Rigorous Texts, Tasks, and Talk: Creating This Reality in Your Classrooms Keith Oswald Diana Fedderman Palm Beach County, Fl

Problems to Solve How do we provide effective feedback for instructional leaders that will make a significant impact on student achievement? How do we account for and solve the disconnect between teacher evaluation scores and student achievement scores? How do we tackle both achievement and opportunity gaps? How do we acknowledge and solve for the issue around a lack of an appropriate and relevant curriculum in K-5 literacy? And how do we do this while keeping a balanced literacy framework (text at instructional and independent reading levels)?

Focus What we teach How we teach it Authentic Literacy Our highest priorities should be “the reasonably effective implementation of good curriculum, effective instruction, and authentic literacy.”

1: Focus each lesson on a high-quality text(s). Core Actions 1: Focus each lesson on a high-quality text(s). 2. Employ questions and tasks, both oral and written, that are text-specific and accurately address the analytical thinking required by standards 3. Provide all students with opportunities to engage in the work of the lesson. IPG Tool: Student Achievement Partners

Implementing Core Actions 1: Focus each lesson on a high-quality text(s). 2. Employ questions and tasks, both oral and written, that are text-specific and accurately address the analytical thinking required by standards 3. Provide all students with opportunities to engage in the work of the lesson. Text Tasks Talk In Schmoker’s Focus, he provides rationale, research, and examples on how to implement a rigorous “text, tasks, and talk” framework in each of the four core content areas.

Guiding Questions for Core Action #1 Is the majority of the lesson spent reading, writing, or speaking about text(s)? Is the text(s) at or above the complexity level expected for the grade and time of the year? Does the text(s) exhibit exceptional craft and thought and/or provide useful information?

Guiding Questions for Core Action #2 Do the questions and tasks address the text by attending to its particular structure, concepts, ideas, and details? Do the questions and tasks require students to use evidence from the text to demonstrate understanding and to support their ideas about the text? Do students demonstrate this understanding through both written and oral responses? Do the questions and tasks attend to the academic vocabulary, phrases, and sentences within the text? Are the questions sequenced to build knowledge by guiding students to delve deeper into the text and graphics?

Guiding Questions for Core Action #3 Does the teacher keep all students persevering with challenging tasks? Does the teacher expect evidence from students and probe answers accordingly? Does the teacher encourage reading and problem solving by posing challenging questions and tasks that offer opportunities for productive struggles? Does the teacher demonstrate awareness and take appropriate action regarding the variations present in student progress toward independent reading and writing? Does the teacher explicitly attend to strengthening students’ vocabulary and reading foundational skills*? *As appropriate

Where Are You? Of the 3 core actions, which is the biggest strength in your school/system? How did you get there? Of the 3 core actions, which is the weakness in your school/system? Why is it a weakness?

Google Forms

Core Action #1

Core Action #2

Core Action #3

Practice GRADE 3 Situation: The board states that students are working on standard RL.3.9. They have two articles. Task: Students are working in pairs to create a Venn Diagram where they compare and contrast key points from two articles on the same topic. GRADE 8 Situation: The board states that students are working on standard RL.1.3 and just finished reading “Harrison Bergeron” by Vonnegut. Task: Students are working in groups of four to answer short response questions that ask them to first identify whether the story is narrated in the first- or third-person point of view, and then to identify differences in the points of view of at least three characters in the story.  Both answers must be supported by text evidence from the story. GRADE 10 Situation: The board states that students are working on standard RI.2.6 and just finished reading Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” Task: Students are working independently to rewrite the speech in their own words to address a modern day audience.

Grade 3 Task Standard RI.3.9: Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic. Analysis: Wrong standard (RI and not RL), wrong grade level.  Comparing elements between two texts on the same topic is the work of standard RI.3.9; however, just comparing and contrasting the important points is a second grade task. In order to reach the rigor of the 3rd grade standard, the students would need to not only compare and contrast the important points between the two texts but also compare and contrast the key details.

Grade 8 Task Situation: The board states that students are working on standard RL.1.3 and just finished reading “Harrison Bergeron” by Vonnegut. Task: Students are working in groups of four to answer short response questions that ask them to first identify whether the story is narrated in the first- or third-person point of view, and then to identify differences in the points of view of at least three characters in the story.  Both answers must be supported by text evidence from the story. Standard RL.8.1.3: Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

Grade 8 Task Analysis: Wrong standard, wrong grade level. While standard RL.1.3 does ask students to cite text evidence, as this task does, that text evidence should support the way in which lines of dialogue and events in the story move the plot forward and show the reader aspects of various characters.   This task’s focus on point of view indicates that the standard that is really the focus here is RL.2.6.  However, even if the standard had been correctly identified as RL.2.6, identifying whether the story is told in the first- or third-person is working in the 4th grade level of this standard.   The idea of identifying the points of view of multiple characters, with supporting text evidence, is closer to the grade level expectations of RL.2.6, but additional work would need to be done by the students to contrast how the characters’ points of view differ from the reader’s/audience’s and the effect (such as humor or suspense) that those differences have on the reader/audience.

Grade 10 Task Situation: The board states that students are working on standard RI.2.6 and just finished reading Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” Task: Students are working independently to rewrite the speech in their own words to address a modern day audience. Standard RI.910.2.6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.

Grade 10 Task Analysis: Wrong standard, wrong grade level.  While the Gettysburg Address is a text that would be appropriate for 10th grade students, RI.2.6 asks students to  determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.   The work being done here is closer to standard RI.2.4, which asks students determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings, and analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone. Even if the standard had been correctly identified, the activity provided does not address the complete standard at the 10th grade level, and rather hits the standard at a 6th grade level. A more appropriate activity would be to have students track the use of the word “dedicate”, note how the meaning of the word changes throughout the text, and explain the impact of the meaning over the course of the speech.

This Is the Right Work

Professional Development Elementary PD modules around multiple subjects including text complexity as Core Action #1 is an issue in elementary.

Professional Development In secondary, the larger issue is around Core Action 2, so the PD is around utilizing the resources which include standards-based tasks.

Professional Development The Admin Advantage is a place for school-based administrators to be up-to-date on all professional development.

Live: Blender Resources

Contact Information Keith Oswald, Deputy Superintendent of Palm Beach County Schools keith.oswald@palmbeachschools.org @561Sdpbc Diana Fedderman, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning diana.fedderman@palmbeachschools.org @DianaFedderman