How this Spanish teacher helped students ace the Seal of Biliteracy & AP exams

Spanish teacher Andrea Quintanar uses LearningWrite to help students of all levels practice writing in Spanish.

Department: 20 Spanish Teachers

Goal: Align teaching objectives with Seal of Biliteracy

Andrea Quintanar

Lockport Township High School
World Languages and Cultures Department
Spanish & English Learners Teacher

Seal of Biliteracy

Andrea Quintanar is a Spanish language teacher, split between world language students at varying levels and her English Learner students.

To say the least, she is crunched for time.

And a few years ago, the department was exploring what it would look like to transition from the STAMP test to the Seal of Biliteracy.

Along with the new testing standards, Andrea wanted to find a way to benchmark student progress.

Avant recommended LearningWrite as a way for students to practice writing in Spanish to prepare for the Seal of Biliteracy exam.

Spanish teacher Andrea Quintanar shares how LearningWrite helped prepare LTHS students for the Seal of Biliteracy exams.

Here’s how Andrea uses LearningWrite in her classrooms

For all levels of Spanish on the Seal of Biliteracy track
With her English Learner students
With AP Spanish students
Every week or every other week
Exclusively in periods of online learning
Paired with handwritten assignments
Choosing AP-themed prompts tied to that module’s content
Auto-scoring student responses with Seal of Biliteracy standards
Leaving individualized feedback on student responses as she’s able
Creating her own prompts when she needs a custom topic

“I’ve found that using LearningWrite encourages students to write more. They’ll actually write more than the word count goal or than if they were to handwrite an assignment.

There’s a finite goal to benchmark against, and it helps students work towards that real-world, concrete achievement.”

— Andrea Quintanar, Teacher

LearningWrite is another easy way for students to absorb and apply learning objectives.

BENEFITS

Saves prep time
Gives students confidence in their scores & their progress
Simulates real-world goals and outcomes
Helps accelerated students continue to excel
Provides struggling students with extra practice

How students were impacted

LearningWrite helped Andrea smooth a student’s transition to a new class by providing a sharable record of his Spanish writing progress.

Andrea also worked with a Spanish heritage speaker. She knew this student would excel, and that she could start to push this student through the Spanish program on the fast-track.

Andrea used LearningWrite in this student’s freshman year, and that experience gave the student confidence that she really was scoring well for Seal of Biliteracy standards.

Andrea knew one of her students spoke Spanish at home, but there was no evidence that he could write in Spanish as well.

With LearningWrite, she was able to see a record of his Spanish writing samples over time.

This portfolio of the student’s work helped his teachers support continuity of instruction as he progressed over the years.

Andrea used LearningWrite to help prepare a student to achieve a perfect score on the AP Spanish test.

Andrea’s student went on to skip Spanish 4, and…

Ace the Seal of Biliteracy exam

Receive a the top mark (a “5”) on the AP Spanish Literature exam
Achieve a perfect score on the AP Spanish Language & Culture exam (one of only 77 students worldwide to do so!)

“The auto-scoring feature gives students confidence as they’re working toward the Seal of Biliteracy exam. They know the score they’re receiving on their written responses isn’t biased. And that it reflects their future performance on the test.”