MCAS PREP for ELA: Grades 6,7,8, and 10

(please let me know if you'd like me to send this to you as a Google doc.)

This a four-week, twenty day, MCAS prep unit for English Language Arts; all of the lesson plans—activator, mini-lesson, activity, wrap-up—are included, and most importantly, the actual hand-out/s for each day. In addition, the English Language Arts Core Curriculum standards are included both on the daily lesson plans, and on the activity itself. Included are high interest short stories—such as Amy Tan’s “The Rules of the Game”—and documentaries—such as Foodinc., Supersize Me, Trouble the Water, etc. and MCAS type multiple-choice questions which I have painstakingly created using actual MCAS questions as a guide for each day. Academic vocabulary, synonyms/antonyms, idioms, prefixes/suffixes, etc. and the eight parts of speech are studied, as well as test taking strategies, two wonderfully creative ways to learn the Open Response protocol—one, a song; the second—an acronym which “clicks” with students—as well as links to nonfiction pieces from such sites as the BBC and The New Yorker which reinforce content from the video clips included for short stories/documentaries, etc. In addition, I include strategies to “unpack” the important features, main idea, supporting details, textual features, etc. in any nonfiction article encountered. I have raised the bar to teach this to sixth grade—it is easily used with no adaptions other than ELA Core Standards for grades 7,8,and 10.