Pennsylvania System of School Assessment English Language Arts Grade 4

On Saturday, Uncle Theo took Mateo and Amina to Hearth Twist, a pretzel shop on Arch Street in Philadelphia. The air smelled like warm bread. Baker Nia set a bowl of dough on the counter and covered it with a clean cloth.

"This dough has to rest," Nia said. "Rest means it sits still so the yeast can make tiny bubbles. If I twist it too soon, the pretzels come out flat and tough." She tapped a card propped against the bowl. The card listed the steps from first to last: mix, rest, twist, dip, bake.

Mateo pointed at a pot of warm water. "Is that for washing hands?" he asked. Nia shook her head. "The dip is a quick bath for the twisted dough. It helps the crust turn brown. Hands are washed at the sink, not in the pretzel bath. I do not dip the dough before I twist it, and I do not bake it before the dip."

When the cloth came off, Nia twisted a pretzel into a knot with three openings. Amina tried the next knot. Hers was lumpy, with one thick side. Nia still dipped it and baked it. "Lumpy is still a pretzel if it has been rested, dipped, and baked," she said. "Pretty can wait. The order of the steps cannot."

At a high table, the two pretzels steamed. Amina bit the lumpy one. "It tastes the same as yours," she told Nia. Mateo nodded, crumbs of salt on his sleeve, and said the brown crust was the part worth waiting for.

On a cool September morning, fourth graders from a Kutztown school climbed the North Lookout at Hawk Mountain in Berks County. Ranger Ellis handed each pair a paper with three headings: Bird, Number, and Clue. Wind tugged at the corners of the paper.

"Write the bird name under Bird," Ellis said. "Write how many you see under Number. Under Clue, write the mark that helped you know the bird. A clue might be a rusty tail or the shape of a wing."

Priya and Owen shared a paper. A broad-winged hawk circled, and Priya wrote: Broad-winged hawk, 1, banded tail. Then four more broad-wings crossed in a loose line. Owen changed the 1 to a 5. He left the clue as it was.

A sharp-shinned hawk flashed past, smaller and quicker. Owen started to add it to the broad-wing number. Priya put her hand on the paper. "Different bird, different row. If we add it to the row we already used, the number will lie." They began a new line: Sharp-shinned hawk, 1, short rounded wings.

At the end, Ellis read the rows. The pair had 5 broad-winged hawks and 1 sharp-shinned hawk. The birds were already specks over the rocky slope. The paper still held the morning in two honest rows.

Stone Wheel Mill stands beside a creek in Bucks County. On a dry afternoon, Ben and his grandfather, Lou, visited with the guide, Helen. She stood by a wooden sluice. "A sluice is a channel that sends creek water toward the wheel," she said. The big wheel was still.

"The wheel turns only when water hits the paddles," Helen said. "If I lower this gate, water fills the sluice and the wheel starts. If I raise the gate, the water stays in the creek and the wheel rests." She lowered the gate. The paddles creaked, then turned.

Inside, a shaft joined the wheel to a round millstone. Grain trickled from a hopper onto the stone. "The turning stone rubs the grain into meal," Helen said. "No turning means no meal. The creek does not grind anything by itself."

Ben asked why a miller would not just smash the grain with a hammer. Helen smiled. "A hammer can crack one cup of grain. The stone can work a whole sack while the water does the pushing. The creek is the strength. The miller decides when that strength may enter."

Before they left, Helen raised the gate. The sluice emptied, and the wheel slowed until it stopped. Meal already in the bin stayed there, but no new grain became meal. On his worksheet Ben wrote the chain he had watched: gate down, water hits the paddles, wheel turns, stone grinds.

Dear Grandpa, I went to Presque Isle with my class today. A peninsula is a sandy arm of land that reaches into the water, and this one reaches into Lake Erie. We walked a beach on the lake side, not the bay side. Ms. Ortiz said the lake side gets the bigger waves.

I found three pieces of beach glass. Beach glass is a broken bit of bottle that sand and waves have rubbed until the edges are smooth. The edges do not cut. Mine were green, white, and a tiny blue one. I put them in a tin so they would not scratch my notebook.

At lunch, Malik set his crust on the sand while he opened his water. A gull stole the crust in one swoop. It was funny for a second and then it was a problem. Ms. Ortiz said food left on the sand teaches gulls to grab from people. We packed every crumb back into our bags. After that, the gulls stayed by the water and did not come to the towels.

I wish you had been here for the blue piece. It looks like a drop of the lake that decided to stay in my hand. I am keeping it in the tin until you visit, because a photo would not show how smooth it is. Love, Tessa.

A covered bridge still crosses a creek near Columbia, in Lancaster County. Fourth graders walked through Kreider's Bridge with their art teacher, Mr. Shah. Red boards and a shingled roof made the bridge look like a barn stretched over the water.

Mr. Shah asked them to study the bridge in three parts, moving from outside to inside to underneath. First they stood on the bank. They saw the red boards, the roof, and a dark rectangle of an entrance. "That outside view tells a traveler that a roof is waiting," he said.

Next they stepped inside. Daylight leaked between the wall boards. Thick planks made the floor. A painted sign said, "Leave the wood as you found it." No names were carved on the beams. Fern kept her pencil on the sketch page and off the wood.

Last they looked from the creekside path at the beams under the floor. Heavy timbers crossed in X shapes. "Those crossed timbers are braces," Mr. Shah said. "Braces keep the walls from leaning. Without them, the roof would sit on a crooked house."

Back in the classroom, the sketches were taped in the same order: outside, inside, underneath. Fern's last drawing was the X under the floor. A person reading the row from left to right could walk through the bridge without getting wet.

The Second Street Community Garden in Harrisburg fills a lot that used to be empty gravel. Fourth graders from a school two blocks away grow tomatoes there. This June the plants were flowering, but the soil looked pale and dusty. One hose served every bed.

Ms. Grant held the nozzle. "We share this hose. Each bed gets four minutes. Thirsty means the plants need water. Thirsty plants drop their flowers." She nodded at the bed on the sunny end, where the leaves had curled. "Last week that bed was skipped when the hose ran out."

Devon wanted a long drink for his own bed because his plants were the tallest. Lila pointed at the curled leaves. "Tall is not the same as thirsty," she said. "The end bed gets more sun and got no water last week."

They set a kitchen timer. Devon's bed got four minutes. Lila's bed got four. The end bed got four. When the hose was coiled, no bed was a puddle, and no bed had been skipped. Ms. Grant said the opened leaves, a week later, came from that fair drink.

Devon had called the timer strict. Then he saw new yellow flowers on the end row, and the curled leaves had opened flat. "Strict gave everybody a turn," he said. "My tall plants did not need the whole hose."

Junie needed a fact book for a report, so she went to the Hilltop Branch Library in Pittsburgh. Librarian Mr. Adey put one catalog card on the table. "A catalog card is a small record for one book," he said. "Read it from top to bottom. The title is the name. The author is the writer. The call number is the address on the shelf."

The card said: Title, Bridges of Our County. Author, Ruth Camden. Call number, 624.2 CAM. "Skip a line, and you may grab the right kind of picture by the wrong person, or the right person in the wrong aisle," Mr. Adey said.

He walked Junie toward the 600 shelves. "Nonfiction means books of real facts, not made-up stories. The 600s hold books about how things are built and how they work. The number 624.2 begins with 6, so this book lives in the 600s."

Junie reached for a novel with a bridge painted on the cover. It sat on a fiction shelf far from 624.2. "The picture matches my topic," she said. Mr. Adey nodded. "A picture is a hint, not an address. Our card's address is 624.2 CAM. That is Ruth Camden's fact book."

The spine of the book they pulled showed 624.2 CAM. The first page named Ruth Camden, and a photo inside showed a county bridge with its roof still on. Junie slid the novel back. "I can like the picture," she said, "and still follow the card."

Ridge Basket Orchard covers a windy hill in Adams County. Fourth graders came to pick apples for a school bake sale. Farmer Cole gave one rule at the first tree. "Both feet stay on the ground or on a rung you can name," he said. "If you cannot name the rung, you are reaching too far."

He held up a nicked apple. "A bruise is a soft brown spot that forms when an apple hits the ground. A bruise does not sell, and it will not bake well either." He set the nicked apple aside in a peck basket for the deer, not for the sale.

Carmen wanted the red apple at the tip of a branch. She put one foot on the lowest rung. The apple was still a hand higher than her fingers. Farmer Cole shook his head. "That apple can wait for a taller picker. Your basket does not have to hold the hardest apple. It has to hold sound ones."

Her partner, Deon, picked from the middle of the tree. He turned each apple and twisted. If it did not let go, he left it. "A hard tug tears the stem spot," he said. "A torn spot spoils in the box." Carmen copied his twist on the apples she could name a rung beneath.

At the scale, the two baskets weighed almost the same. None of their apples had bruises. The tip apple was still on the branch. Carmen grinned. "Somebody taller can have the show-off. We have pie apples."

The trail beside Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia was still dark with night rain. Fourth graders walked in a line behind Ms. Brennan. A sign at the first bend said, "Voices low. Wildlife hears more than you think."

A great blue heron stood in the shallows. Its legs looked like two gray sticks. Omar lifted his hands, ready to clap so the bird would fly and show its wide wings. Ms. Brennan shook her head. "A clap is a cause with a result you may not want," she said. "A result is what happens because of an action. The heron came here to fish. A loud noise can send it off before it eats."

They kept still. The heron stabbed the water and lifted a small silver fish. Only then did it open its wings. Nobody had clapped. The wings were wider than Omar's outstretched arms. The bird flapped up the creek and became a gray angle over the trees.

On the walk back, Omar said, "I almost traded the fish for a flap." Ms. Brennan nodded. "You got the flap anyway. Waiting let the heron finish its meal first." The class kept voices low until the trail met the road.

At the Bloomsburg Fair, Jules and Noor entered pumpkins in the youth table. The table had two ribbons, not one. A card explained them. The Weight Ribbon went to the heaviest pumpkin. The Story Ribbon went to the pumpkin with the best true growing story. A true growing story is a real account of how the pumpkin was raised, written on a card in front of it.

Jules brought a huge pale pumpkin that took both arms. The scale read 42 pounds. His card said, "I watered it when Mom reminded me." That was true, and it was only one sentence.

Noor brought a smaller pumpkin, deep orange, at 11 pounds. Her card said, "I planted the seed in a cracked pot behind our steps. Hail broke two leaves in June. I tied the vine to the railing and carried water up the steps all summer."

Judge Patel read both cards aloud. She set the Weight Ribbon by Jules's pumpkin. She set the Story Ribbon by Noor's card. "Heavy is a fact the scale can prove," she said. "A story ribbon is for the work a scale cannot see. Both facts can be true in the same row."

Jules read Noor's card again, then his own short line. "I can write the rest next year," he said. "The pounds were real. The reminders were not the whole work."

A coal museum in Scranton kept a narrow room of mining lamps. Caleb and his aunt had come in with a crowd, but the other visitors moved on to a big map. Caleb stayed in front of a cap lamp. A cap lamp is a light a miner could wear on a hat, so both hands stayed free for work.

The guide, Ms. Voss, stopped beside him. "That lamp burned oil," she said. "A flame gave light, and a flame also used up fresh air. Later lamps used batteries. A battery lamp makes light without a flame, so it does not eat the air the miners needed to breathe."

Caleb thought of the flashlight by his bed. It clicked on with a battery and never flickered like a candle. "Then the newer lamp answered a danger the older lamp made," he said. Ms. Voss nodded. "You found the pattern of this room. Each case shows a problem, then a change that answered it."

He read the card in the next case. Miners once carried open flames, and gas in the tunnels could catch fire from those flames. A later lamp put a wire screen around the flame. Caleb whispered the pattern so he would remember it: problem, then change. He did not need the map to tell him how to read the room.

A sugar shack near Stroudsburg steamed on a bright March morning. Snow still sat in the woods. Hana and her cousin Felix watched Mr. Lane, the sugarmaker, tap a maple. He drilled a small hole, set a spout, and hung a bucket.

"Sap is the watery juice inside the tree," Mr. Lane said. "It is not syrup yet. Sap is thin and barely sweet. We collect it, then we boil it." He pointed at a wide pan over a wood fire. "Boiling sends water off as steam. What stays in the pan gets thicker and sweeter. That thicker liquid is syrup. Stop too soon, and it stays watery. Boil too long, and it burns into bitter crystals."

A thermometer hung on the pan. Mr. Lane also lifted a spoon. "Big slow bubbles and a sheet of syrup on the spoon mean we are close. The thermometer is one clue. The spoon is another. I trust them together, not one alone."

Inside, the cousins tasted sap from a cup and syrup from a spoon. The sap tasted like cold water with a hint of sweet. The syrup tasted like the smell of the steamy shack. Hana said, "The tree gave us the sap. The fire did the changing." Mr. Lane agreed. "No tree, no sap. No fire, no syrup. Both are causes."

March 12. Today our class visited a handbell practice in Bethlehem. I thought bells belonged only in towers, high over a street. These bells were small enough to hold. Each ringer had some notes, not all of them. Ms. Alvarez played the middle bells. I only watched.

She lifted her hands and the group started. Then she stopped them. "If one person rushes, the chord trips," she said. A chord is several notes sounded together. I liked the word. It sounded like a door opening into a song, even though it really means notes standing side by side.

I wanted the smallest bell, the one with the thin handle. Ms. Alvarez let me hold it during the soft part, but I was not to ring it. My job was to keep it still so it would not speak at the wrong time. I had not expected stillness to be the work.

When the piece ended, the room seemed to hum for one extra second. On the bus I told Luis I had played nothing. Then I changed the sentence. I had played the rest. A song can need a quiet hand as much as a ringing one, and I do not want to forget that.

The clay studio in New Hope smelled like a riverbank after rain. Hasan stayed after school for pottery club. He had shaped a bowl on the wheel, and the walls looked even. He set it on a shelf to dry. By Friday a thin crack ran from the rim down toward the base.

Ms. Ortega did not drop the bowl in the scrap bucket. "A crack is a message," she said. "This one says the wall dried faster than the base. When one part shrinks, which means gets smaller, before the other part does, the clay splits." She showed him how to wrap the next bowl in plastic so the whole piece would dry together.

Hasan wanted the cracked bowl in the bucket, out of sight. Ms. Ortega set it on the front table instead. "We can keep a mistake where we can see it. Seeing it helps the next bowl. Hiding it helps no one."

He made a second bowl and wrapped it. It dried with no crack. Both bowls went into the kiln, a very hot oven for clay. The first stayed cracked. The second gave a soft ring when Hasan tapped the rim. He told the club, "The cracked one taught the wrapped one. I am glad we did not hide the teacher."

On Saturday at Central Market in Lancaster, Amira carried a list from her uncle. Four lines were written in his square print: celery, a round cheese, rye bread, and a bunch of thyme. Under the lines he had added, "Do not buy parsley. Thyme is the herb for this soup."

Amira and Aunt Laila walked the aisles in the order of the list, top to bottom. Celery came from a green stand. At the next counter, Mr. Holt wrapped a round cheese in paper. The rye bread was still warm, and Amira checked it off before the bag had cooled.

At the herb stand, the seller held up a curly bunch. "Parsley is the popular one today," she said. Amira looked at the paper again. "Popular is not the same as written." She chose thyme instead. Thyme is an herb with tiny leaves and a sharper smell than the parsley in the seller's other hand.

At home, Uncle Rashid sniffed the bag and smiled. "You followed the lines, not the louder choice." Celery went into the pot, cheese melted on the warm bread, and thyme sat on top of the soup. The parsley stayed at the market. The checked list, folded once, lay under the soup spoon.

The fourth grade in Allentown performs this short play in the gym before the winter parade.

Characters: Rin, a student. Sam, a friend. Ms. Dale, the teacher.

RIN: My left mitten is gone. I put both blue mittens on the bench. Now one is missing. I cannot march with one cold hand.

SAM: I see a red mitten by the trombone case. Yours are blue. The red one belongs to the drum line.

MS. DALE: Look for the match, not for any warm thing. A match is the mitten that pairs with the one still on your hand. Check the color, then the size.

Rin kneels and looks under the bench. A blue mitten is hooked on a cart wheel.

RIN: It was never gone from the gym. It was hidden under the bench. I blamed the parade too soon.

MS. DALE: A missing thing is sometimes a nearby thing. Searching the last place beats guessing a far one.

SAM: And the red mitten stays with the drums.

Clouds stacked over Tussey Ridge near State College. Fourth graders had hiked a rocky path with their teacher, Ms. Okafor, and two parents, Mr. and Ms. Chen. The plan was to eat lunch at the lookout, then walk down the same trail.

Halfway up, the wind changed its mind. Cold rain pushed sideways. The rocks turned slick. Wes slipped, caught a root, and stayed on his feet. He was not hurt, but his palm was muddy and his heart was loud.

Ms. Okafor studied the sky, then the path ahead. "The lookout is the goal," she said. "A goal can change when the path becomes unsafe. Unsafe means someone can get hurt if we keep going. We turn back while the way down is still the way we know."

A few students groaned. They wanted the view they had been promised. Mr. Chen said a view would not help a twisted ankle on a wet rock. The class turned around. They ate lunch at a picnic shelter by the trailhead instead of on the ridge. Rain tapped the roof. Wes washed his palm at the fountain.

On Monday, Ms. Okafor wrote four words on the board: rain, slick rocks, a slip, a turn. "We did not fail the hike," she said. "We finished a different ending, and everybody walked back in."