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Typical 1 st semester Freshman Course Load Requirements

 Significant numbers of students read so poorly that they are unlikely to have access to full participation in American society  Significant numbers of students who are deemed literate are not sufficiently literate to succeed in college or career

Enhancements to early literacy instruction  According to NAEP, there have been clear reading improvements among fourth-graders since And yet, middle school students are reading no better than then (and high school students appear to have fallen)

Avoiding Text  Since 1990 there have been content (knowledge) standards in history, science, mathematics, English language arts and teachers have found ways of getting info to students without texts (e.g., Powerpoint, video) But, ACT has found that the amount of text reading between 7 th and 12 th grades was the best preparation of later success

Reducing Text Difficulty  Low readability textbooks are a staple (educators have lowered readability levels of textbooks for more than 70 years)  Research has documented correlation between lowered textbook difficulty and lowered SAT performances ACT study found not only was amount of in class reading significant, but that this reading had to be implemented with hard text (not easy text)

“…ultimately, our students are expected to develop as competent readers, writers, and thinkers in all academic disciplines.” “…ability to “read, write, and think in ways that are characteristic of discrete academic disciplines” Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines, Doug Buehl

“While the English language arts classroom has often been seen as the proper site for literacy instruction, this document acknowledges that the responsibility for teaching such skills must also extend to other content areas.”

 Reading must be authentic (related to what you will do tomorrow)  Reading must be purposeful (you must be responsible for something in class)  Comprehension strategies must be woven into content

 Monitoring for Meaning  Use Schema (Prior Knowledge)  Infer  Ask Questions  Create Images  Determine Importance  Synthesize Information

 Explains Need for Adolescent Literacy Instruction in All Content Areas  Describes Literacy Instruction in Content Areas  Contains various literacy instructional activities with the description, purpose, and directions for use in each core content area 712fd1f2bc15/0/ccsso_contentliteracy.pdf

 Teachers take up to two-thirds of the classroom talk time. Students are “talk- deprived ” (Alvermann et al., 1996)  Student discussion increases retention as much as 50%. (Sousa, 2001)

Conversation Questions, Two-Column Notes - Video  Work in groups of 3  Video will be chunked (stopped) at 3 places.  At each chunk, group writes 3 or 4 questions on Video Notes Organizer. Each person needs a copy. (3:30 per chunk) Total of 10 questions- 4 may be closed (number your questions) Closed question – has only one answer: What kind of teeth did George Washington have? Open question – has more than one answer: What was life like before modern dentistry?  Banjo Players Banjo Players

Text Annotation, Two-Column Notes - Articles  Read your article. --When you see information that answers one of your questions, underline the information. In the margin, write the number of the question. --If you see important information that helps answer the main guiding question, underline it and annotate.  Articles are chunked (stopped) at various places. (4 min. each chunk)  At each chunk, group stops reading and discusses answers or important information that they found and fill out two-column note organizer. (4 min.)

 Pair with a person who has the other article.  Take turns: o Summarize each chunk. o Share questions, answers to questions, important information for each chunk. o Add information to your Notes organizer. (10 min.)

 Students could now write a constructed response to the guiding question. or  Students could research and read more and write an essay response to the question.

 Which Common Core Literacy Standard(s)/learning targets did we meet?

 How can you improve the questions YOU ask?

 80-90% of the Reading Standards require Text-Dependent analysis.  Text Dependent questions can only be answered by close reading of the text.  Text Dependent questions are not recall questions. They require inference.

TEXT DEPENDENT NON-TEXT DEPENDENT How did Frederick Douglass’ ability to read contribute to his emotional struggle for freedom? Cite examples from the text to support your answers. In what ways does America represent the hope for freedom that lived in the heart of Frederick Douglas?

 When 3 or more seconds of Wait Time is given… …the length and correctness of student responses increases. …the number of “I don’t know” and no answer responses decreases. …the number of volunteered, correct answers increases.  When 3 or more seconds of Wait Time is given…. …teacher questions are more varied and flexible …the quantity of questions decreases and the quality increases …teachers ask add on questions requiring higher-level thinking and processing

 3 second minimum  Instruct students to take a “thinking moment” before you either open the floor for answers or, better yet, you choose a student to respond.  Write the question on the board, while students are thinking, for visual learners  Provides the students with a time of reflection and rehearsal

 “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” (Norman Mailer)  Especially helpful for tactile/kinesthetic learners  It’s not specifically the writing that helps the learning Writing is an active, rather than passive, task Writing involves more of the whole body in the process of thinking Writing clarifies perspectives

 “If you have to talk, you have to think.”  The importance of dialogic talk “ By the age of 4, the child of professional parents in the US will have had nearly twice as many words addressed to it as the working-class child, and over four times as many as a child on welfare. For the middle-class child, encouragement from parents vastly outweighs discouragement; but for the child on welfare the climate of adult reaction is an overwhelmingly discouraging one. While talk is essential for intellectual and social development, for some children, the talk which they engage in at school is nothing less than a lifeline.” (Robin Alexander, 2004)

 What’s the difference between pretty good and 100% correct?  How do you respond to “almost right” answers?

 Many teachers respond to almost-correct answers by “rounding up.” They affirm and repeat the answer, adding the details to make it fully correct.  Most students stop processing when they hear the word “right.”  What does this communicate about the standard of correctness in your classroom?  Who’s doing the cognitive work?

Teachers cannot teach (and students cannot learn) everything there is to know. (Brookhart, 2009) Authentic Questions