The Performance Evaluation for Alaska’s Schools, or PEAKS, test will feature a new prompt in the English language arts section for grades four through nine this spring.

The Text-Dependent Analysis, or TDA, is a written question based on a passage, or multiple passages, read by the students, according to a release from the Alaska Department of Education.

“Students are required to provide evidence from the passage(s) to support their claims, opinions, and ideas,” the release states.

According to the release, the analysis assesses the skills that students have been learning and using in the classroom and the new questions will allow students to demonstrate their ability to interpret a passage’s meaning and provide supporting evidence for their analysis.

The department also released several guidelines for teachers and students to keep in mind when preparing a TDA response such as “organize your ideas on scratch paper” and “use precise language, a variety of sentence types, and transitions in your essay.”

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