SAISD Secondary R-LA: The 4 + 1

Our passionate pursuit to inspire authentic and meaningful Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Meta-linguistic Awareness experiences for students.

In May, we will be launching Unit 1 lessons, so that educators have a chance to internalize and start the year off ready! Come join us for paletas and collaboration at Café College. Click the flyer for registration link. Please register so that we have enough paletas and print and bring charged laptop.

We are collecting information about technology used in journalism and yearbook classes. If you teach journalism or yearbook, please complete this form!

• Use released passages to see the full context of student responses
• Follow these directions for printing all students' SCR and ECR responses in one document
• In Eduphoria, use Analysis, Single Test, use:
• Learning Standard Summary tab to see performance by standard
• Item Response Analysis tab to see individual item performance (click on a question's bar and scroll down to see the question, correct answer, and answer distribution across students).




More Eduphoria support for teachers here.

We are launching spring lesson plans for Grade 6 and English I!

The daily lessons are HERE for Unit 4!

To support teachers, we are offering profession learning sessions during our 50/50 Staff Development Day on January 2.

All Secondary R-LA teachers are welcome to come and dive into the newly released Grade 6 and English I lessons. We will investigate the lesson components as they relate to Gradual Release of Instruction, district engagement strategies, and assessing of content and skill knowledge with regards to the upcoming unit expectations. Grade 7 and 8 teachers will benefit from Grade 6 lessons by using standards crosswalks and Grade 7 and 8 texts. English II-IV teachers will benefit from English I lessons by using standards crosswalks and grade-appropriate texts. All teachers will leave the sessions with concrete ideas for teaching the next unit.

January 2 50/50 Lesson Launch PD Flyer

We have created a Scoring Calibration Experience that teachers and PLCs can walk through to calibrate on scoring. Please ask your assigned specialist for more information and take a look prior to scoring CBA1 ECRs--as the practice essays were built from our CBA prompts!

See this smore for all Professional Learning materials from past sessions. Slide decks, documents, and session recordings.

Dr. Cynthia Martinez, our amazing AVID coordinator, will be offering AVID professional learning. Topics include:

• Academic Language and Literacy
• Focused Note-Taking
• Organizational Systems
• Collaborative Study Groups
• and more!

Remembering something you saw at Curriculum Day that you would like to reference? Or wanting to check out a session you missed? Take a look at our Curriculum Day Resources and Materials smore. All Curriculum Day content listed here.

Reminder that our PD slides, videos, and materials are housed in our Professional Learning Smore. You can always find the Professional Learning smore at the bottom of *this* smore!

Sirius Online EOC Prep resources should now be available in Classlink for all teachers and rostered for all courses. This is what the Sirius Classlink icon looks like the icon on the right.

If teachers do not have access or if there is any issue with rostering, please have them complete a support ticket in the green SAISD Support Folder or the SAISD IT Support Portal in Classlink.

Please be aware that Sirius may not be available to students who have already passed all of their EOCs.

Support and Resources

• Intro to Sirius PD Session from the spring

• Sirius Training Resources

Please see this flyer for directions and links for accessing our R-LA resources!

Middle school teachers, please check out these resources to enhance use of SAVVAS Realize, our textbook adoption, and SAVVAS SuccessMaker, its accompanying intervention resource.

Online tutorials on:

• SAVVAS Realize: Explore, What's New, Navigating Content, Assigning Content, etc.
• SAVVAS SuccessMaker: Getting Started, Progress Monitoring, Prescriptive Scheduling Report, etc.
• Directions for adding SuccessMaker to SAVVAS account

The Lead4ward Field Guides succinctly organize information teachers and PLCs need to effectively plan meaningful instruction for students by:

• providing relevant context that shows how each student expectation fits into the big picture, as well as the specifics that inform instruction;

• building content knowledge with explanations, stimulus identification, and essential vocabulary;

• Making connections to instructional implications; and

• looking at “interesting items” from previous released tests to provide insight into the types of mistakes students make.

Click below for the download instructions by grade band:

Elementary

Middle

High

Copyright Agreement — For Use on Your CAMPUS Only

Campus users agree not to disclose, provide, or otherwise make available any of the copyrighted material or intellectual property in any form to any third party without the prior written consent of lead4ward. Additional terms of service can be found here.

College Prep ELA teachers, please see this Texas College Bridge F.A.Q. for a comprehensive list of answers, resources, and important things to know.

Direct link to student registration information here.

Completing the learning pathways in Texas College Bridge (TCB) provides students with a TCB certification, which may be used as a TSI waiver for our local higher ed partners Texas A&M, UTSA, and Alamo Colleges.

***New TSIA2 ELAR Canvas Course available! Direct link here.

Please see this document for updated resources and blueprint of the test. Since so much of the test has remained the same item-wise, we have elected to keep some our resources from the old test, updating as we fully revise to reflect TSIA2.

See this smore for all Professional Learning materials from past sessions. Slide decks, documents, and session recordings.

Infusing literacy practices to teach all content bolsters learning! Find the SAISD Cross-Content Literacy Strategies Toolkit here. Spread the word to your colleagues, and encourage them to contribute content-specific exemplars for some goodies!

​This site contains important curriculum information and documents that are used as tools to guide instruction, monitor pacing and foster the development of all students in SAISD. All curriculum documents are designed to reflect the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Statements (TEKS).​

It is the district expectation that teachers adhere to the curriculum, as district assessments and professional learning will follow its scope and sequence.

A working draft for us to revise and build together! Strategies are organized by workshop component. Please reach out to your R-LA specialist, coach, or director to discuss how to implement these strategies! Also, please let us know if you have a surefire strategy to add.

SAISD Reading Language Arts teachers have been incorporating components of reader's and writer's workshop for years. Our document to speak to and refine as we teach in these "unprecedented times." Read here how our district will define and implement workshop.

Janet Hester: Director, jhester1@saisd.net

Becky Anderson: Specialist, randerson4@saisd.net

Emily Aguilar: Specialist, eaguilar3@saisd.net

Lucy Gray: Specialist, lgray3@saisd.net

Michael Cortez: Specialist, mcortez6@saisd.net

Rosie Boblett: Specialist, rboblett1@saisd.net

Website: https://www.saisd.net/page/english-home%20-%20secondary
Location: 514 West Quincy Street, San Antonio, TX, USA
Phone: 2105542530
Twitter: @RLASAISD

Purpose of District Curated Book Lists:

To curate instructional literary texts to provide a sound list of engaging and grade-appropriate longer texts (i.e., novels, novels in verse, graphic novels) for our students. This curated list does not represent the only books teachers may use in classrooms, but represents the best selections vetted by a committee of educators and community stakeholders, in accordance with our SAISD Board Policy for Instructional Materials: Library, the SAISD Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Framework, and our district values. Criteria and process have been vetted by the SAISD Literacy Advisory Committee in the 23-24 school year.

Action Items ✅:

• Please recommend book titles using this form!
• Please consider joining one of our committees, receive free books, and talk books this summer! Please see this form for more details and to sign up!

We are working to get more information about the implication of automated scoring on ECRs during STAAR administration. TEA has released more clarifying information, emphasizing that scoring is a hybrid system involving humans and automated scoring engines (ASE). More information here: Hybrid Scoring Key Questions and 2023 STAAR Hybrid Scoring Study.

Findings from SAISD Pearson Visit 3/25:

• Biggest takeaway:

• The AI is working as far as we could tell

• Students can no longer expect points for writing anything—they will get a zero even if they have something written

• On the zero’s we saw, the reason why they are zeros:

• Off task:

• Not understanding the writing prompt

• Wrong genre: summary (so many summaries! That didn’t answer the prompt), narrative, description

• Did not understand the question: academic vocabulary/ideas

• Inaccurate response—there’s an answer and the kids are missing it (misreading the passage?, not seeing the importance, right answer)

• Refusal: song lyrics, don’t want to write this, etc.

• Too much copied directly from the passage

• Just a few words

• Duplicated text

• Another language

• Off-topic

Relevant news articles:

• Dallas Morning News Article

• San Antonio Report

Teachers will be supporting students in changing student passwords beginning March 19, 2024. This change is a result of identified compromising of student passwords. For over a decade, our students have been using a default password format: an uppercase first initial, a lowercase first letter of their last name, followed by their student ID (e.g., Em10248962). Unfortunately, this predictable pattern makes these passwords vulnerable to both external and internal threats.

Action Required by March 29:

As students’ digital presence expands, it becomes crucial for them to understand the significance of safeguarding their accounts. Teachers will be provided with a mini lesson to instruct how to effectively set up a strong password; a 1-minute video on how to set up the password on Classlink; and an exit ticket link to ensure all students have completed this important lesson

Teachers will conduct the mini lesson on the importance of a strong password or passphrase. As part of the lesson, all students will personalize and reset their unique passwords in Classlink. Default passwords are temporary. Students in grades 3-12 will set up security questions to be able to recover their passwords, if needed. Existing student ClassLink QuickCards will continue to be active and will not need to be reprinted.

Please see the posted memo for more information and additional support.

Please see the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity website for an exciting opportunity for our students! The essay prompt is, "With Politics gaining the bulk of discussion, what can the younger generation do to ensure that elected leaders understand the impact of gaining their vote?" Scholarships awarded to winners!

Please see this flyer for upcoming Secondary R-LA professional development. You will find information on our strands that will be offered on upcoming 50/50 staff development days. Unfortunately, we have had to cancel our September PLN Pull-Out dates, but we are hoping to begin offering them in October. See the dates on the second page of flyer.

We invite all STAAR-tested grade level teachers to vet our CBA2/Semester Exams.

CBA2/Semester Exam Vetting Window: 10/30-11/3
Please complete this short form by 4:30 pm, 10/26 to vet district CBA2s and Semester Exams.

All vetting will take place asynchronously through Eduphoria and Google Form to provide feedback at your own pace. All vetting is due at 11/3.

Once you sign up, more details will follow. The scope of the work entails about an hour per CBA/Semester Exam.

We are keeping these materials pinned here for a couple of weeks! At the the September 18 board meeting, Dr. Aquino shared Close Reading as a strategy SAISD schools are using to improve student performance. Many campuses are focusing on implementing Close Reading strategies across contents. Please see the below strategies to support implementation in R-LA and contact your R-LA specialist for support.

• Close Reading Process
• Close Reading and Multiple Reads One-Pager
• Rubric for Close Reading
• Grade-Level Close Reading Prompts by Genre: Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 8, English I, English II

Reminder! Before reading a text with students, plan for an SCR or ECR question for students to write to. Then, plan close reading prompts so that they align to that question. This will support students' reading and finding evidence for those questions. This purposeful reading will support comprehension for all aspects of the text.

Our SCR and ECR Instructional Supports:

• Support for Writing SCR/ECR Prompts: Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 8, English I, English II
• Pathways for Instruction: SCR and ECR
• SCR Rubric Template
• ECR Rubrics

1. Use released passages to see the full context of student responses
2. Follow these directions for printing all students' SCR and ECR responses in one document
3. In Eduphoria, use Analysis, Single Test, use:

• Learning Standard Summary tab to see performance by standard
• Item Response Analysis tab to see individual item performance (click on a question's bar and scroll down to see the question, correct answer, and answer distribution across students).

More Eduphoria support for teachers here.

We are excited to announce our Secondary RLA Professional Learning Series! We will be offering educators two ways to learn and collaborate on timely topics and strategies:

Canvas Course, complete with videos, collaboration opportunities, and resources

• Sign into Canvas from Classlink and then use this link
• Or use course code 66A449 to join

Videos posted to Twitter and YouTube

• Follow us on Twitter @SAISDRLA and search #SAISDSecRLAPL
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Please plan on using these as points of collaboration in PLCs or to process on your own.

We will be adding Canvas modules and videos this fall! Please use this survey to let us know what topics you would like to see represented.