wants our young people to be ready for college and career. In the 21st century, this means more than reading and writing. It means being able to communicate across multiple platforms, in a multitude of ways.  The Common Core is designed to help support and assess this, but in high school, CCSS testing only takes place in 11th grade.
College and Career Readiness needs to be supported and assessed throughout secondary school, just as literacy skills need to be taught in every core subject, across grades and across time so that teachers and students can see where they are and what they still need to learn.
Every year in the United States, nearly 60% of first-year college students discover that, despite being fully eligible to attend college, they are not ready for postsecondary studies. 
-American Association of Colleges and Universities 

11th grade is too late to discover and address literacy deficits.

Study after study shows that too many American students -- even those who graduate high school -- lack the skills they need to succeed in college and career.

To be literate in the 21st century, students must possess skills in argument, evidence and analysis. They must have:
The ability to create. 
The ability to collaborate. 
The ability to communicate.
The ability to think critically. 

We need to measure these skills before it matters. 
Not just in 11th grade, but in every class, every subject, every year.

We measure the skills we need students to learn.

Critical Thinking                                          Communication

Argument. Evidence. Analysis

We measure regularly, repeatedly, across time. 
The top three skills employers seek in college graduates are:
1) the ability to collaborate effectively,
2) a clear and grounded understanding of science and technology and
3) the ability to write and communicate clearly.
-American Association of Colleges and Universities 

Writing is a sense-making endeavor.               

Technology offers us a multitude of platforms for students to write about what they know and to learn as they write. 

College Readiness Assessments require students to provide arguments, evidence, and analyses across all core subjects.
This is what we need to measure. This is what we need to track. The written work of all students, across all grades, in all core subjects, across time. How do we go about it?
We use the tools we have. 

Google. Docs. Sheets. Forms. Apps. Doctopus. Goobric.

We measure the skills we need students to learn.

                             Creativity                   
Collaboration                                                    
                                                           Argument. Evidence. Analysis

We can measure. We can compare.  We can share.  

Results.                           Strategies.                         Creative Tools.                       Opportunities

We work together.
Join us.

The ability to create
The ability to collaborate
The ability to communicate
The ability to think critically

Schools must find a way to regularly embed measures of college and career readiness into curriculum in order to determine whether students are on track for college and career success - before the 11th grade.

College Readiness Assessments.

Fewer than half of 11th graders - and less than 25% of minority students - 
demonstrate proficiency in literacy skills.
THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE. 

Courtesy of ACT - First Look at Common Core and College and Career Readiness

Supporting College Level Literacy.
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