For the past three years I have been fortunate to work with professionals from NYSED and NWEA alongside other 8th grade educators from all across New York State in writing, editing, reviewing and designing the NYS ELA Exam.  As an item writer, I wrote 16 standards based items across different performance levels from a passage selected to be used on a live state exam.  These items followed state guidelines and item specifications and had to include parallel written distractors, a key answer and include a detailed rationale for each item’s response.  The process required not only multiple choice questions to be written but 2 point and 4 point constructed response prompts as well.  

As an item reviewer, I worked alongside peers as we read over the passages and items. We checked that the questions and prompts aligned to the standards and did not contain any bias or sensitivity issues that might cause concern for the students taking the exam.  We also reviewed the distractors, the vocabulary used and ensured that each met the NYS specifications, and that each item had an accurate key answer. We then selected the 7 questions that would address a variety of standards to be used for each passage on the exam.  The passages were then ordered in a way that allowed for maximum student potential.  I was then asked to commission three passages, a mix of literary and informational texts on approved topics that are currently in the process of being field tested, with the hope that they will be used on live exams in the future.