PARCC Education Leader Cadre -Chicago - Part 3

I am home from Chicago and have had a chance to reflect on all of the information that was shared at the PARCC ELC Chicago Conference - At the end of the conference, we were asked to think of three take-aways.  As I prepare for the 2012-2013 school year, I will spend more time thinking about not just changes in the standards but how to best work with my colleagues to shift the way we think about teaching students.

Take-away 1
The goal of making the next generations of assessments computer based is to get more instructional technology into classrooms- not just to be used for assessment, but to enrich the learning experience of all students.

What we can do now to maximize the technology we have in our districts?

• Expose students to simulations, interactive tools and manipulatives. Take advantage of the many free resources that are available on the internet. You can use these as whole class lessons, center activities, computer lab lessons or homework activities.
• Thinkfinity.org Student Interactives Thinkfinity.org is a national site sponsored by the Verizon Wireless Foundation. It is a collection of k-12 resources from content providers like the National Councils of Teachers and English and Math, The Smithsonian, National Geographic, and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Resources are searchable by content area, grade level or content provider. Resources are tagged by state and CCSS.
• Thinkfinity.org Science Interactives
• PBS Kids Interactive Tools k-5 Interactives based on the PBS children shows like Clifford, Between the Lions and Curious George. 
• BBC Schools Interactive Games  Grouped by grade level and content area.
• PHET Math and Science Interactive Simulations   University of Colorado research based simulations for MS and HS students.
• Wolfram Demonstration Project  Grade k-12 simulations in all content areas. Does require the installation of the Wolfram Mathematica Player on the computer that will be using the simulations.
• National Library of Virtual Manipulatives  k-12 Math tools, standards based, needs Java.
• Provide ongoing professional development and support for your teachers and students so they are comfortable and confident using the technology that is available to them.  Have discussions with district teams based on the CCSS. Identify WHAT students are going to be expected to do as they work toward College and Career Readiness.  Then do an assessment of your existing technology.  What do you currently have that will help the students to do research, collaborate, communicate, build knowledge, access complex reading materials, and build vocabulary and math fluency? How can you maximize the use of this technology?  

Take-away 2
Understanding by Design is being used to build the assessments and can be used by classroom teachers to design their own lessons and assessments to support the CCSS.

Guiding Questions for Developing Assessments and Lessons

• What claims will we use to begin to build our assessments?
• What student products will allow teachers to say with assurance that the student has mastered the content standard? What do the products look like? What samples of student work can be used to come to a common understanding of what mastery, developing and beginning work looks like?
• What are the classroom activities necessary to get to this assessment?

• What evidence can we point to,highlight or underline in a student response that will show that the student has mastered the standard?
• How can we design tasks that are designed to elicit specific evidence from students to support claims

Take-away 3

Build a culture of literacy. All teachers need to be teachers of language.

We are not all teachers of reading. We need to all be teachers of the language of our content areas. The sooner teachers can acknowledge that they need to give students the language tools they need to access content in math, science, history, art, music, physical education, technology and business, the sooner we can start to build a culture of literacy in our communities. Think about helping your students to build a tool box that they can use to master your content area.

Things to include in the student literacy toolbox

• Specific vocabulary for your content area (Tier 3 vocabulary) Words should be taught in context rather than as a list to be memorized. ( Tips for Teaching Vocabulary)
• Specific writing conventions to communicate ideas in your content area ( how to write a hypothesis, a proof, a research question)
• Lots of challenging reading materials related to your content area- this builds content vocabulary. Ask them questions that require them to go back into the reading to support their answers. (Finding A Balance Between Fiction and Non-Fiction) (Text Complexity)(Text Based Questions)

The Uncommon Core Curriclum

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!  

This word cloud was made from the tribute letters written by Bay students about Bay Village teachers and staff who had been a positive influence in their lives.  The larger the word, the more times it appeared in the text of the letters.

Last night I had the opportunity to go to a unique program in our district.  The Superintendent's Best Awards evening  gives the top academic students in 8th grade and 12th grade the chance to nominate a teacher who had an impact on their lives.  One by one, students stepped up to the podium to read their tribute letter to the teacher they nominated. Some were very brief, a few were poetic, a couple were funny - they all were sincere.  In all, 53 staff members from kindergarten through high school were recognized.

What set these teachers - and really all teachers - apart in the students' minds was not just academic knowledge or the content itself.  It was the role the teachers played in helping the students build confidence in themselves and their learning. It was the extra time teachers spent getting to know the students and supporting them as they grew as individuals.  The Common Core Curriculum is just a lot of words on paper - or a website! But it is the teachers and the students who make it a real.

If I were Ruler of the Education World for just one day, I would put in place the Uncommon Core Curriculum.   The strands would include Character, Vision, Sense of Self, and Life Long Learner. These are the things that make us unique individuals and lead to our success or failure in life. These strands are difficult to measure using traditional assessments.  Instead, teachers sometimes have to wait years to see the results.  These are difficult to teach using traditional approaches.  Lectures and worksheets, group projects, lab activities and research papers don't always allow students to directly learn these strands.  Often it is the modeling and the encouragement that is given by the classroom teacher, an administrator or a staff member that can have the greatest impact on the students who are learning these strands.

Character  
Anchor Standards

• Analyze how decisions made will impact others and yourself.
• Describe an idea or event from various points of view
• Demonstrate empathetic behavior in a variety of circumstances

Vision

Anchor Standards

• Identify short term and long term goals and plan for how to meet them.
• Illustrate how current activities or work will help lead to a larger goal
• Communicate your goals clearly to others

Sense of Self

Anchor Standards

• Use a variety of methods to confidently communicate opinions and ideas to others
• Identify areas of strength and weakness to plan for personal growth
• Demonstrate pride in accomplishments and celebrate success

Life Long Learner

Anchor Standards

• Apply strategies that are effective for learning new material
• Participate in a variety of experiences and activities 
• Demonstrate ways to share a joy for learning with others

Common Core Ingredients

My daughter and I like to watch Chopped every Sunday on the Food Channel.  Each week, chefs are given a basket of "mystery ingredients".  They have a short time to turn these ingredients into something that not only tastes good, but looks good too.   The real challenge, figuring out ways to combine ingredients that may not traditionally go together in a dish.   Often, the chefs are faced with ingredients they have never worked with before.   If there were an Education Channel, I think I would host Core each week.  On Core, teachers would be given a set of standards from each of the 4 core content areas and would have 50 minutes to put together a lesson that not only taught the standards, but kept the students engaged too.  The challenge, figuring out how to relate the standards to each other, to the real world experience of the students and make the whole lesson approachable to a wide range of student learning styles and abilities.   There is no Education Channel, but as Ohio moves toward implementing the Common Core and Model Curriculum for the 4 core content areas, teachers will need to look at new ways of integrating the core standards to create lessons that teach to a greater rigor or depth and allow students to make connections to real world problems.

No matter what grade or content you teach, when faced with new content standards, you can build engaging, integrated lessons if you follow some basic unit "recipe" rules.

Char's Integrated Lesson Recipe
To build a successful integrated unit or lesson using the new Common Core Standards and the Ohio Model Curriculum, think outside the boundaries of a single content area to find the "common denominator" for the unit or lesson - what real world context could each of the content standards you are working with fit into?

Ingredients

• Reading Activity - often times, the reading activity can be the "base" for the lesson - it might be an article, a novel, a picture book, a primary source document, or data base materials. This is a good place to differentiate - picking reading that is approachable by the range of students in your classroom.  Usually the social studies standard or the science standard can be used as the "frame" for the integrated lesson. Don't forget to include opportunities for CLOSE READING.
• Math Activity - math is the international language for a reason - math can be taught within the context of almost any real world scenario. Once you have identified the science or social studies standards you will include in the lesson or the reading materials you will use - write the math lesson components within that "framework" 
• Writing Activity - remember, writing can be about solving a math problem, it can be a journal entry, it can be research, it can be an argument or persuasive piece, it can be more creative. This can be a final assessment or it can be more formative instruction.
• Collaborative Activity - students work together to create a product - this can be the "real world' piece where they create a product as part of a service learning activity, it might be a presentation, a model, a video or poster project - something that requires them to APPLY the skills/knowledge learned in the lessons. This is a good place to put the Performance Task in a larger unit or in a single lesson, this is a good reinforcing activity.
• Inquiry Activity - Inquiry can be included by encouraging students to ask questions and pose possible answers, letting students try out possible solutions, giving students data or information to analyze or giving students opportunities to decide how where to go next with their learning.
• Connection Activity - doing mind mapping, using living word walls, think pair shares, entrance and exit cards, cartoons, journaling - any activity that helps students connect the new knowledge they have been building to their existing knowledge base. This is a good beginning activity in a set of lessons but it can also take place as the lessons progress to help students stay focused on their own learning. This is also a good place to do specific instruction on vocabulary students need to access the unit or lesson materials.

Mathematical Practices and Mathematics Common Ground

Finding common ground when talking about the new Common Core standards for math has not been easy.  The ODE is still in the process of completing the Content Elaborations for the Ohio Math Standards. PARCC has released their own suggested framework. Teachers are trying to come to terms with a shift to teaching more about less, especially in the elementary grades.  Traditional math programs, existing integrated math programs and secondary course offerings don't neatly align to the new content. There are significant shifts in content from one grade level to another.  Textbook publishers are playing catch up to the new curriculum.

Eight.  No, it is not my lucky number or how many pieces of chocolate I ate as I sat down to plan for my upcoming math team meetings. (that was only 3)  Eight is the number of mathematical practices that serve as a single thread across all grade and ability levels.  Eight is the common ground.  The Mathematical Practices don't describe what math facts a student should know or the order that they should acquire knowledge of geometric concepts.  The 8 Mathematical Practices define how a student should be able to act and think as a mathematician, whether they are doing basic addition or Calculus BC.  These are not just good mathematical skills, in many cases they are good for science, social studies and language arts thinking as well.  As teachers sit down together to work on creating lessons that will begin to transition their math curriculum to the new Common Core model curriculum, they need to start on common ground, framing each lesson within the concepts of the 8 mathematical practices.

The 8 Mathematical Practices 

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
4. Model with mathematics
5. Use appropriate tools strategically
6. Attend to precision
7. Look for and make use of structure
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

Learn more about the 8 Mathematical Practices
Resources

• Engage NY - Instructional Shifts for Common Core Math
• Carroll County Public Schools - Mathematical Practices Resources Mini posters - 8 mathematical Practices, template for evaluating lessons based on mathematical practices, lesson plan template.
• Inside Mathematics  Good explanations of mathematical practices with example lesson videos. (various grade levels spans elementary, middle and high school)
• Mathematics Assessment Project ( University of California Berkeley)  example lessons for each mathematical practice (MS and HS)  The  MAP also has formative assessment lessons for HS and MS math.  Also great are the performance tasks, aligned to the 8 mathematical practices, written for experts, novice and beginner level students that can be used for summative assessment http://map.mathshell.org/materials/tasks.php   Finally, professional development articles and activities http://map.mathshell.org/materials/pd.php including handouts, examples, videos and interactives.
• Teaching Number Sense - how number sense is similar to phonemic awareness. ( Reading Rockets.org)
• Thinkmath.org  K-5 version of the 8 Mathematical Practices
• Chittenden East Supervisory Union - good summaries and discussions of the 8 mathematical practices.
• Teaching Problem Solving Skills  (Waterloo University Centre for Teaching Excellence)
• Understanding the 8 Mathematical Practices   a K-4 Progression created by Mesa Public Schools

What's In A Grade...How Does Grading Change With Common Core?

Consistency is one of the benefits of the Common Core Standards.  Consistency in what content will be taught at each grade level. Consistency in how students will be assessed by the state on their content mastery. Consistency in how each student is graded on their work...well, hmmm, maybe not so much.

Our district is working on transferring to a new gradebook/reporting system.  It is a great chance to spend time revisiting grading scales and grading practices across our different grade levels. What I have found is that there is no consensus among my staff on what grading system really is the best for reflecting student academic mastery - letter grades, percentages, checks and minuses, 1 2 3 and maybe 4 or rubric categories.  Each group has valid reasoning for why they support one over the other.  Venturing into a discussion on how to delineate academic progress from "good studentness" is even more heated.  Add to this mix the fact that even within a subject area or grade level, teachers teaching the same content may have different interpretations of what each grade category "looks like" in terms of student work and you wind up with a grading system that is anything but consistent... and a reason to avoid the conversation all together unless you have an hour or two to spend in debate.

Where to start the conversation?  I think everyone involved needs to have a clear understanding of why we assign grades to begin with.  Grading is a very emotional, personal issue for teachers. This is because down deep teachers take grading, to some degree "personally".  I think that sometimes we think that grades are a way to justify a our success or failure. We use them to delegate responsibility for lack of learning back onto the student as evidence to prove that students "could have done better if only they had -fill in the blank_____." Sometimes, we may even take a low grade to heart, as if the student is saying " I don't like you or this class".    As teachers, we need to take a step back and reflect on what grading REALLY should be.  Grades are a way to help teachers, students and parents monitor the student's progress and eventual mastery in learning and applying content for a course or grade level.  Grades cover to two types of work, formative and summative.  In order for grades to be an effective tool to communicate this learning progress and mastery, teachers all need to be in agreement about what mastery or developing work looks like.  And, teachers need to be using a grading system  that  will allow students and parents to compare progress from year to year.

First, come to an agreement of what grading system will accurately communicate student learning progress and mastery of content.  Make this decision at least at the building level. There are some districts nationally that have moved toward adopting district wide grading.   Distinguish between academic grades and reflections of "student habits of mind" which can be reported to parents, but should not be included in academic grades.  Habits of mind include classroom skills like collaboration, communication, preparedness, critical thinking, quality of work etc.  Talk about how to report formative assessments and summative assessments and what might be included in a final grade.

Then, the best way to come to a common understanding of what "A" or "4" work, "B" or "3" work etc. looks like is to sit down together and look at samples of student work.  Have conversations within grade levels, building and subject areas about what learning is expected in the Common Core or the Model Curriculum and what mastery student work would look like.  Build a portfolio of "exemplar" work for each grading category that everyone has access to.  Show this exemplar work to the students so they can see what is expected of them.  Communicate these expectations to the parents so they understand what a grade actually represents.  Share student progress regularly with parents and students.  Make students accountable for their own learning by helping them monitor their own progress.

Grades should never be a surprise, a gift or a consequence.  Grades for content mastery should not be determined by behavior, personality or attitude.  Grades ARE a communication tool. Grades are a way to help teachers AND students monitor the student's academic strengths and weaknesses as they work toward mastering content.

Resources

• EdLeadership Study Guide - Effective Grading Practices   Guiding questions to help focus discussions on grading policies and practices. (Teresa Preston, Nov. 2011)
• At Some Schools, Failure Goes From Zero to 50 ( Steve Friess, USA TODAY,  May 2008)
• Courageous Conversation - Formative Assessment and Grading (Andrew Miller, Edutopia Blog, Dec 2011)
• Grading Practices (Barbara Gross Davis, UC Berkeley )  Good insights for College Readiness
• The Case of Illogical Grades (Lissa Pijanowski, EdLeadership, Nov 2011)
• Grading Exceptional Learners (Lee Ann Jung and Thomas R. Guskey, EdLeadership, Feb 2010)

  

Is There Room For Poetry In A Informational Text World?

I become liquid

Conforming to any shape

I flow, I shift, change.

C.S.

April is National Poetry Month. I challenge all of you to tie poetry into one lesson this month. One lesson. What, you say, you are not an ELA teacher? That's ok. Poetry is about taking content knowledge and interpreting it in a new way that someone hasn't thought of before. Take a look at my Haiku, is it about liquid as one of the 3 states of matter - science content OR is it about how I feel about what is being expected of teachers as they transition to the Common Core? Poetry is a way to condense key ideas, vocabulary, concepts down into something that is approachable or memorable. Poetry can be very structured and mathematically precise or it can wander and roam across a page mapping out thoughts and ideas. Poetry can be a bridge between fiction and non-fiction. Poetry requires the readers to really work at understanding the meaning of the poem - looking closely at what words the poet chose to create an impression or provoke an emotion.


But wait, the Common Core focus is very much on reading Informational Text and not poetry. Do the writers of the Common Core really expect the math department or the history department to teach reading? No, not directly. The writers do expect that all teachers will take responsibility for ensuring that students in their classrooms have the background knowledge experiences they will need to be successful readers of a wide variety of materials as they become adults. Don't you as teachers already teach them how to be thinkers? Stretch that thinking just a bit and you will realize that in order to be thinkers in your classroom, students must be able to read primary source information and draw their own conclusions. Readers need to spend time deciding what the author of a primary source document was trying to accomplish with the writing. What information did they choose to include or not include? What impression or emotion were they trying to elicit? What was going on in society at the time the piece was written? This is a shift away from the traditional textbook based content area reading assignment where the student reads p16-23, taking notes on bold faced words and answering the questions at the end of the section. It will require department and grade level teams to spend time reading the primary source material they will be using in their classrooms and having their own discussions. Lunch room conversations could become a lot more interesting!  


Are you up to this challenge... can you figure out how to add a little poetry to your classroom? And more importantly, can you help students to unlock the meaning of primary source materials that are relevant to your class?

Resources

Teaching Informational Text

• EngageNY  ELA Shift 2 Video (New York Dept of Ed) Informational Text, Knowledge in the Disciplines
• Appendix B - Common Core Curriculum ELA Exemplar Texts and Performance Tasks
• Teaching With Documents Lesson Plans - National Archives
• Teaching With Primary Sources - The Library of Congress
• Switching Gears - Helping Students Move Successfully From Reading Literature to Reading in the Content Area - Steve Peha (Teaching That Makes Sense)
• Simple Poems, Powerful Teaching: Experiencing Poetry in Content -Area Classrooms by Allison Baer (2007 Adlit InPerspective Magazine Ohio Resource Center)

Poetry Websites

• Ohio Resource Center - National Poetry Month Website
• British Poetry from Old English to the Modern Day  searchable by author view, first line view, timeline view, keyword view. Includes a section of literary criticism of poetry.
• The Academy for American Poets homepage  find text of poems along with a wide variety of lesson resources
• Poetry for Teens - poems about topics relevant to teenagers
• Popular Poems for teaching poetry
• World Poetry Sites  part of the National Poetry Month Initiative
• Poetry Foundation

Poetry Lesson

• Poems for Democracy
• Lessons to Teach the Power of Poetry
• In the Poet's Shoes

Spring Cleaning...Making Room for the Shift in Education

Feeling overwhelmed by it all?  I found myself sitting at my dining room table the other afternoon just staring at the laundry basket full of dirty clothes, the pile of papers to be sorted, the snowmen still on display on my mantle, the dust bunnies on the floor...I sat there a full 20 minutes doing absolutely nothing.  I didn't even know where to start.  I really just wanted to go up to my room, crawl into my bed and pull the blanket over my head.  But, I didn't. I had some chocolate. I prioritized. I started with the laundry. I still haven't gotten to the snowmen, but that's ok.  I am working my way through the tasks in my house, chipping away at them a little at a time.   I think that is the message that may be getting lost in the avalanche of information about Common Core Shifts, Formative Instruction, teacher evaluations, student growth measures, new grading systems, College and Career Readiness, technology integration, inquiry science, real world learning, authentic assessment....  Where to start?  How do we make room for all of this in our day, in our classroom, in our planning time?

As a curriculum director - I am looking at prioritizing my time and resources too.  I suggest starting with the Common Core and Formative Instruction. So many of the other "hot topics" in education are related to these two main initiatives.

Where to start...The Common Core

• If you haven't already, look at the model curriculum for your course, or if you are a teacher in a none core area (foreign language, art, music, phys ed, business, consumer science), revisit your current standards and think about how you might be able to embed more content area reading and writing into your class.
• Focus on content that will be similar in the new model curriculum to what is currently being taught in your classroom.  Spend time thinking about how to teach it more deeply, give students more time to practice a skill, ways to help students apply the content to prior knowledge and real world problems.
• Identify content material that will be "moving out" of your grade level or class and begin to cut away all but the basic lesson material around that content to make room for incoming content or more time to spend on content that will be similar but taught at greater depth.
• Look through your classroom materials, texts and lessons - find materials that you can share with colleagues at other grade levels who may now be teaching content you will no longer be teaching.
• Resources:
• PARCC Model Content Framework - math and English/Language Arts
• ODE k-8 Comparative Analysis - Math 
• ODE Comparative Analysis - Science
• ODE k-8 Comparative Analysis - Social Studies
• ODE  Language Comparative Analysis K-12
• ODE Reading Comparative Analysis K-12
• ODE Speaking and Listening Comparative Analysis K-12
• ODE Writing Comparative Analysis K-12
• Bay Village Common Core Resource Page

Where to start....Formative Instruction

• Write clear learning targets for your class based on the new Model Curriculum or your state standards.  Spend time thinking about what the underpinning learning targets will need to be - what will your students need to be able to do before they can master the ultimate learning target? How will you communicate these to your students? What will your plan be to do an initial assessment to see where they are in their learning? How might you differentiate lessons based on the underpinning targets?
• Choose one unit that you really like and already have learning targets for...and take an honest look at the assignments and assessments you include in that unit.  Do the assignments allow you to formatively assess student learning progress?  Are they differentiated? Is there opportunity for student self assessment or peer to peer feedback? Does the summative assessment for the unit accurately measure their mastery of the learning targets?
• Get out the "New Bloom's Verbs" chart and use it as you create a new unit that might align to the new content coming into your class...or revise a unit that you aren't so happy with. Develop learning and assessment activities that meet higher levels on Bloom's Taxonomy. 
• Resources:
• Classroom Assessment for Learning Chappuis and Stiggins (ASCD Sept. 2002)
• The Best Value in Formative Assessment By Stephen and Jan Chappuis (ASCD  Jan 2008)

I have a small picture I keep on a shelf in my office - it is a Chinese Proverb. " The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones"  I have a small pile of beach rocks by the picture to remind me that no matter how daunting or overwhelming a task, you must start one small piece at a time.   Stop staring at the mountain and find a stone to carry away.  Together we will accomplish what needs to be done, one stone at a time.

Finding Their Voice - As Writing Shifts From Narrative to Informative In the Common Core

Writing has been existing in the shadow of reading in many teacher's lounges, classrooms, curriculum meetings, and homes across our country.  There has been a significant emphasis on reading and improving reading scores.  The importance of reading as a life skill can not be argued, nor can the need to teach students to be more active readers of more complex text.  The Common Core Curriculum has pulled writing back into the light, putting equal value on the literacy skills and the writing skills of students across the curriculum, not just in English/Language Arts classrooms.   With writing and reading on equal footing comes the challenge of how to help students find their voice as writers along a continuum of writing standards ranging from fiction to technical writing and narrative to argumentative or research writing.  

Students are doing more casual writing than ever - summarizing information in 140 characters or less. This isn't a bad thing. One of my biggest complaints as a teacher was that kids didn't know how to summarize information. Texting is forcing them to put ideas in their own words...using as few words and characters as possible!  How do we capitalize on their desire to share every idea, opinion, moment of their lives with their peers?  From Kindergarten on, young writers need opportunities to read different types of writing - narrative, poetry, informational -as models for the kinds of writing they will be expected to do.  Just as we encourage them to speak up in class, share answers, participate in discussions verbally, they need to see that they can have this same active voice through their writing.  If you want to persuade someone to go along with your idea or accept your opinion, you need to have facts or information to back up what you are saying...or writing.   Students can develop a confidence in how they have built their own thinking by spending time in class learning how to synthesize ideas from multiple sources.  Students can learn how to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with their peers by learning how to write supported arguments defending a "thesis" or an answer to a research question.  This isn't just for high school students.  Six year olds have a natural curiosity and a willingness to come up with an explanation and an opinion on any number of things. My 12 year old wrote a well defended argument on the topic "Why I should have a cell phone" complete with quotes from other sources.

Story telling, descriptive writing, poetry all have a place in the Common Core Classroom. Narrative writing skills transfer to persuasive and argumentative writing.  All require a precission to the writing - an attention to detail and word choice.  Good narrative writing flows, using transitions, and a plot diagram to keep the reader moving through the story.  Persuasive or argumentative writing requires a clear framework or outline to build upon. Instead of specific details, the focus is on providing evidence or facts to back up what you say. Narrative is a way for writers to put themselves and their readers in situations that they may not be able to experience in their real life, a way to try out new ideas. Persuasive or argumentative writing takes this concept to the next level, allowing the writers to express their ideas or new ways of thinking based on research or the iterpretation of the ideas of others.

As we plan for the shift to the Common Core, we should support teachers of all content areas as teachers of not just reading - but of writing.

Resources

• Flipping the Switch - Code Switching from Text to Common English Kristen Hawley Turner (NCTE English Journal May 2009)
• Grammar Girl Blog - Understanding Voice and Tone in Writing
• Common Core Shift 5 - Writing From Sources  (EngageNY Video Series)
• The Writing Center - University of North Carolina - Argumentative Writing Guide
  The Writing Center - University of North Carolina - Why NOT to Use Passive Voice
• OWL Argumentative Essay Guidelines ( Purdue Online Writing Lab)
• OWL Narrative Essay Guidelines (Purdue Online Writing Lab)
  OWL Changing Passive to Active Voice (Purdue Online Writing Lab)
• Blending Fiction and Non-Fiction to Improve Writing (ReadWriteThink) (gr 3-5)
• Ohio Resource Center - Lessons related to Narrative Writing
• Ohio Resource Center - Lessons related to Persuasive/Argumentative Writing
• Edutopia Poll - Is Texting Harming Student Writing - with links to related articles in Edutopia
  
  
  

Text Complexity ...Is It In the Stars?

Deep down I am a science girl with a passion for reading.  I have surrounded myself with books of all lengths, genres and points of view.  I read blogs, magazines, news articles and...when there is nothing else, cereal boxes.   Tonight, as I stood outside on my front porch, telescope focused on Jupiter and Venus, I thought about how the reading that students do in a standard school day - worksheets, chapters in a textbook, an occasional news article, a chapter in a novel is very much like looking at the night sky with the naked eye.  You see a few bright stars, maybe a familiar constellation, the moon and not much else.  This is especially true in the city where lights around you block all but the brightest stars from view. People who grow up never experiencing the night sky in the country or through a telescope have a very limited exposure to all the millions of stars and galaxies there really are in the night sky.  Students who have not learned close reading strategies and students who are given less complex reading materials may only focus on obvious, surface level ideas and limited vocabulary words.  They miss the opportunity to wrestle with more sophisticated ideas, connect content to existing background knowledge , learn new vocabulary and make new insights into material. Kelly Gallagher, in his book Readicide, shares some informal research he did with an average high school class.  He asked them to track how much time they spent reading in a school day.  When he tabulated the results, he found that even his honor track students were actively reading on average 17 minutes during a 6 hour day. 

Just like I can use my telescope to focus in on an unfamiliar star or Jupiter and 4 of its moons in orbit around it, I can give my students reading material at a higher level of text complexity that challenges them to read and comprehend new words or find familiar words in a new context.  I can share reading materials that challenge them to expand their world view, test their existing beliefs, or build background knowledge that they may not be exposed to in their daily life.

What is text complexity?  It is a combination of vocabulary use (tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 words), sentence complexity, content, knowledge demands and matching the reader to text and task

How can I learn more about text complexity?
Common Core Shift 3 - Staircase of Complexity   (NY Engage website) Video and resource links
Understand Lexile As A Measure of Text Complexity
Common Core Appendix A - with definitions of the 3 components of text complexity
Ohio Resource Center - links for how to evaluate text complexity
Engage NY Rubrics for Qualitative Analysis of Text Complexity and Determining Appropriate Task to Text Complexity balance
Minding the Gap - Focusing on Vocabulary  Char's prior blog focusing on Vocabulary
Reversing Readicide (ASCD EdLeadership Article) Kelly Gallagher

How to Write Text Based Questions...and Why We Need To Start Doing This Now!

Shifting.   There is a lot of shifting going on in education - shifting content, shifting funding, shifting expectations, shifting responsibilities, shifting blame, shifting accountability.   The most important shift, the one that each of us actually has some control over, is the shift in thinking about how we teach our students.  The authors of the  Common Core Curriculum have identified 12 shifts in thinking that must occur if the true intent of the depth of understanding and rigorous learning embedded in the Common Core are to be realized.  Many teachers are waiting to see what the "new assessments" will look like.  They are also waiting to see the final model curriculum or the finalized standards.   The message from the ODE is DON'T WAIT...start changing the way you teach now and your students will be prepared for the new assessments.

For the next few weeks I will focus on some of these shifts, beginning with the ELA focus on Text Based Questions and Close Reading Skills.   Starting in elementary school, students need to be given opportunities to read literary and content based materials.  The shift is in how, as teachers, we "tee up" this reading experience for our students.  Instead of giving students a summary of the reading before they read it, we should instead offer up some "essential questions" to help guide their reading. This allows students to struggle with the reading to begin to build their own understanding of the content.  Instead of asking students to "take notes" on the reading, we should model how to identify patterns in the text, question what the author intended by including a passage or word in the text, and make inferences based on prior knowledge.  This is a shift from the teacher as interpreter to the teacher as moderator in the discussion between the author and the student.  The kinds of questions that we ask about the text also needs to shift away from questions that encourage students to draw on their own opinion or personal experience without making any direct connection to the text to questions that require students to go back into the text to support their answer.  I chose the HS sample to include in the blog because almost everyone is familiar with the Gettysburg Address.  In the resource links that follow, you will find similar examples for elementary and middle school classrooms as well.

The Gettysburg Address - Sample HS Lesson Using Text Based Questions and Close Reading 
Text Specific Essential Question - To Guide the Teacher 

• What did those who fought at Gettysburg do that those who have gathered cannot?

Text Based Student Question - to Guide the Student

• What does Lincoln describe as the impact of those who fought at Gettysburg?

Non-text Specific Essential Question - Requires NO knowledge of the Gettysburg Address, focus is on individual opinion and student experience.  The second question doesn't even really go with the theme of the Gettysburg address.

• Lincoln says that the nation is dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.” 
• Did Lincoln think that the North was going to “pass the test” that the civil war posed?

Non-text Specific Student Question - Does not require the student to go back into the passage to answer this. Student doesn't even have to know about the Gettysburg Address.

• Why is equality an important value to promote?

Resources:

• Common Core in ELA - Shift 4  Text Based Answers -Video and Discussion Guide ( Engage NY)
• Curriculum Exemplars - by grade band. Each lesson is a Close Reading Lesson with vocabulary included in the lesson.   The HS Lesson on The Gettysburg Address was used by Michael Cohen( Achieve) as an example of how to begin to think about Text Based Questions - and the Appendix 1 of this lesson includes examples of non -text based questions.
• Common Core Instructional Shifts 1-6 to teach ELA  pdf with a brief description of the 6 shifts in instructional practice that need to occur to teach Common Core effectively.
• How to Do Close Reading -  The Writing Center at Harvard
• How to Do Close Reading - The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) Focus is more on having a conversation with the author - asking questions as you read, noticing details and facts, drawing conclusions.
• Example of Close Reading - YouTube Video using Oh The Places You Will Go by Dr. Seuss
• Ohio Resource Center - Close Reading Resource Links