TESTING DATES: ELA/ PBA MARCH 24-25, 2015
The Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) is administered after approximately 75% of the school year
is completed. The ELA/Literacy PBA at each grade level will focus on writing effectively when analyzing
texts and will include three tasks: a literary analysis, a research simulation, and a narrative task. For
each task, students will be asked to read one or more texts, answer several comprehension and
vocabulary questions, and write an essay that requires them to draw evidence from the text(s).
The End-of-Year Assessment (EOY) is administered after approximately 90% of the school year is
completed. The ELA/Literacy EOY at each grade level will include at least five texts, both literary and
informational, and will focus on reading comprehension. To be able to provide results quickly, the EOY
will consist entirely of computer-scored items.
Jack London, whose life symbolized the power of will, was the most successful writer in America in the early 20th Century. His vigorous stories of men and animals against the environment, and survival against hardships were drawn mainly from his own experience. An illegitimate child, London passed his childhood in poverty in the Oakland slums. At the age of 17, he ventured to sea on a sealing ship. The turning point of his life was a thirty-day imprisonment that was so degrading it made him decide to turn to education and pursue a career in writing. His years in the Klondike searching for gold left their mark in his best short stories; among them, The Call of the Wild, and White Fang. His best novel, The Sea-Wolf, was based on his experiences at sea. His work embraced the concepts of unconfined individualism and Darwinism in its exploration of the laws of nature. He retired to his ranch near Sonoma, where he died at age 40 of various diseases and drug treatments.
