What are Georgia Milestone Blueprints?
According to Georgia’s Department of Education, “the test blueprints are designed to communicate the structure of the Georgia Milestones measures. The blueprints outline the types of items students will encounter on each grade and content area/course test, as well as the number of items and number of points possible (for those tests which include constructed-response items). The blueprints also outline the domains, which are reporting categories, and the associated content standards. The approximate percentage of points allocated to each domain is provided.”
What do the Blueprints Tell Us About the ELA Milestones?
Item Types
Depth of Knowledge
Reporting Categories and Domains
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Item Types
It’s helpful to understand the item types students will interact with during their Milestones testing. The most current Blueprints provided by GA DOE explain students will respond to the following item types:​
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Selected Response and Technology Enhanced Items
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One 2 point Constructed Response
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One 4 point Extended Constructed Response (Narrative Writing Genre for 3rd grade and up)
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One 7 point Extended Writing Response (Opinion or Informational)
Depth of Knowledge
It is helpful to understand that students will be expected to answer between 30% - 60% DOK Level 3 & 4 questions.
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DOK 3 questions will require students to go beyond the test when correctly responding. They will be asked to explain, generalize and connect ideas on their own. Including identifying abstract themes, applying prior knowledge and making inferences. Students must be able to support their thinking. Questions may ask students to determine the authors purpose, summarize from multiple texts and analyze characters.
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DOK 4 questions will require students to use higher order thinking.
Students will be required to take information from one source and apply it to a different task. Questions may include developing hypotheses, analyzing information, supporting various perspectives and illustrating common themes.
Reporting Categories and Domains
It’s helpful to understand the categories or domains along with the proportion of items that are in a particular category.
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53% of items will come from Reading and Vocabulary
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47% of items will come from Writing and Language
