School has Started

Last week marked the start of the 2010-2011 school year. The thick hot air caused by the high temperatures and humidy made the start a bit of a challenge--well, I hope that is the cause of the low pre-assessment scores.
We began our string of pre-assessments with the CAPT's Reading for Information section. In my 10th Grade (Pre-College) classes, the scoring breakdown went as follows:

[Advanced]--0
[Goal]--0
[Proficient]--2
[Basic]--11
[Below Basic]--11

My intial response was one of despair. But the reality is that we haven't done a great job of teaching non-fiction reading skills during freshmen year. We spend a good amount of time the Response to Literature section, and so I expect those scores to reflect those efforts. Additionally, the CAPT is 10th grade test, so expecting my studetns to already earn proficiency at high rates might be a bit over-zealous!
The greatest issue, on first glance, is that our students have yet to understand the importance of using textual evidence in their constructed responses. They made broad statements, which were accurate, but failed to demonstrate their full understanding. For the 11"basic" students, had they provided textual evidence, they would have easily moved into profiency or goal.
Now I have to figure out the best way to balance my instruction between the fiction and non-fiction in a way that shows how closely connected the two genres can be.