Test Prep Without Teaching to the Test - Narrative Writing Task

March is upon us and usually this is the time of the year when teachers start to feel the test prep pressure. Administrators may as well be Paul Revere with their constant reminders of, "The PARCC is COMING! The PARCC is COMING!" And while we all know the redcoats...er...state test.. is upon us, there's usually nothing a teacher hates more than to stop everything and just start teaching to the test.  Yet despite how much we loathe this, most of us are guilty of doing it at one time or another. I know I am - guilty as charged! In my first few years teaching, I definitely felt the pressure to stop everything and just teach straight to the test.

The problem with this is not only did I hate doing it, my students hated it too. Just the mention of the word PARCC and my students roll their eyes and start to groan. So I have decided this year to save both myself and my students the torment of straight up teaching to the test.

To accomplish this, I needed to find ways to embed the skills, tasks, and activities they will be expected to complete on the PARCC in my daily instruction. While this might seem a daunting task, it's not as out of reach as you might think.

Most English teachers have novels that they love, and I am no exception. I am fortunate enough to be able to teach many wonderful novels that never seem to get old. Currently, I am teaching Fahrenheit 451, written by one of my all time favorite authors - the late, great, Ray Bradbury. If you've never had the pleasure of reading one of Mr. Bradbury's stories, you must remedy that as soon as possible by picking up one of his novels!

Bradbury's stories are AMAZING to teach with middle school students. His science fiction, dystopian tales capture their interest like no other author I have encountered thus far in my career. One of the things that makes Bradbury's writing so amazing his prolific use of figurative language. He can paint murals across buildings with his words.
 
How does this translate into PARCC prep? Well, one of the tasks my students will be expected to perform on the PARCC is writing a narrative essay. Their narrative will be based on a passage that they will be given. In order to do well, my students will have to either continue the story they were given or re-write that story from another point of view. They will also be required to imitate the author's style of that particular passage.

What better text to teach them how to imitate author's style than Fahrenheit 451?  Bradbury's writing is full of imagery, metaphors, similes, and personification with lines like: “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning”(Bradbury 1). 
 
So throughout the course of our reading I ask my students to write narratives based on their sections of reading of Fahrenheit 451.  This allows me to accomplish quite a few things aside from just test prep. While obviously, it is introducing my students to the types of prompts they will be exposed to on the test, it affords me the opportunity to teach them so much more. I get the chance to reintroduce plot structure to my students by having them outline their own stories using the basic plot conventions of an exposition, rising actions, climax, falling actions, and resolution. It also addresses the plot device of point of view and allows them to see how a story' perspective or tone can change through manipulating point of view. It also give us a chance to study the author's use of language and how those literary devices effect the reader and reveal to them insights on both plot and character. And finally, narrative writing gives my students the chance to be creative in their writing, when they are often confined to the formal style of an analytic, argumentative, or research essay.

All of those teaching opportunities, plus test prep and neither myself nor my students feel weighed down with the burden of test prep! Instead we can continue discussion about a text that we are both invested in and no mental drain, panic, or fear at the mention of the infamous PARCC.


In future posts I will share more ways I have incorporated dreaded PARCC Prep into my instruction of novels I love. But for now, if you are currently teaching Fahrenheit 451 and would like to use my narrative lessons please click on the following links:
Narrative Writing in "The Hearth & the Salamander"

Narrative Writing in "The Sieve & the Sand" 

Narrative Writing in "Burning Bright" 

Narrative Writing in Fahrenheit 451 Bundle Product