Leon County Schools Next Generation Content Area Reading Professional Development (NGCARPD) Summer 2012 Question Generation and Text-based Discussion Thank you, Godby and Ft. Braden, for refreshments this morning! 1

Common Core Close Reading Exemplars As a first step in implementing the Common Core Standards for ELA/Literacy, focus on identifying, evaluating, and creating text dependent questions. The standards focus on students ability to read closely to determine what a text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it. The standards expect students to wrestle with text dependent questions: questions that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text in front of them. Students are expected to speak and write to sources – to use evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information.

Questions that go deeper Answer requires looking in multiple places Getting Bang for your Buck in Informational Text Connect the main idea with supporting details. Compare or contrast ideas, people, places, etc. Which sentence(s) show how two things are alike or different? Look for causes and effects. What caused? What was the effect of…? Take one sentence that is confusing and analyze it for meaning. Look at all its parts. Find one sentence that summarizes this selection. Explain your choice. Based on the information in the selection, what conclusion can the reader draw about character/event/idea/concept?

Questions that go deeper Answer requires looking in multiple places Getting Bang for your Buck in Persuasive/Argumentative Text Who is the author speaking to? What is he or she trying to do in this piece (purpose)? Take a sentence that has more than a literal meaning and look for the implied meaning. What did the author mean when he/she said…? What evidence does the author use to support his claim? Is the author negative, positive or neutral? (tone) Find words that support your choice. Which word or sentence best describes the authors attitude? Based on the information in the text, what is the most important concept the author presents?

Getting Your Students Started with Questions Ask questions when you dont recognize something in the text or understand what it means. Ask questions that require your classmates to go deeper in the text. This usually requires looking in multiple places. Main ideas/theme and supporting details Comparison/contrast Causes/effects Authors purpose and details Ask questions that require your classmates to use text to support their opinions about ideas presented in the text or to make a choice based on text.

Lets try with this excerpt: Lincoln was shaken by the presidency. Back in Springfield, politics had been a sort of exhilarating game; but in the White House, politics was power, and power was responsibility. Never before had Lincoln held executive office. In public life he had always been an insignificant legislator whose votes were cast in concert with others and whose decisions in themselves had neither finality nor importance. As President he might consult with others, but innumerable grave decisions were in the end his own, and with them came a burden of responsibility terrifying in its dimensions.

Teacher Generated Questions For Lincoln, how was politics different in Springfield than politics in the White House? How were the decisions Lincoln made as a legislator different from the decisions he made as President? What purpose do these two comparisons serve in this opening paragraph? In other words, why would the writer choose to use these two comparisons? What is the effect? Notice the first sentence in this paragraph. Is there a connection between the first sentence and these two comparisons?

Now you (the students) try! Lincolns rage for personal success, his external and worldly ambition, was quieted when he entered the White House, and he was at last left alone to reckon with himself. To be confronted with the fruits of his victory only to find that it meant choosing between life and death for others was immensely sobering. That Lincoln should have shouldered the moral burden of the war was characteristic of the high seriousness into which he had grown since 1854; and it may be true, as Professor Charles W. Ramsdell suggested, that he was stricken by an awareness of his own part in whipping up the crisis. This would go far to explain the desperation with which he issued pardons and the charity that he wanted to extend to the conquered South at the wars close. In one of his rare moments of self-revelation he is reported to have said: Now I dont know what the soul is, but whatever it is, I know that it can humble itself. The great prose of the presidential years came from a soul that had been humbled. Lincolns utter lack of personal malice during these years, his humane detachment, his tragic sense of life, have no parallel in political history.

Leading a Discussion about Text Keep your learning goals at the heart of discussion, but use the student questions to drive discussion. Use a circle or U shape formation. At the beginning of the year, use name plates so students can address each other by name. Students should always read and annotate the document prior to discussion. Encourage your students to talk to each other instead of to you the teacher.

Leading a Discussion about Text Before asking a question or comment, tell participants the specific passage to which you are referring, read it out loud, and then pose your question or make your comment. NEVER interrupt someone who is in the middle of a sentence or a point. Try to be aware of how much you have spoken and others have not. If you have spoken three to five times, allow time for others to speak. Be a listener for a while. Some students like to think about questions for a while before speaking; so when an active speaker takes a break, it gives others time to make a thoughtful contribution. If you start to speak at the same time others do, again think about how much you have spoken. If someone wants to speak who has not, yield the floor to him or her.