ELA Instructional Leadership Cadre 6 th – 12 th Grade Shift 3: Building Knowledge

What have you tried? On your notecard provide a short answer to the following: Side 1: What strategies and shifts have you tried in your classroom? Side 2: What information from the Leadership Cadres have you shared with you co- workers?

The CCSS Shifts Build Toward College and Career Readiness for All Students Nine Specific Advances in the PARCC ELA/Literacy Assessment Demanded by the Three Core Shifts...

What Are the Shifts at the Heart of PARCC Design (and the Standards)? 1. Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language. Text Complexity Close Reading Academic Vocabulary

What Are the Shifts at the Heart of PARCC Design (and the Standards)? 2. Evidence: Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text, literary and informational. Text Dependent Questions Writing to Sources Narrative Writing

3. Knowledge: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction. What Are the Shifts at the Heart of PARCC Design (and the Standards)? ELA Content Area Literacy Informational Text

Shift 3:Building knowledge Shift 3: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction ELA disciplines of science and social studies. 8.PARCC assesses not just ELA but a full range of reading and writing across the disciplines of science and social studies. informational sources. 9.PARCC simulates research on the assessment, including the comparison and synthesis of ideas across a range of informational sources.

ELA Building Knowledge

Comprehension skills fallacy: you can’t simply teach students how to answer particular question types, such as main idea, vocabulary, inferencing, supporting details, drawing conclusions, etc. Low scores in Comprehension DecodingWord MeaningFluencyComprehension

What do proficient readers do? Make connections to prior knowledge Generate questions Create mental images Make inferences Determine Importance Synthesize, evaluate, summarize Monitor reading

Teaching basic skills… Basic skills are enabling skills – they allow students to read for meaning Teach them with a clear purpose, they improve reading comprehension Phonemic awareness Phonics Fluency Vocabulary

Explicit comprehension instruction should not be delayed until students are able to read grade-level text independently. Read-alouds and the use of text-based discussions are opportunities to help students learn from complex informational text, especially when students are just learning to read or if students struggle to read informational text independently (Beck & McKeown, 2001; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). – From K-12 Teachers: Building Comprehension in the Common Core “Reading to learn”

Students who struggle with reading can successfully handle informational text when instruction includes explicit teaching of text structure, procedural facilitators such as think sheets, prompt cards, and mnemonics, and the use of teacher modeling and guided feedback (Gersten & Baker, 2000, 2001; Williams, 2008) – From K-12 Teachers: Building Comprehension in the Common Core Students who struggle

Reading comprehension can be taught explicitly Instruction can help students to think more effectively while reading (to understand/remember more) Reading Comprehension ≠ Listening Comprehension Unfortunately, teachers of older kids often replace reading with listening lessons because of the difficulty of the books This gets you through the books, but doesn’t teach reading Students need to read materials that are challenging, but not TOO hard to read

Reading Comprehension Reading requires students to think about meaning while decoding

Skill vs Strategy Reading ComprehensionSkill quick & easy, without conscious attention Strategy intentional & complex

Skills vs Strategies Skills Automatic Over-learning Immediate Simple/single step Certainty of success Accuracy Strategies Intentional Metacognitive Reflective Complex/multi-step Probability of success Approximation

Reading Comprehension Skills Cause and effect Classify and categorize Compare and contrast Draw conclusions Fact and opinion Main idea Important details Inferences Sequence Bias and propaganda Problem and solution Identify theme Literal recall Tone Mood

Reading Comprehension Strategies Summarizing Questioning Story mapping Monitoring Question answering Graphic organizers Mental imagery Prior knowledge NRP found that instruction in combined sets of strategies (such as reciprocal teaching) were generally more effective than teaching single strategies

Clear explanations matter Studies show that how well teachers can explain mental processes makes a difference in student progress Students need to learn the what, when, how, why of strategies Strategies are about taking intentional mental actions to understand a text

Gradual Release of Responsibility Modeling and explanation Guided practice and explanation Independent practice I do it We do it You do it together You do it

Improving the reading lives of children Create a classroom culture that emphasizes meaning Ensure all children have enabling skills that allow comprehension By teaching student the most effective research-proven ways to think effectively about the ideas in the text and guiding their practice with these strategies across a wide range of text

Content Area Reading Building Knowledge

Define & Debate Who’s role is what when it comes to the literacy standards?

Informational Sources Building Knowledge

What is Informational Text? Informational text is text whose primary purpose is to convey information about the natural or social world, and that has particular linguistic features to accomplish that purpose.

In Reading standards (RI 1 – 10, RH 1– 10, RST 1– 10) In Writing standards Students conduct research, draw evidence to support arguments and analyses, compare texts, etc. In Speaking and Listening standards Students prepare for conversations and collaborations, present findings and supporting evidence, etc. In Language standards Students acquire academic and domain-specific vocabulary, use context to determine meaning, etc. Informational text prominent in CCSS

28 Increased quantity of materials and instructional time devoted to informational text English Language Arts Literature fiction, drama, poetry Literary Nonfiction Social Studies, Science, Technical Subjects Other informational Text

Literary nonfiction. For purposes of CCSS, Biographies, memoirs, speeches, opinion pieces Essays about art, literature, journalism, etc. Historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts written for a broad audience Distinguished by literary techniques and artistic vision Emphasis is on text structure other than narrative Arguments (such as those in the Founding Documents) are emphasized throughout the Standards. What is informational text in ELA?

Informational Text Exposition, argument, & functional text Literary nonfiction

Exposition, argument, & functional text Topics History Social studies Science Arts Technical subjects Forms Books Magazines Handouts/brochures Journal articles Technical texts Internet resources Technical Texts: directions, forms, or information displayed in graphs, charts, or maps

Literary nonfiction Topics Art Literature Journalism Historical Scientific Technical Economic Forms Autobiographies Biographies Memoirs Personal essays Speeches Opinion pieces accounts Follows a narrative text structure

Read through the K-5 continuum of several of the Reading Informational Text standards (#1 – 10) on the Handout “CCSS Reading Informational Text Standards K-5.” Remember that each “step up” in task difficulty is matched by a “step up” in text complexity. Identify the “step up” in task difficulty at each grade K-5 for several standards. (Begin with Standard 9.) 33 Activity: Progression of difficulty

How informational text is addressed in the 6-12 classroom Integration of knowledge Cross-strand emphasis on info text (speaking and listening, writing) Content-specific application found in Reading Standards in Science & Technical Subjects

In the 6 – 12 classroom maybe break apart Drawing from Research Content-area reading Disciplinary Reading

Teaching Reading in the Disciplines Content Area Literacy Generalizable routines, generic comprehension strategies intended to be taught by reading and content teachers alike and applied across the curriculum Disciplinary Literacy specialized ways of learning and communicating in each specific discipline Includes the language differences across disciplines VS.

Science and technical subjects  Show students the close connections among alternative representations of constructs (e.g., prose, graphs, charts, formulas).  Explicitly teach how to use abstracts, endnotes, etc.  Explicitly teach specialized vocabulary (e.g., common words with highly specialized subject area meaning).  Analyze syntax (e.g., apposition: “animals that eat plants, herbivores, may be.…”).  Teach the knowledge required to develop a full understanding of experiments or processes. Disciplinary literacy examples

History and Social Studies Demonstrate (model) and discuss how authors and sourcing are central in interpretation. Contextualize time and place. Use multiple texts. Evaluate information across sources. Explicitly teach how to read historic documents (e.g., deconstruct complex sentence, pre-teach arcane or archaic vocabulary). Discipline-specific examples

Instructional Strategies Content Area Literacy for Science, Social Studies & Technical Subjects

Two-Column Notes Students divide a sheet of notebook paper in half. While listening or reading, students record evidence in the right column. In the left column, students can make inferences, ask questions, or draw pictures to clarify their evidence.

Two-Column Notes con.- In the left column, students can make inferences, ask questions, or draw pictures to clarify their evidence.

Discussion on Making Inferences What is my inference? What information did I use to make this inference? How good was my thinking? Do I need to change my thinking?

Think Alouds Teachers verbalize their thought processes while reading a selection orally. Verbalizations include describing things they are doing as they read to monitor their comprehension.

Semantic Feature Analysis This technique uses a matrix to help students discover how one set of concepts is related to another set. Introduce a Semantic Feature Analysis graphic organizer as a tool for recording reading observations

Discussion Web The student/small group will note the pros/cons of the reading as well as their final conclusion. The group will also place their conclusion on an index card.

Discussion Web Teachers distribute a selected reading that elicits clearly defined opposing viewpoints. A discussion web graphic organizer can be used by the student/small group to identify the main question of the text. Collect the cards and tally the responses. Share the results with the class.

6-12 Classroom…. Look Fors Explicit instruction with generic comprehension strategies Student use of generic comprehension strategies Teacher model/explicit instruction of discipline-specific comprehension strategies Explicit subject-specific vocab instruction Multiple texts Precision partnering Task-based accountability Engagement to structure discussions Collaboration Emphasis on subject-area reading strategies

Precision Partnering Student partner discussions Designated 1 st speaker Use of sentence starters Accountable listening Teacher monitoring

New Resources on The PROE site

Evaluating our Progress Re-assess your understanding and comfort with the Common Core Standards for Math using the Foundational and Basic Needs Assessments

Commitment Select something from today’s presentation that you are willing to try in your own building. Record your commitment on a sticky note and post it on the commitment board before your leave.

Thank You Peoria Regional Office of Education Cindy Dollman, Assistant Reg. Supt.