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• Test Prep Strategies
• Constructed Response Questions

Constructed-Response Questions — Here Is How to Answer Them

What Is a Constructed-Response Question?

In most states, constructed-response questions (CRQs) are part of educational testing for teachers. These questions require you to produce or construct the answer and are considered a way to more thoroughly assess your subject knowledge. CRQs can be as simple as writing a sentence or two – or as complex as designing a complete lesson plan.

Multiple-choice tests can measure factual knowledge, but CRQs measure skills like:

• An example might be writing your own definition of each of the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and then developing a question for each level.
• An example might be explaining why you came to your conclusions about the best way to handle this situation.
• Higher-level thinking typically includes both critical thinking and problem-solving. These skills are seen in determining cause and effect, comparing and contrasting, categorizing, drawing conclusions, or synthesizing information from a variety of sources. An example might be taking what you have learned about classroom management and using it to determine what your first day as a classroom teacher might look like. From that, you might explain how you would solve the problem of two students refusing to do their work and disrupting the class instead.

How Do I Write My Response to a CRQ?

There are lots of different types of CRQs. Luckily, many 240 Tutoring Study Guides include sample prompts and responses modeled precisely after the CRQs for your specific exam. But in general, here is our suggested approach:

1. Read and reread the question or prompt carefully.

Understanding what the question is asking is the critical first step to planning your answer. More mistakes are made from misunderstanding what is being asked rather than not knowing the information. Instead of quickly reading through the question and assuming you understand it, take the time to review and internalize what is being asked. Doing so will allow you to avoid making a costly mistake and risk potentially failing your exam. There are several important questions to ask yourself as you re-read your CRQ:

• “Exactly what is this question asking me to do?”
• “How many parts are there in this question?”
• “Is the answer stated explicitly in what I am viewing – such as a written lesson, graph, chart, etc.?”
• “Is the question asking me to connect something that I am viewing with information that I already know?”

2. Make a sketch or outline.

Jot down the key points you want to make in your response. Be sure to include each part or item you need to answer from within the question. If the prompt requires it, make a list of details or reasons you will use to support your answers.

Depending on your question, this could look as complex as this:

Or as simple as this:

3. Write your response.

Write the answers you planned in the previous step using complete sentences. This is your chance to show what you know about the topic, so make sure to use detailed explanations and relevant vocabulary.

• For responses with multiple paragraphs or parts, use transition words like first , second , then , next , finally , and in conclusion .
• For literary or argumentative essays, answer the question simply and accurately in the form of a complete statement at the end of the introductory paragraph. This should form your thesis statement which directly responds to the question being asked and serves as a type of “roadmap” for your response.
• The number of paragraphs should reflect the number of points asked for in the questions. A prompt might say something like “Give three main reasons for teaching reading skills in all classrooms.” Your response should then include an opening paragraph and three paragraphs that include details of each of the reasons.
• Write a closing paragraph that adequately summarizes each main point of the body paragraphs. The first sentence of the conclusion should rephrase your thesis statement. The second sentence should reiterate how the ideas described in the body paragraphs correspond to your thesis statement.

4. Check your work.

With whatever time you have left, read over your response. Check that you answered all parts of the question clearly. Look for any grammatical or punctuation errors. Remember, you want to show that as a teacher, you can clearly communicate your ideas.

It is also essential to properly pace yourself during the exam in order to allow time to construct a quality CRQ response. 240 Tutoring study guides break down each exam’s structure and provide timed practice to help you understand the best pacing techniques.

TIPS : The most important parts of a CRQ are the introduction, the first and last sentence of each paragraph, and the conclusion. Each introduction sentence to a paragraph should introduce the point of the paragraph and how that point relates to the thesis statement.

How Are CRQs Scored?

Constructed responses are typically graded with a numeric rubric. The rating scale can vary depending on your exam. It might be a 0-2 scale or a 1-12 scale. A scoring guide for a CRQ rubric might look something like this:

How Can I Prepare for the CRQ Portion of My Exam?

Studying for the multiple-choice portion of your exam will also prepare you for the essay response portion because you will apply the same subject matter knowledge. But CRQs also measure complex, higher-level, and critical thinking skills. The best way to prepare is to practice planning and writing responses to a variety of prompts. You can search for sample questions online and on your official exam website. Many 240 study guides include full length practice prompts and sample responses for you to review.

Constructed-Response Examples

The following are some examples of prompts that test-takers might encounter:

• Literature — Write an essay comparing and contrasting the theme of two poems, stories, or plays, including details supporting your response.
• Mathematics — Write a mathematical equation to solve a problem presented in words or graphs. Develop a word problem based on a given mathematical equation.
• Biology — Describe in detail how a biological process occurs in a plant and then explain how it enhances the plant’s ability to survive or to reproduce.
• History — Write an essay comparing two instances of political processes that occurred concurrently or at different times in different regions of the world.
• Teaching Pedagogy – Review a case study, then identify two ways the teacher could improve their lesson with explanations about why each would be effective.

Now that we’ve given you information about constructed-response questions and strategies for tackling them, they’re not so scary, right? Think of CRQs as an opportunity for you to show off what you know about your subject area and your ability to communicate. You’ve got this!

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TOPICS A. Fill-in-the-Blank Items B. Essay Questions C. Scoring Options

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11.9: Constructed Response Items

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• Kelvin Seifert & Rosemary Sutton
• University of Manitoba & Cleveland State University via Global Text Project

Formal assessment also includes constructed response items in which students are asked to recall information and create an answer— not just recognize if the answer is correct— so guessing is reduced. Constructed response items can be used to assess a wide variety of kinds of knowledge and two major kinds are discussed: completion or short answer (also called short response) and extended response .

Completion and short answer

Completion and short answer items can be answered in a word, phrase, number, or symbol. These types of items are essentially the same only varying in whether the problem is presented as a statement or a question (Linn & Miller 2005). For example:

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Completion: The first traffic light in the US was invented by

Short Answer: Who invented the first traffic light in the US?

These items are often used in mathematics tests, e.g.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\)

If x = 6, what does x(x-i) =

A major advantage of these items is they that they are easy to construct. However, apart from their use in mathematics they are unsuitable for measuring complex learning outcomes and are often difficult to score. Completion and short answer tests are sometimes called objective tests as the intent is that there is only one correct answer and so there is no variability in scoring but unless the question is phrased very carefully, there are frequently a variety of correct answers. For example, consider the item Where was President Lincoln born?

The teacher may expect the answer "in a log cabin" but other correct answers are also "on Sinking Spring Farm", 'in Hardin County" or "in Kentucky". Common errors in these items are summarized in Table \(\PageIndex{1}\).

Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) : Common errors in constructed response items

Extended response

Extended response items are used in many content areas and answers may vary in length from a paragraph to several pages. Questions that require longer responses are often called essay questions. Extended response items have several advantages and the most important is their adaptability for measuring complex learning outcomes— particularly integration and application. These items also require that students write and therefore provide teachers a way to assess writing skills. A commonly cited advantage to these items is their ease in construction; however, carefully worded items that are related to learning outcomes and assess complex learning are hard to devise (Linn & Miller, 2005). Well-constructed items phrase the question so the task of the student is clear. Often this involves providing hints or planning notes. In the first example below the actual question is clear not only because of the wording but because of the format (i.e. it is placed in a box). In the second and third examples planning notes are provided:

Example \(\PageIndex{1}\): Third grade mathematics

The owner of a bookstore gave 14 books to the school. The principal will give an equal number of books to each of three classrooms and the remaining books to the school library. How many books could the principal give to each student and the school?

Show all your work on the space below and on the next page. Explain in words how you found the answer. Tell why you took the steps you did to solve the problem.

From Illinois Standards Achievement Test, 2006; ( www.isbe.state.il.us/assessment/isat.htm ')

Example \(\PageIndex{2}\): Fifth grade science: The grass is always greener

Jose and Maria noticed three different types of soil, black soil, sand, and clay, were found in their neighborhood. They decided to investigate the question, "How does the type of soil (black soil, sand, and clay) under grass sod affect the height of grass?"

Plan an investigation that could answer their new question.

In your plan, be sure to include:

• Prediction of the outcome of the investigation
• Materials needed to do the investigation
• Procedure that includes:
• one variable kept the same (controlled)
• one variable changed (manipulated)
• any variables being measure and recorded

• how often measurements are taken and recorded (From Washington State 2004 assessment of student learning )

Exercise \(\PageIndex{3}\): Grades 9-11 English

Writing prompt

Some people think that schools should teach students how to cook. Other people think that cooking is something that ought to be taught in the home. What do you think? Explain why you think as you do.

Planning notes

Choose One:

• I think schools should teach students how to cook
• I think cooking should 1 be taught in the home

I think cooking should be taught in _________ because________ (school) or (the home)

(From Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English www.isbe.state.il.us/assessment/image.htm dead link found in the Internet Archive)

A major disadvantage of extended response items is the difficulty in reliable scoring. Not only do various teachers score the same response differently but also the same teacher may score the identical response differently on various occasions (Linn & Miller 2005). A variety of steps can be taken to improve the reliability and validity of scoring. First, teachers should begin by writing an outline of a model answer. This helps make it clear what students are expected to include. Second, a sample of the answers should be read. This assists in determining what the students can do and if there are any common misconceptions arising from the question. Third, teachers have to decide what to do about irrelevant information that is included (e.g. is it ignored or are students penalized) and how to evaluate mechanical errors such as grammar and spelling. Then, a point scoring or a scoring rubric should be used.

In point scoring components of the answer are assigned points. For example, if students were asked:

Exercise \(\PageIndex{4}\)

What are the nature, symptoms, and risk factors of hyperthermia?

Point Scoring Guide:

• Definition (natures) 2 pts
• Symptoms (1 pt for each) 5 pts
• Risk Factors (1 point for each) 5 pts
• Writing 3 pts

This provides some guidance for evaluation and helps consistency but point scoring systems often lead the teacher to focus on facts (e.g. naming risk factors) rather than higher level thinking that may undermine the validity of the assessment if the teachers' purposes include higher level thinking. A better approach is to use a scoring rubric that describes the quality of the answer or performance at each level.

Scoring rubrics

Scoring rubrics can be holistic or analytical . In holistic scoring rubrics, general descriptions of performance are made and a single overall score is obtained. An example from grade 2 language arts in Los Angeles Unified School District classifies responses into four levels: not proficient, partially proficient, proficient and advanced is on Table \(\PageIndex{1}\).

Table \(\PageIndex{2}\) : Example of holistic scoring rubric: English language arts grade 2

Assignment. Write about an interesting, fun, or exciting story you have read in class this year. Some of the things you could write about are:

• What happened in the story (the plot or events)
• Where the events took place (the setting)
• People, animals, or things in the story ( the characters)

In your writing make sure you use facts and details from the story to describe everything clearly.

After you write about the story, explain what makes the story interesting, fun or exciting.

Analytical rubrics provide descriptions of levels of student performance on a variety of characteristics. For example, six characteristics used for assessing writing developed by the Education Northwest are:

• ideas and content • organization • voice • word choice • sentence fluency • conventions

Descriptions of high, medium, and low responses for each characteristic are available from Education Northwest

Holistic rubrics have the advantages that they can be developed more quickly than analytical rubrics. They are also faster to use as there is only one dimension to examine. However, they do not provide students feedback about which aspects of the response are strong and which aspects need improvement (Linn & Miller, 2005). This means they are less useful for assessment for learning. An important use of rubrics is to use them as teaching tools and provide them to students before the assessment so they know what knowledge and skills are expected.

Teachers can use scoring rubrics as part of instruction by giving students the rubric during instruction, providing several responses, and analyzing these responses in terms of the rubric. For example, use of accurate terminology is one dimension of the science rubric in Table 40. An elementary science teacher could discuss why it is important for scientists to use accurate terminology, give examples of inaccurate and accurate terminology, provide that component of the scoring rubric to students, distribute some examples of student responses (maybe from former students), and then discuss how these responses would be classified according to the rubric. This strategy of assessment for learning should be more effective if the teacher (a) emphasizes to students why using accurate terminology is important when learning science rather than how to get a good grade on the test (we provide more details about this in the section on motivation later in this chapter); (b) provides an exemplary response so students can see a model; and (c) emphasizes that the goal is student improvement on this skill not ranking students.

Table \(\PageIndex{3}\) Example of a scoring rubric, Science

*On the High School Assessment, the application of a concept to a practical problem or real-world situation will be scored when it is required in the response and requested in the item stem.

Performance assessments

Typically in performance assessments students complete a specific task while teachers observe the process or procedure (e.g. data collection in an experiment) as well as the product (e.g. completed report) (Popham, 2005; Stiggens, 2005). The tasks that students complete in performance assessments are not simple— in contrast to selected response items— and include the following:

• playing a musical instrument
• athletic skills
• artistic creation
• conversing in a foreign language
• engaging in a debate about political issues
• conducting an experiment in science
• repairing a machine
• writing a term paper
• using interaction skills to play together

These examples all involve complex skills but illustrate that the term performance assessment is used in a variety of ways. For example, the teacher may not observe all of the process (e.g. she sees a draft paper but the final product is written during out-of-school hours) and essay tests are typically classified as performance assessments (Airasian, 2000). In addition, in some performance assessments there may be no clear product (e.g. the performance maybe group interaction skills).

Two related terms, alternative assessment and authentic assessment are sometimes used instead of performance assessment but they have different meanings (Linn & Miller, 2005). Alternative assessment refers to tasks that are not pencil-and-paper and while many performance assessments are not pencil-and paper tasks some are (e.g. writing a term paper, essay tests). Authentic assessment is used to describe tasks that students do that are similar to those in the "real world". Classroom tasks vary in level of authenticity (Popham, 2005). For example, a Japanese language class taught in a high school in Chicago conversing in Japanese in Tokyo is highly authentic— but only possible in a study abroad program or trip to Japan. Conversing in Japanese with native Japanese speakers in Chicago is also highly authentic, and conversing with the teacher in Japanese during class is moderately authentic. Much less authentic is a matching test on English and Japanese words. In a language arts class, writing a letter (to an editor) or a memo to the principal is highly authentic as letters and memos are common work products. However, writing a five-paragraph paper is not as authentic as such papers are not used in the world of work. However, a five paragraph paper is a complex task and would typically be classified as a performance assessment.

Advantages and disadvantages

There are several advantages of performance assessments (Linn & Miller 2005). First, the focus is on complex learning outcomes that often cannot be measured by other methods. Second, performance assessments typically assess process or procedure as well as the product. For example, the teacher can observe if the students are repairing the machine using the appropriate tools and procedures as well as whether the machine functions properly after the repairs. Third, well designed performance assessments communicate the instructional goals and meaningful learning clearly to students. For example, if the topic in a fifth grade art class is one-point perspective the performance assessment could be drawing a city scene that illustrates one point perspective. (www.sanford-artedventures.com) . This assessment is meaningful and clearly communicates the learning goal. This performance assessment is a good instructional activity and has good content validity— common with well designed performance assessments (Linn & Miller 2005).

One major disadvantage with performance assessments is that they are typically very time consuming for students and teachers. This means that fewer assessments can be gathered so if they are not carefully devised fewer learning goals will be assessed— which can reduce content validity. State curriculum guidelines can be helpful in determining what should be included in a performance assessment. For example, Eric, a dance teacher in a high school in Tennessee learns that the state standards indicate that dance students at the highest level should be able to do demonstrate consistency and clarity in performing technical skills by:

• performing complex movement combinations to music in a variety of meters and styles
• performing combinations and variations in a broad dynamic range
• demonstrating improvement in performing movement combinations through self-evaluation
• critiquing a live or taped dance production based on given criteria
• ( https://www.tn.gov/education/instruction/academic-standards/arts-education.html )

Eric devises the following performance task for his eleventh grade modern dance class .

In groups 0/4-6 students will perform a dance at least 5 minutes in length. The dance selected should be multifaceted so that all the dancers can demonstrate technical skills, complex movements, and a dynamic range (Items 1-2). Students will videotape their rehearsals and document how they improved through self evaluation (Item 3). Each group will view and critique the final performance of one other group in class (Item 4). Eric would need to scaffold most steps in this performance assessment. The groups probably would need guidance in selecting a dance that allowed all the dancers to demonstrate the appropriate skills; critiquing their own performances constructively; working effectively as a team, and applying criteria to evaluate a dance.

Another disadvantage of performance assessments is they are hard to assess reliably which can lead to inaccuracy and unfair evaluation. As with any constructed response assessment, scoring rubrics are very important. An example of holistic and analytic scoring rubrics designed to assess a completed product are in Table \(\PageIndex{2}\) and Table \(\PageIndex{3}\). A rubric designed to assess the process of group interactions is in Table \(\PageIndex{4}\).

Table \(\PageIndex{4}\) : Example of group interaction rubric

This rubric was devised for middle grade science but could be used in other subject areas when assessing group process. In some performance assessments several scoring rubrics should be used. In the dance performance example above Eric should have scoring rubrics for the performance skills, the improvement based on self evaluation, the team work, and the critique of the other group. Obviously, devising a good performance assessment is complex and Linn and Miller (2005) recommend that teachers should:

• Create performance assessments that require students to use complex cognitive skills. Sometimes teachers devise assessments that are interesting and that the students enjoy but do not require students to use higher level cognitive skills that lead to significant learning. Focusing on high level skills and learning outcomes is particularly important because performance assessments are typically so time consuming.

• Ensure that the task is clear to the students. Performance assessments typically require multiple steps so students need to have the necessary prerequisite skills and knowledge as well as clear directions. Careful scaffolding is important for successful performance assessments.

• Specify expectations of the performance clearly by providing students scoring rubrics during the instruction. This not only helps students understand what it expected but it also guarantees that teachers are clear about what they expect. Thinking this through while planning the performance assessment can be difficult for teachers but is crucial as it typically leads to revisions of the actual assessment and directions provided to students.

• Reduce the importance of unessential skills in completing the task. What skills are essential depends on the purpose of the task. For example, for a science report, is the use of publishing software essential? If the purpose of the assessment is for students to demonstrate the process of the scientific method including writing a report, then the format of the report may not be significant. However, if the purpose includes integrating two subject areas, science and technology, then the use of publishing software is important. Because performance assessments take time it is tempting to include multiple skills without carefully considering if all the skills are essential to the learning goals.

Constructed Response Items

• First Online: 08 February 2023

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• Mohamed H. Taha   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0808-5590 5  

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Constructed response items (CRIs) are types of questions used to assess higher levels of the cognitive domain such as knowledge synthesis, evaluation, and creation. Many formats of CRIs are existing including long essay questions, short answer questions (SAQs), and the modified essay questions (MEQs). The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to CRIs’ different formats, applications, their strengths and weakness, and how to construct them.

By the end of this chapter, the reader is expected to be able to

Discuss the different types of constructed response items’ strengths and weaknesses.

Recognize how to create constructed response items.

• Constructed response items
• Open-ended questions
• Essay questions

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Further Reading

Downing, S. M. (2003). Validity: on the meaningful interpretation of assessment data. Medical education, 37(9), 830-837.

Downing, S. M. (2003). Item response theory: applications of modern test theory in medical education. Medical education, 37(8), 739-745.

Farmer EA, Page G. A practical guide to assessing clinical decision-making skills using the key features approach. Med Educ. 2005;39(12):1188–94.

Hift, R. J. (2014). Should essays and other “open-ended”-type questions retain a place in written summative assessment in clinical medicine?. BMC medical education, 14(1), 1-18.

Knox, J. D. (1989). What is.… a Modified Essay Question?. Medical teacher, 11(1), 51-57.

Knox, J. D. E. (1980). Use modified essay questions. Medical teacher, 2(1), 20-24.

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Alaa AbuElgasim Mohamed Ibrahim

Medical Education Department College of Medicine, Qassim University, Buraidah, Saudi Arabia

Majed M. Wadi

College of Medicine and Medical Education, Centre University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

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Taha, M.H. (2023). Constructed Response Items. In: Gasmalla, H.E.E., Ibrahim, A.A.M., Wadi, M.M., Taha, M.H. (eds) Written Assessment in Medical Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11752-7_4

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Engaging Resources for Teaching Literacy

By Sara Whittaker Leave a Comment Episode: 125

Providing Students a 5-Step Process for Writing a Constructed Response Paragraph

Click play below to hear a 5-step process for writing a constructed response paragraph:

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast! We’re in the middle of a three part series about test prep and ways to make students feel more confident, particularly when writing a constructed response paragraph. We know that this portion of the test can be challenging for students, which is why I’ve come up with a 5-step process that will increase their confidence when writing a constructed response paragraph on test day.

In order to help students be more successful, I breakdown each of the five steps and provide more insight as to the importance of writing a constructed response paragraph. The 5 steps to my process are:

• Read and summarize the text
• Confirm students understand all parts of prompt
• Plan constructed response
• Write constructed response
• Review response

Writing a constructed response paragraph on test day can be difficult for some students. However, by practicing, this process should become more automatic and normal for students in order to help them be more successful when the day comes. 

Stay tuned to next week’s episode as we wrap up with five test taking strategies that will help your students feel more confident on test day!

In this episode on writing a constructed response paragraph, I share:

• 5 step framework to writing constructed response paragraph
• Various ways to break down the prompt
• A tip for making the process more automatic for students
• List of review questions as a final checklist for your constructed response paragraph
• Check out the Stellar Teacher Reading Membership
• If you’re enjoying this podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

Related episodes and blog posts:

• Episode 124, Mastering the Constructed Response: A Teacher’s Guide to Boosting Student Confidence
• Episode 75, 7 Test Prep Strategies for Student Success
• Episode 16, Engaging Test Prep Tips
• My Best Test Prep Tips for Upper Elementary Reading Teachers

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Hey, there friends, happy Monday. And welcome back to another episode of the podcast. We are currently in a three week series all about test prep. I know you don’t love it, your students don’t love it. But it is something that we want to make sure that they are prepared for.

And so I wanted to carve out some time in this podcast to share with you some really simple test prep strategies, and frameworks that will help you feel confident and helping your students become more confident for the end of your test.

If you are just finding this podcast for the very first time, welcome, so glad you’re here. And if you missed last week’s episode, go back and check out episode number 124, Mastering the Constructed Response: A Teacher’s Guide to Boosting student Confidence. In that episode, I provided just six tips of general things that you can do to help your students feel more confident with the constructed response portion of their tests.

And one of the things that I suggested in that episode is providing students with a process or framework for writing their actual constructed response. And I kind of explained it a little bit. But if you are unsure of how to do that, I have a solution for you. And that’s exactly what I’m going to talk about in this episode.

Obviously, that is like the bulk of coming up with a constructed response. And so I wanted to give you guys a five step process that you can share with your students to help them create a well crafted constructed response. So we’re going to talk about that five step process.

In this podcast episode, I always love sharing really practical and actionable strategies. And this is something that you can start doing with your students today. You’re also want to go to stellarteacher.com/cr, that’s CR for constructed response, to grab a free checklist.

I put together a checklist of the steps that I’m going to share with you in this podcast episode that you can then share with your students. So that way, when you are practicing your constructed response, when you’re just preparing for the test, you can give your students a tangible checklist that they can go through. And they can check things off as they’re getting ready to prepare for their constructed response. So go to stellar teacher.com/cr, to grab the free download that goes with today’s episode. And let’s go ahead and jump right into the five step process for writing a constructed response.

So before students even begin to write their constructed response, they need to have a really thorough understanding of the text. And we want them to understand that reading and summarizing the text is really a key part of crafting a constructed response. So that is the first step, the first step to writing a constructed response is to read and summarize the text.

And your students have probably heard you say that before. And so we want to kind of give them some things that they can do it within this first step so that way, it’s like, you know, yeah, yeah, I read and summarized the text, it’s like, no, no, no, have you done these things?

So, obviously, we want students to read the text. But we also want them to get in the habit of annotating while they’re reading. Annotating is simply them making little notes in the margins, making notes in the text, maybe they underline something that’s important, they might come up with some symbols, you know, if they’ve got a question or you know, there’s a key character, or you know, an important part happened, they might star it.

But annotating the text is going to help them really stay engaged with the reading process, and it’s going to help them just internalize and really synthesize what it is that they are reading at a much higher level than if they didn’t. And then of course, at the very end after they’ve read and annotated the text, we want to have students summarize the text using their own words.

And, you know, this could be something where students at the end, they write out a summary. You can even just get them in the habit, okay, I’ve read the text and I’m going to pause and close my test booklet and I’m going to give a summary in my head, and I’m just going to recount what it is that happened.

And I think this is really important because when students summarize the text using their own words, they are ensuring that they have a clear understanding of the content. And as students are going to respond to the content in a constructed response, they really need to have a strong understanding of it. So step number one, read and summarize the text.

The next step then is to have them confirm that they understand all parts of the prompt. And it’s really important that students understand all parts of the prompt before they begin to write. You know, we don’t want students to just jump right into the writing part, you know, they quickly read the question, and then they put their pencil to the paper and start writing.

So since that’s not the way we want them to go, we really need to teach them to slow down and analyze the prompt before they begin to write. Prompts are often multi step, and students need to make sure that they are fully responding to all parts of the prompt if they want to get full credit for it. So you know, we don’t want students just to answer the first question and forget to provide evidence or, you know, answer one part of it, but forget the other.

So they really need to make sure that they have a clear understanding of what the prompt is asking them to do. So a few things that you can have your students do to make sure they understand the prompt is to first of all identify all of the verbs in the prompt. This is going to help students know that they’re responding in the right way.

You know, oftentimes, a prompt might ask students to identify blank and then explain blank, or it might ask students to state blank and then provide evidence of whatever it is. So make sure that students understand the verbs and what those verbs are asking them to do. Like if the word support is included in the prompt, do students understand what they do with that word, that support means that they’re looking for evidence in the text that they have to find two or three pieces of example that supports their original claim.

So make sure students can identify the verbs and that they understand what the verbs in the prompt mean. And you also want students to be able to determine how many different elements or parts need to be included in the constructed response. And maybe you have students do this with a highlighter, so they can color code the different parts of the question. And then when you’re practicing, they can highlight their answer to make sure that they’ve included all of the parts.

But make sure students understand, okay, this response requires two parts, this response requires three parts. So that way when they’re putting their outline and their response together there including the correct number of elements in their response to fully satisfy the question.

And then the final thing that you can have students do to make sure that they fully understand the prompt, is have them restate the question using their own words. You know, can they take a step back and say, Okay, this question is really asking me to identify the main idea, or this question is asking me to pick the best option and explain why.

Whatever it is, have them practice restating the question using their own words, because then they’re going to feel a lot more confident in their ability to fully respond to the prompt.

So once students understand the prompt, then we want them to plan out their constructed response before just jumping in to responding to it. So step number three is plan your constructed response. And students often don’t take the time to plan and outline their writing, which can cause them to be less intentional, it can cause them to have a weaker response.

And so we want students to actually create an outline for their constructed response. And you can give them a really simple paragraph organization, topic sentence, two to three details and a closing statement or concluding statement if needed, you know, if it’s required of the prompt.

And when students are outlining, they don’t need to write in complete sentences, you know, they can simply list out you know, T S for topic sentence, and then they can even rewrite the question as a statement, they could list out detail number one, detail number two, detail number three, and then they can fill out their outline using symbols or words or abbreviations to help them come up with their thoughts before writing.

And when students take the time to plan their constructed response, they can go back in the text, they can find the text evidence and the details to support their answer, they can think about the order of the details that they want to share, they can take some time to really think about, okay, what is the strongest detail or the strongest evidence that supports my thinking.

Taking time to outline a constructed response kind of gives students that opportunity to take a deep breath, think about what it is that they want to say, and then plan how they’re going to say it. So make sure your students understand that creating an outline and a plan for their constructed response is an important step to take before they jump in and start writing.

Okay, we are on to step number four, which is when the students are actually going to write their constructed response. And this is usually the stuff that students want to rush to, but notice, it’s step number four, meaning there’s quite a few things that students need to have happen, or to think about before they even begin writing their constructed response paragraph at all.

So if students have done steps one, two or three, then they should have an outline, which is going to make writing the constructed response that much easier. But a few things that you could have them do to help them craft their constructive response is have them write their topic sentence. And a really easy way to have students do this is to have them restate the question as a statement.

And if you listened to episode number 124, then you heard me talk about how I suggest doing sentence transformations as a regular part of your test prep practice. And if your students do a daily sentence transformation, then coming up with a topic sentence is no problem for them at all.

So have students write their topic sentence, and then they’re going to simply look at their outline and for every detail that they want to include, or every piece of evidence they want to include in their outline, they’re going to write a complete sentence to explain that detail or that piece of evidence.

So step number four really isn’t that difficult if students have taken the time to break down and analyze the prompt to create their outline, because now all they’re doing is turning their ideas into complete sentences. And again, if you’ve been practicing sentence writing, like I suggested in episode number 124, then this is going to be a piece of cake for your students.

Finally, the last step that students can do and that we want them to do is to review their constructed response and confirm that it fully satisfies the prompt, which means they need to make sure that they’ve answered all parts. So this is where we want students to reread the prompt, you know, make sure that they go back and say, Okay, this prompt was asking me to, and they restated, in their own words, this prompt was asking me to provide two parts to my response, so I’m gonna make sure that there’s two parts in my response.

And then they’re gonna reread their entire answer. And I love giving students kind of a series of questions that they can ask themselves, almost as like this final checklist.

And so some things that you want students to ask themselves as they’re reviewing their constructed response is, first of all, does my response fully respond to the prompt? Am I clear and concise in my explanation? Do I restate the question as a statement as my topic sentence? And do I include details from the text or other pieces of evidence to support my answer?

And if students can answer yes to all four of those questions, then they should feel really confident that they’re answering a constructed response in a really accurate and strong way. So step number five, we definitely want students to review and confirm that their constructed response is completely responding to the prompt.

Now, obviously, students aren’t going to have this checklist with the five steps or those questions we want them to ask at the end on test day. But if you practice this enough with them between now and when they take their test, this process should feel a little more automatic and normal for them. And they shouldn’t really have any questions about what should I be doing on test day.

So let me just quickly review the five steps to helping your students craft a constructed response. Step number one, read and summarize the text. Step number two, confirm that your students understand all parts of the prompt. Step number three, plan your constructed response. Step number four, write your constructed response. And then step number five, review your constructed response and confirm it fully satisfies the prompt.

So hopefully, this helps you feel a little more confident and how you can support your students as they prepare for the constructed response portion of their test. And be sure to go to stellar teacher.com/cr to grab this free download. That includes the checklist of all of the items that I explained in this episode, so that way, you can start using it today with your students when they sit down to practice their constructed response.

And don’t forget, we’ve got one more episode left in our little test prep series. So join me next Monday where I’ll be sharing five test taking strategies that will help your students feel more confident on test day. Have a stellar week.

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Answering the Constructed Response Essay Question - A Writing Exercise to Help Prepare K-12 Students for Standardized Testing

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What is a Constructed Response?

A constructed response is a type of open-ended essay question that demonstrates cognitive knowledge and reasoning. The answer must be provided using information that can be found in a particular text or other essay prompt (map, picture, graphic organizer, etc.), and is not meant to demonstrate opinion, but to show how you are able to extract information and use this as the basis for forming a complete answer. Constructed response essays are increasingly used on standardized tests ranging from the statewide assessments that usually begin in third grade all the way up to the college placement exams such as the SAT and ACT.

To understand and answer the constructed response essay question, the easiest way is to memorize the acronym “RACE” - this stands for reword, answer, cite and explain. If you are able to restate a question, provide an answer using evidence cited from the prompt given, and then explain how that evidence does, in fact, support the answer, you will probably score well on the constructed response essay section of any exam you take.

Rewording the Question (the “R” in “RACE”)

Reword the question means that you are to restate the question and make it into a statement as a part of the answer you provide. If you were to be asked “What color is the sky?”, you would not simply answer “blue” - instead, the correct answer would be “The color of the sky is blue,” or words to that effect.

Answering the Question (the “A” in “RACE”)

In order to answer the question, you need to understand what you are being asked, and then make sure you provide the answer to that specific question. The answer, as in the example above, may come in the first sentence as you reword the question into a statement, but in an essay question you will then need to show how you arrived at your answer.

Citing Evidence (the “C” in “RACE”)

As the constructed response question is meant to show how well you comprehended and were able to draw inferences from the essay prompt, it is essential that you give examples from the prompt to show how they support your answer. If the prompt is a story you read about a boy named Joe who loves to ski, and the question is “Does Joe like the winter?”, you could answer “Joe likes the winter because the story tells us that he loves skiing and skiing is a winter sport.” In your essay you could go on to provide specific details that tell you how much he enjoys skiing (and, by extension, winter), such as quoting a line that says “Joe enjoyed the feel of the icy-cold air on his cheeks.”

Explaining the Answer (the “E” in “RACE”)

In addition to the evidence you’ve cited from the prompt, you will need to supply your own reasoning for why you think your answer is correct. Returning to the example above, the story about Joe who loved to ski, your examples from the text would be the details about how he enjoyed skiing and the cold air, but your own reasoning would be demonstrated by explaining that you know that skiing and cold air are things he is only likely to encounter during the winter, therefore his enjoyment of these things must mean that he also enjoys the winter season.

A Rubric for Evaluating the Constructed Response

If your answer to the constructed response essay question displays an understanding of the question in all its complexity, uses information from the prompt (either information directly presented to you or that you’ve inferred) and provides a complete explanation of how the answer was arrived at that demonstrates your use of logic or reasoning, you may receive the highest score (usually a 3) on your answer. If your answer addresses some of the question or uses evidence that only partially supports your conclusion or does not directly connect to it, you may receive a somewhat lower grade of 2. If you attempt to answer the question but your essay demonstrates that you may have musunderstood it, or your answer lacks any relevant or meaningful supporting evidence to support your conclusion, you may receive an even lower grade of 1. If you do not answer at all, or if your answer is incorrect or irrelevant, you may receive the lowest grade of 0.

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How to write a constructed-response answer.

An easy to understand Online Writing Guide for beginning writers.  Here you will find a list of various writing models, general tips and hints to help guide you to writing success.

The big idea

"Constructed-response answer" is the newfangled term for what we used to call a "short-answer essay question." All it means is that you're going to answer the question in one well-written paragraph.  If you follow these guidelines, your answers should generally be complete enough to make your teacher happy.

How to do it

Here are the parts you need to include in a constructed-response answer:

• Restatement Don't just copy the question; restate the question in your answer.  If the question is "What important things do we learn about the character of Charlie in the story?" your answer will begin with something like "The important things we learn about the character of Charlie are..."
• Answer Answer all parts of the question. (Note that the restatement and answer can, if you do it right, be your topic sentence.)
• Evidence Cite the proof for your answer.  Find a quote that proves what you're trying to say.  Begin with a phrase like, "As it says in..." and say where you got your information.  REMEMBER: you need to put quotation marks around any quote you use!
• Analysis This is where you're going to explain your choice of quote.  Why, of all the sentences that are written in the book or article you used, did you choose the sentence you chose?  What is this quote showing the reader that helps to make your point?  Begin your analysis with the phrase, "This shows that..." Then tell us what it shows.
• Conclusion Briefly restate your topic sentence.  Begin with a standard conclusion phrase: "In conclusion..." or "As you can see..."

What important information do we learn about Charlie and his family in chapters 1-5?  Use quotes to prove your point.

We learn many important things about Charlie in the first five chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, including the fact that his family is poor.  As it says in chapter one, "There wasn't any question of them being able to buy a better house--or even one more bed to sleep in.  They were far too poor for that." This shows that the family doesn't have enough money to spend on two beds for the two sets of grandparents.  In conclusion, this is one of the important pieces of information we learn about Charlie and his family.

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Ways to Support Students with Constructed Response Reading Questions

Over the last decade, there has been a major shift in reading assessments. Students used to be assessed only on multiple choice questions. However, now they are required to write constructed response reading questions.

Answering constructed response questions requires a different set of skills than those that are needed for multiple choice questions and can be a challenging task for students, especially for those who struggle with reading comprehension or writing skills. This post shares strategies to help support students with constructed response tasks and questions.

What are Constructed Response Questions?

Before diving into the tips and strategies, first let’s define and look at examples of constructed response questions in reading.

Constructed response questions are types of questions that require a written (or spoken) response, as opposed to multiple choice or true/false questions. These questions are often used in assessments and standardized tests to evaluate a student’s understanding or ability to apply knowledge.

Examples of constructed response questions can include the following:

• Fill-in-the-blank questions
• Short answer questions
• Essay questions

This post will focus more on sharing strategies and tips for answering short answer constructed response questions such as:

• Identify the theme of the story and how the author supports the theme throughout the story.
• What motivated the character to take action? Include text evidence in your response.
• How does the setting impact the plot? Provide specific examples and details from the story to support your answer.

I have found that these types of questions are difficult for students for many reasons. Here are a few:

• Having choices provides a scaffold for students who may not understand what the question is asking. When those choices are taken away, the cognitive demand is all on the student to fully understand what the question is asking.
• Organizing an answer in a logical way can be a challenge for many students.
• Finding, rewording, and explaining text evidence in a constructed response question can be tricky.
• Spelling and writing conventions can make it difficult for students to show what they know about a text or story.

Now, let’s look at some strategies for supporting your students with constructed response questions in the area of reading (these also work in other areas as well).

Strategy #1- Explicitly teach and model writing constructed responses.

Modeling and providing examples is so important when helping students understand how to answer constructed response reading questions correctly.

When you are explicitly teaching how to answer constructed response questions, model each part that is needed in a quality response. You could model how you would answer one of the questions yourself, provide examples from past student work, use released examples from state tests, use sample answers from published materials, or even co-create the response with students as an exemplary model.

Modeling and explicitly teaching how to answer constructed response questions will not only show your students what an effective answer looks like but will also make them feel more confident when answering these questions themselves.

Strategy #2 – Teach students an acronym to help them remember the parts of a quality response.

Acronyms are a great instructional tool to help students remember the steps or process of a task. Using an acronym to help students keep track of the steps or parts of a quality constructed response task will help them feel more confident and master the skill.

Here are some example constructed response acronyms:

RAP – Restate the question. Answer the question. Prove your answer.

ACE – Answer the question. Cite text evidence. Explain the text evidence you cited.

RACE – Restate the question. Answer the question. Cite text evidence. Explain the text evidence you cited.

The RACE strategy is my personal favorite to use. Click here to read a detailed post about this strategy with tips and free resources for teaching each step.

Strategy #3 – Have the students color code the different parts of their response.

This next strategy works well if you don’t want to use an acronym (to keep the writing responses from being formulaic) but it also works well with an acronym.

Have students use a different colored pencil (or pen – they would love that!) for each different part of a quality response:

• Answer in a complete sentence
• Evidence from the text
• Explanation

This color-coding strategy is perfect for enhancing students’ written responses and making them higher quality while also providing engaging practice (and practice is so important with this skill).

Click here to download the “Color Code Your Answers” printable . Print the posters at 80% or two to a page for interactive notebooks.

Strategy #4- Have students verbally rehearse their responses with partners before writing.

One of the strategies that really helps my students is having them verbally rehearse what they will write with their partners before they start writing. This helps them get their thoughts straight before they begin writing.

My students are all grouped in a way where they have elbow partners or turn and talk partners. When I do verbal rehearsals, I always give the students 1-3 minutes to gather their thoughts before they share with a partner.

The partner talk follows this sequence when they are discussing:

• Partner 1 Share
• Partner 2 Share
• Compare and Contrast Responses

After the students share with a partner, they are ready to begin writing their responses.

Strategy #5 – Provide sentences stems for the students to use in their responses.

Sentence stems help students get started with their answers and use complete sentences. They also provide a scaffold to ensure students know what the question is asking them.

I use sentence stems for nearly every written response that I give in the beginning of the year, across all subjects. When we do verbal rehearsals, I remind the students to use the sentence stems. I usually post them on an anchor chart and give the students a reference to post in their notebooks.

For specific sentence stem anchor charts/posters for common core reading standards, click on your grade level.

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3rd Grade Common Core Reading Sentence Stems Posters

4th Grade Common Core Reading Sentence Stems Posters

5th Grade Common Core Reading Sentence Stems Posters

Strategy #6 – provide a word bank of words..

Providing students with a word bank of suggested or required words to use in their response is a great strategy to use in small group and whole group.

This strategy works well because it both scaffolds the students’ responses and gets them in the habit of using grade level vocabulary and/or specific words from the text in their responses.

The first few times I do this, I model how to find the words in the question and the text that would need to be used in the response. After the students become more familiar with this, we brainstorm as a class the 3-5 words that would need to be included in a response.

When the students are writing their responses, they underline the words from the word bank that they used. Sometimes, I require them to use all of the words and sometimes I only require a certain number to be used.

Strategy #7 – Read the text and discuss it as a class.

In order to scaffold my students, I like to use a common text that all the students have access to. This can be a read aloud or a passage. Having a common text allows us to read and discuss the text together before the students begin answering questions or completing tasks.

In the beginning of the year, we do a lot of common text reading and discussing before the students are required to answer constructed response reading questions on their own. This is helpful for several reasons:

• It ensures the students have a solid understanding of the story or text.
• It offers a scaffold and reduces the cognitive demand. Students can focus on answering the constructed response task without having to worry about reading, comprehending, and analyzing the story/text on their own.
• It gives students the confidence to tackle more challenging questions or tasks.

Click here to see the passages and text-dependent questions that I use. The set includes fiction, nonfiction, and paired passages. Each passage has several constructed response questions to allow the students multiple opportunities to practice answering questions with the same text.

Strategy #8 – Discuss the constructed response question(s) before reading and have students highlight the text evidence and details.

This strategy works with both mentor texts and passages. Prior to reading the selection or passage, go over the question(s) the students will be expected to answer. This gives them a focus for their reading and allows them to read/listen with that focus in mind.

If you are using a read aloud that the students do not all have access to, have the students keep a post-it note and jot down notes and textual evidence as you read. If the students have a copy of the text, they can highlight or underline the evidence that they will need to refer back to when answering the question.

Strategy #9 – Add in movement to engage the students.

Incorporating movement is always a great strategy with tricky skills and concepts (especially the ones that require a lot of student buy-in). This is a great strategy to use once students have mastered the basics of answering constructed response questions but still need practice and/or peer support.

To add in movement with constructed response questions, follow these steps:

• Post 4-6 constructed response reading questions around the room.
• Divide your students into the same number of groups as there are questions. If you have large groups, create partners inside the groups. For example, if you have a group of 6 students, create three partnerships within the group.
• Read the text together or have the students read with partners or independently.
• Have the students rotate (I recommend at your signal) around the room answering the questions on a piece of paper.

This activity not only gets students up and moving, but it also allows them to collaborate with their peers.

To read about this strategy being implemented in math, click here.

Strategy #10 – Have students peer edit responses.

After your students have written their constructed responses independently, have them switch papers with a partner and read each other’s answers. Ask them to look for evidence of the parts that make up a quality constructed response (restating the question, answering the question, citing text evidence, and explaining the evidence).

This strategy is helpful for these reasons:

• It helps students become aware and mindful of their own responses.
• It allows them to see examples from their peers.
• It teaches them to look for specific elements that make up quality responses.

Answering constructed response tasks and questions can definitely be a challenge for students and teachers. Hopefully, these strategies will help!

Need activities and resources for constructed response practice?

Reading Constructed Response Practice BUNDLE – Digital and Printable

Share the knowledge, reader interactions.

February 9, 2017 at 10:04 pm

thanks! this was helpful 🙂

April 21, 2019 at 8:54 pm

Excellent list, such helpful ideas! Thank you for sharing your expertise!

November 3, 2019 at 5:45 am

Great ideas

February 5, 2020 at 8:27 am

These are awesome resources. Unfortunately the link for the sentence stem posters for the Common Core Reading Standards takes you to a division resource.

May 2, 2020 at 2:32 pm

Thank you for the GREAT strategies! Plan to use them to help my students enhance their reading!

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5.7: Sample Response Essays

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• Sample response paper "Spread Feminism, Not Germs" in PDF with margin notes     
• Sample response paper "Spread Feminism, Not Germs" accessible version with notes in parentheses     
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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

What We Owe the People of East Palestine

E ver since the derailment of a freight train and its aftermath last year in East Palestine, Ohio, Americans have been awakened to the troubled reality of rail safety. While the headlines around that incident have faded, the Biden Administration’s commitment to action has not. When President Biden visited, his message to the community was clear: we will stay as long as it takes, we will continue to hold Norfolk Southern accountable, and we will push the entire industry to be safer.

The thing I remember best from my own visit to East Palestine is the decency and resilience of the residents who were working in and around the nearby church that doubled as a community response center. Since that visit, I’ve kept up with some of those I met on that trip. Again and again, two themes ring clear: their determination not to be defined by this derailment, and their insistence that the community‘s experience not be forgotten. Holding in mind the voices of East Palestine and of every American community that sits along a railroad, I have spent the year since that incident challenging the rail industry, Congress, and our own Department to do everything possible to make our railroads safer.

My Department has pushed forward on safety measures, including last week’s major announcement that our Federal Railroad Administration finalized a long-sought rule to establish minimum safety requirements for the size of train crews. Most Americans would be surprised to learn that before this rule, there was nothing to prevent a railroad from unilaterally reducing the crew size aboard a train to just one person—even on a two-mile-long train—without even notifying our Department. Fixing this has long been a railroad safety priority, and despite industry opposition, it is finally a reality.

This is just the latest step that we have taken with the authorities we have as an administration. From the first days of the Biden Administration, and with renewed urgency since the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, we have used our funding and regulatory authority to improve safety and force railroad companies to do better.

In addition to the safe crew size rule we just finalized, our Federal Railroad Administration has completed 7,500 focused inspections along high-hazard flammable train routes. We’ve issued safety advisories and advanced policies to make operations safer, addressing tank car types, train lengths, hazmat spills, and worker protections.    

We developed a new rule to require railroads to provide real-time information to first responders when a hazmat incident occurs—and we made $30 million available to support training for first responders.

Meanwhile, we have been using the resources of the Biden infrastructure package to improve the physical infrastructure of America’s rail networks. Under President Biden’s leadership, we have awarded billions to modernize rail infrastructure and improve hundreds of dangerous highway-rail crossings.

We’ve also taken action to help improve conditions for those working in the industry. And after significant pressure on industry from President Biden, labor unions, and our department, approximately 89% of Class I freight railroad workers now have paid sick days, up from less than 5% around a little more than a year ago.

While we are proud of this ongoing work, the reality is that many important changes cannot happen without legislative change—which is why I am urgently renewing my call on Congress to step up.  

Just over a year ago, in the wake of the East Palestine disaster, the bipartisan Railway Safety Act was introduced in Congress, with support from our administration. Yet the law has been stalled ever since by the railroad industry lobby and its Congressional allies.

This legislation is long overdue. It would phase in safer tank cars, require defect detectors, expand the list of hazardous materials that qualify for stricter safety precautions, and more.

The provisions of this law are commonsensical. For example, under existing law, the maximum fine we can impose—even for an egregious rail safety violation that gets someone killed—is less than $250,000. This is a trivial sum for a railroad corporation posting profits in the billions each year. In other areas, like airline passenger protection, our administration has demonstrated that fines can change the behavior of corporations—but only if they are tough enough. The Railway Safety Act would increase the cap on fines against railroads so that they can actually change the companies’ approach.

This provision, and many others in the proposed new law, would give us a stronger hand to keep Americans safe and hold industry to a higher standard. It would save lives.   

The railroad industry is aggressively lobbying against the legislation. And some of the same Republican Representatives and Senators who were loudest in professing outrage over the derailment one year ago have gone uncharacteristically silent on the subject, now that their votes are needed to pass it into law.   

It doesn’t have to be this way. At other moments in the past, Congress has demonstrated the capacity to stand up to the multi-billion-dollar railroad corporations and enact meaningful safety reforms. The early part of this century saw a number of high-profile freight rail incidents across the U.S. and Canada, including mass-casualty incidents like one in Quebec that left 47 people dead and leveled a town, and another in South Carolina that killed ten people and sent hundreds to the hospital with chlorine exposure. Those events led to significant new rail safety changes—with real results, including a reduction in derailments.     

But as attention faded on those incidents, the railroad industry was consistently able to weaken or delay important safety provisions. Today, while lower than it was at its peak, the rate of derailments remains unacceptable. America has averaged multiple train derailments per day for as long as I’ve been alive. It is an unacceptable status quo.

Experience has shown that freight railroading, which is an immensely profitable business, will be better off when the country holds it to a higher standard. The Biden Administration is taking every needed step that does not require an Act of Congress—but now Congress must act.

The choice is clear: Congress can side with the railroad industry lobby that wants to water down efforts to strengthen safety requirements, or it can step up and pass the Railway Safety Act.  

We owe this to the people of East Palestine, who have long been calling for this legislation to pass. If we get this right, their community will be known not only for the derailment that upended everyday life there, but for the lifesaving reforms that came next.   

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Strong Taiwan Quake Kills 9, Injures Hundreds

The earthquake was the most powerful to hit the island in 25 years. Dozens of people remained trapped, and many buildings were damaged, with the worst centered in the city of Hualien.

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• Hualien, Taiwan A landslide after the quake. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
• New Taipei City, Taiwan Books flew off shelves as a home shook. @Abalamindo via Storyful
• Taipei, Taiwan Passengers waiting at a train station as some services were suspended. Chiang Ying-Ying/Associated Press
• Hualien, Taiwan People are rescued from a building that had partially collapsed. TVBS via Associated Press
• Hualien, Taiwan Firefighters rescuing trapped residents from a building. CTI News via Reuters
• Taipei, Taiwan Students evacuated to a school courtyard after the earthquake. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
• Guishan Island, Taiwan Rocks tumbling down one side of an island popular for hiking. Lavine Lin via Reuters
• Hualien, Taiwan A building leaned to one side after the quake. Randy Yang via Associated Press
• Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan Watching news on a rooftop of a hotel after a tsunami warning. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
• Hualien, Taiwan Motorbikes damaged in the quake. TVBS via Associated Press
• New Taipei City, Taiwan Damage in an apartment Fabian Hamacher/Reuters
• New Taipei City, Taiwan Water cascading down a building during the quake. Wang via Reuters

Meaghan Tobin and Victoria Kim

Here’s what you need to know about the earthquake.

Taiwan was rocked Wednesday morning by the island’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century, a magnitude 7.4 tremor that killed at least nine people, injured more than 800 others and trapped dozens of people.

The heaviest damage was in Hualien County on the island’s east coast, a sleepy, scenic area prone to earthquakes. Footage from the aftermath showed a 10-story building there partially collapsed and leaning heavily to one side, from which residents emerged through windows and climbed down ladders, assisted by rescuers. Three hikers were killed after being hit by falling rocks on a hiking trail in Taroko National Park, according to the county government.

By late afternoon, officials said rescue efforts were underway to try to rescue 127 people who were trapped, many of them on hiking trails in Hualien.

One building in Changhua County, on the island’s west coast, collapsed entirely. The quake was felt throughout Taiwan and set off at least nine landslides, sending rocks tumbling onto Suhua Highway in Hualien, according to local media reports. Rail services were halted at one point across the island.

The earthquake, with an epicenter off Taiwan’s east coast, struck during the morning commute, shortly before 8 a.m. Taiwanese authorities said by 3 p.m., more than 100 aftershocks, many of them stronger than magnitude 5, had rumbled through the area.

In the capital, Taipei, buildings shook for over a minute from the initial quake. Taiwan is at the intersection of the Philippine Sea tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate, making it vulnerable to seismic activity. Hualien sits on multiple active faults, and 17 people died in a quake there in 2018.

Here is the latest:

The earthquake hit Taiwan as many people there were preparing to travel for Tomb Sweeping Day, a holiday across the Chinese-speaking world when people mourn the dead and make offerings at their graves. Officials warned the public to stay away from visiting tombs in mountain areas as a precaution, especially because rain was forecast in the coming days.

TSMC, the world’s biggest maker of advanced semiconductors, briefly evacuated workers from its factories but said a few hours later that they were returning to work. Chip production is highly precise, and even short shutdowns can cost millions of dollars.

Christopher Buckley

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice president, who is also its president-elect, visited the city of Hualien this afternoon to assess the destruction and the rescue efforts, a government announcement said. Mr. Lai, who will become president in May, said the most urgent tasks were rescuing trapped residents and providing medical care. Next, Mr. Lai said, public services must be restored, including transportation, water and power. He said Taiwan Railway’s eastern line could be reopened by Thursday night.

Meaghan Tobin

Taiwan’s fire department has updated its figures, reporting that nine people have died and 934 others have been injured in the quake. Fifty-six people in Hualien County remain trapped.

Shake intensity

Taiwan’s fire department reports that nine people have died and 882 others have been injured in Taiwan. In Hualien County, 131 people remain trapped.

Agnes Chang

Footage shows rocks tumbling down one side of Guishan Island, a popular spot for hiking known as Turtle Island, off the northeast coast of Taiwan. Officials said no fishermen or tourists were injured after the landslide.

The death toll has risen to nine, according to Taiwan government statistics.

Meaghan Tobin, Siyi Zhao

Officials in Taiwan warned residents to not visit their relatives' tombs, especially in the mountains, this weekend during the holiday, known as Ching Ming, meant to honor them. There had already been 100 aftershocks and the forecast called for rain, which could make travel conditions on damaged roads more treacherous.

Crews are working to reach people trapped on blocked roads. As of 1 p.m. local time, roads were impassable due to damage and fallen rock in 19 places, according to the Ministry of Transportation. At least 77 people remain trapped. A bridge before Daqingshui Tunnel appeared to have completely collapsed.

Taiwan’s worst rail disaster in decades — a train derailment in 2021 that killed 49 people — took place on the first day of the Tomb Sweeping holiday period that year, in the same region as the earthquake.

The earthquake hit Taiwan as many people here were preparing to travel for Tomb Sweeping Day, or Ching Ming, a day across the Chinese-speaking world when people mourn their dead, especially by making offerings at their graves. Now those plans will be disrupted for many Taiwanese.

The holiday weekend would typically see a spike in travel as people visit family across Taiwan. Currently, both rail transport and highways are blocked in parts of Hualien, said Transport Minister Wang Guo-cai. Work is underway to restore rail transportation in Hualien, and two-way traffic is expected to be restored at noon on Thursday, he said.

Taiwan’s preparedness has evolved in response to past quakes.

Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness has evolved over the past few decades in response to some of the island’s largest and most destructive quakes .

In the years after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan killed nearly 2,500 people in 1999, the authorities established an urban search-and-rescue team and opened several emergency medical operation centers, among other measures .

And in 2018, after a quake in the eastern coastal city of Hualien killed 17 people and caused several buildings to partially collapse, the government ordered a wave of building inspections .

Taiwan has also been improving its early warning system for earthquakes since the 1980s. And two years ago, it rolled out new building codes that, among other things, require owners of vulnerable buildings to install ad-hoc structural reinforcements.

So how well prepared was Taiwan when a 7.4 magnitude quake struck near Hualien on Wednesday morning, killing at least seven people and injuring hundreds more?

Across the island, one building collapsed entirely, 15 others were in a state of partial collapse and another 67 were damaged, the island’s fire department said on Wednesday afternoon . Structural engineers could not immediately be reached for comment to assess that damage, or the extent to which building codes and other regulations might have either contributed to it or prevented worse destruction.

As for search-and-rescue preparedness, Taiwan is generally in very good shape, said Steve Glassey, an expert in disaster response who lives in New Zealand.

“ The skill sets, the capabilities, the equipment, the training is second to none,” said Dr. Glassey, who worked with Taipei’s urban search-and-rescue team during the response to a devastating 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. “They’re a very sharp operation.”

But even the best urban search-and-rescue team will be stretched thin if an earthquake causes multiple buildings to collapse, Dr. Glassey said.

Taiwan has options for requesting international help with search-and-rescue efforts. It could directly ask another country, or countries, to send personnel. And if multiple teams were to get involved, it could ask the United Nations to help coordinate them, as it did after the 1999 earthquake.

Pierre Peron, a spokesman for the United Nations, said on Wednesday afternoon that no such request had yet been made as a result of the latest earthquake.

Meaghan Tobin contributed reporting.

At least seven people have died and 736 have been injured as a result of the earthquake, according to Taiwan’s fire department. Another 77 people remained trapped in Hualien County, many of them on hiking trails. Search and rescue operations are underway, said the fire department.

Aftershocks of magnitudes between 6.5 and 7 were likely to occur over the next three or four days, said Wu Chien-fu, director of the Taiwanese Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center, at a news conference.

As of 2 p.m., 711 people had been injured across Taiwan, the fire department said, and 77 people in Hualien County remained trapped. The four who were known to have died were in Hualien.

Victoria Kim

Hualien County is a quiet and scenic tourist destination.

Hualien County on Taiwan’s east coast is a scenic, sleepy tourist area tucked away from the island’s urban centers, with a famous gorge and aquamarine waters. It also happens to sit on several active faults , making it prone to earthquakes.

The county has a population of about 300,000, according to the 2020 census, about a third of whom live in the coastal city of Hualien, the county seat. It is one of the most sparsely populated parts of Taiwan. About three hours by train from the capital, Taipei, the city describes itself as the first place on the island that’s touched by the sun.

Hualien County is home to Taroko National Park, one of Taiwan’s most popular scenic areas. Visitors come to explore the Taroko Gorge, a striated marble canyon carved by the Liwu River, which cuts through mountains that rise steeply from the coast. The city of Hualien is a popular destination as a gateway to the national park.

According to the state-owned Central News Agency, three hikers were trapped on a trail near the entrance to the gorge on Wednesday, after the quake sent rocks falling. Two of them were found dead, the news agency said. Administrators said many roads within the park had been cut off by the earthquake, potentially trapping hikers, according to the report.

Earthquakes have rattled Hualien with some regularity. In 2018, 17 people were killed and hundreds of others injured when a magnitude 6.5 quake struck just before midnight, its epicenter a short distance northeast of the city of Hualien.

Many of the victims in that quake were in a 12-story building that was severely tilted, the first four floors of which were largely crushed, according to news reports from the time. The next year, the area was shaken by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake that injured 17 people.

The area has some of the highest concentrations of Taiwan’s aboriginal population, with several of the island’s Indigenous tribes calling the county home .

The county government in Hualien released a list of people that had been hospitalized with injuries, which stood at 118 people as of midday Wednesday.

Across Taiwan, one building fell down entirely, in Changhua County on the west coast, and 15 buildings partially collapsed, Taiwan’s fire department said. Another 67 buildings were damaged. One of the partially collapsed structures was a warehouse in New Taipei City where four people were rescued, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. Another 12 were rescued at a separate New Taipei City building where the foundation sank into the ground.

Peggy Jiang, who manages The Good Kid, a children’s bookstore down the street from the partially collapsed Uranus Building in Hualien, said it was a good thing they had yet to open when the quake struck. The area is now blocked off by police and rescue vehicles. “Most people in Hualien are used to earthquakes,” she said. “But this one was particularly scary, many people ran in the street immediately afterward.”

Lin Jung, 36, who manages a shop selling sneakers in Hualien, said he had been at home getting ready to take his 16-month-old baby to a medical appointment when the earthquake struck. He said it felt at first like a series of small shocks, then “suddenly it turned to an intense earthquake shaking up and down.” The glass cover of a ceiling lamp fell and shattered. “All I could do was protect my baby.”

Chris Buckley ,  Paul Mozur ,  Meaghan Tobin and John Yoon

The earthquake damaged buildings and a highway in Hualien.

The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Taiwan on Wednesday damaged many buildings and a major highway in Hualien, a city on the eastern coast, and it knocked out power as it rocked the island.

Across Taiwan, the quake and its aftershocks caused one building to completely collapse and 15 others to partially collapse, according to Taiwan’s fire department. Sixty-seven other buildings sustained damage.

Two tall buildings in Hualien that sustained particularly extensive damage were at the center of the rescue efforts there. Most damage across the city was not life-threatening, said Huang Hsuan-wan, a reporter for a local news site.

Where buildings were reported damaged in Hualien City

“A lot of roads were blocked off. There are a lot of walls toppled over onto cars,” Derik du Plessis, 44, a South African resident of Hualien, said shortly after the earthquake. He described people rushing around the city to check on their houses and pick up their children. One of his friends lost her house, he said.

One of the damaged buildings in Hualien, a 10-story structure called the Uranus Building that housed a mix of homes and shops, was tilted over and appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Many of its residents managed to flee, but some were missing, said Sunny Wang, a journalist based in the city. Rescuers were trying to reach the basement, concerned that people might be trapped there.

Photographs of the initial damage in Hualien showed another building, a five-story structure, leaning to one side, with crushed motorcycles visible at the ground-floor level. Bricks had fallen off another high-rise, leaving cracks and holes in the walls.

The quake also set off at least nine landslides on Suhua Highway in Hualien, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, which said part of the road had collapsed.

Taiwan’s fire department said four people had been killed in the earthquake.

Across Taiwan, 40 flights have been canceled or delayed because of the earthquake, according to Taiwan’s Central Emergency Operation Center.

President Tsai Ing-wen visited Taiwan’s national emergency response center this morning, where she was briefed about the response efforts underway by members of the ministries of defense, transportation, economic affairs and agriculture, as well as the fire department.

A look at Taiwan’s strongest earthquakes.

The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that hit Taiwan on Wednesday morning was the strongest in 25 years, the island’s Central Weather Administration said.

At least four people died after the quake struck off Taiwan’s east coast, officials said.

Here’s a look back at some of the major earthquakes in modern Taiwanese history:

Taichung, 1935

Taiwan’s deadliest quake registered a magnitude of 7.1 and struck near the island’s west coast in April 1935, killing more than 3,200 people, according to the Central Weather Administration. More than 12,000 others were injured and more than 50,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.

Tainan, 1941

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake in December 1941, which struck southwestern Taiwan, caused several hundred deaths, the United States Geological Survey said.

Chi-Chi, 1999

A 7.6 magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan killed nearly 2,500 people in September 1999. The quake, which struck about 90 miles south-southwest of Taipei, was the second-deadliest in the island’s history, according to the U.S.G.S. and the Central Weather Administration. More than 10,000 people were injured and more than 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.

Yujing, 2016

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake in February 2016 caused a 17-story apartment complex in southwestern Taiwan to collapse, killing at least 114 people . The U.S.G.S. later said that 90 earthquakes of that scale or greater had occurred within 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, of that quake’s location over the previous 100 years.

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