2015-16 Fifth-Grade and Eighth-Grade Writing Tests

• The fifth and eighth grade writing prompts for the 2015-2016 school year will be field tests. There will be no operational tests for the 2015-2016 school year.
• Students will read two passages, which may be fiction or non-fiction, and respond to a single writing prompt. 
• All three writing modes will be field tested.
• Schools will receive summary reports of the results to be used to inform instruction.

• The scoring rubric for the 2015-2016 Writing field tests will be the Oklahoma state-developed rubric used in 2012 and in prior years.
• The State Assessment Rubric (2012) is a five-trait rubric and is PASS aligned.
• The State Assessment Rubric (2012) is not mode specific and is appropriate for on-demand writing.
• The State Assessment Rubric (2012) is nearly identical to the rubric currently used for scoring the End-of-Instruction English II and English III Writing Tests. This will allow for vertical alignment as students continue to progress in their writing instruction and development.
• The mode-specific rubrics used to score the 2013-2015 Writing Tests are still appropriate tools to use for formative assessments and for the writing process, which includes revisions and multiple drafts.