WOW was definitely the word for some of the final Technology writing assignments finished up today in class. Several students had a hard time picking which of their drafts from last week, they wanted to send into the contest, because they had more than one outstanding start. But everyone did have to pick one of their pieces of technology writing and do the final editing today in class.

After writing time, everyone was given and had to read a yellow ISTEP+ Grade 7 Item Sampler packet. It contained an actual writing prompt that had been on a previous ISTEP for the 7th grade level and examples of 7th grader responses. Each example was scored with comments to help everyone understand what were good and what were bad examples.

Mrs. Scales explained that we would be given a homework packet each day this week and that each packet would be an actual past example from ISTEP. This way we can get lots of practice and feel more comfortable before next week when we really have to take the ISTEP tests. Today’s homework packet (lavender) is the same writing prompt that our examples in the yellow packet was. It asks us to write an essay about a book, movie, or television show we have recently read or seen that we would recommend to a friend. We are not allowed to use any of the books or movies used in the example packet. This will also be great practice for writing our literary circle responses that are due on Wednesday.