A Multi-Layered Approach to Teaching Literacy and Content Area Standards

Integration for Student Learning

Jessica Bateman Winkelaarjwinkelaar@gmail.com

Overview

• Introductions• Goals for session:– Integrate Common Core Standards for

Informational Texts with Content Area Standards using strategies and graphic organizers

– Highlight Concepts in Literature– Small group/Individual Work time

• Next Steps . . .

Prior Knowledge

• What do you know about the Common Core?

• What do you know about the Content Area Standards?

• Why take time to include concepts/skills from content areas along with literacy skills?

FrameworksWHY? (purpose for learning)

• Problem-based• Project-based• Service-based• Work-based• Adventure-based• Game-based• Place-based

*Some options to provide a ‘big picture’ and relate learning to students’ lives (an opportunity to connect to content areas)

PedagogyHOW do we teach?

• Authentic• Active• Conceptual• Collaborative• Inquiry • Interdisciplinary• Reciprocal

Content-based ---------------------Concept-based

CurriculumWHAT do we teach?

• ELA & Literacy (Common Core) Standards for K-5:– Reading Standards for Literature (p. 14)– Reading Standards for Informational Texts (p. 18)– Reading Standards: Foundational Skills (p. 22)– Writing (p. 26)– Speaking, Viewing, Listening and Media Literacy (p.32)– Language (p. 38)

• Math Standards (not Common Core)• MN Standards for Arts, Health & Physical

Education, Science and Social Studies

Presentation Focus

• Common Core Reading Standards for Informational Text

• Key Ideas and Details• Craft and Structure• Integration of

Knowledge and Ideas• Range of Reading and

Level of Text Complexity(pages 18-21 of ELA

Standards)

• MN Academic Standards in the Content Areas

• Science• Social Studies

Reading StrategiesEngaging Students with Texts

• Before– Activate Prior Knowledge

• During– Active engagement with content

• After– Comprehension/metacognition

Content Area StrategiesEngaging Students with Concepts

• Projects

• Hands-on activities

• Others?

Literacy Skills for Students (K-5)Using Informational Texts

Key Ideas and Details• ask & answer questions, identify topics,

describe connections within a text, use details and quotes to draw inferences, determine main ideas and summarize, explain relationships based on text

Literacy Skills for Students (K-5)Using Informational Texts

Craft and Structure• use text features, identify author & purpose,

determine meanings (words), describe text structure, compare and contrast different accounts (e.g. firsthand or secondhand)

Literacy Skills for Students (K-5)Using Informational Texts

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas• explain images, describe support from author,

compare and contrast two texts, interpret visual information, explain how authors use evidence to support points, integrate information from texts on the same topic

Social Studies Skills for Students

Civic Skills (5)• Democratic government depends on informed and

engaged citizens who exhibit civic skills and values, practice civic discourse, vote and participate in elections, apply inquiry and analysis skills, and take action to solve problems and shape public policy.

Economic Reasoning Skills (1)• People make informed economic choices by identifying

their goals, interpreting and applying data, considering the short-and long-run costs and benefits of alternative choices, and revising their goals based on their analysis.

Social Studies Skills for StudentsGeospatial Skills (1)• People use geographic representations and geospatial technologies

to acquire, process and report information within a spatial context. • Geographic inquiry is a process in which people ask geographic

questions and gather, organize and analyze information to solve problems and plan for the future.

Historical Thinking Skills (2)• Historians generally construct chronological narratives to

characterize eras and explain past events and change over time. • Historical inquiry is a process in which multiple sources and different

kinds of historical evidence are analyzed to draw conclusions about how and why things happened in the past.

Science Skills for Students

Scientific literacy enables people to use scientific principles and processes to make personal decisions and to participate in discussions of scientific issues that affect society (NRC, 1996). The standards and benchmarks describe a connected body of science and engineering knowledge acquired through active participation in science experiences. These experiences include hands-on laboratory activities rooted in scientific inquiry and engineering design.

Skills – observation, classification, investigation

Student Learning

• What do these skills look like?

• How do students practice these skills?

• How do students transfer skills?

Integration

Integration Scenario #1

• Framework: Problem-based• Pedagogy: Inquiry• Curriculum: Key Ideas and Details + Science• Literacy Skill: Ask and Answer Questions• Content Skill: Structure and Function of Living

Things – identify, describe, compare• Text: What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

• Jenkins and Page (2003)

• Graphic Organizer: Inquiry Chart

Inquiry - an investigative learning process, modeled after the scientific

method.

1. Formulating the question(s)

2. Making hypotheses

3. Gathering data

4. Forming a conclusion

Formulating the Question(s)

Ideally, questions are student generated.

Teacher guides students, identifying what students know about given concept and what they want to know.

Questions should be BIG, conceptual, and meaningful.

Tips for Generating Questions

Tip: Put Standards into question formTip: Reframe a required text, topic or standard by focusing on why it mattersTip: Look around the community for issues that intersect with the topicTip: Ask questions about quality that require students to make a judgmentTip: Ask Ethical questions – what should we pursue? What should we do with the knowledge we have?

Source: Wilhelm, J. Using Inquiry Strategies to Promote Student Reading, Writing and Discussion

Literacy Skill - Key Ideas and Details

• Ask and answer questions about key details in a text (1.2.1.1)– Reading Benchmarks for Informational Text, p. 18-21

• Bloom’s Taxonomy, Embedded Questioning (Roth, 2003)

• Task: Students ask and answer questions about animals they encounter in Steve Jenkins and Robin Page’s What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

Source: Common Core State Standards for ELA, Appendix B

Content Skill – Science Standards

• K – Students will identify the external parts of a variety of plants and animals (0.4.1.1.2)

• 1/2 – Students will describe and sort animals into groups in many ways, according to physical characteristics and behaviors (1.4.1.1.1 and 2.4.1.1.1)

• 3 – Students will compare how the different structures of plants and animals serve various functions of growth, survival and reproduction (3.4.1.1.1)

• 5 – Students will describe how plant and animal structures and their functions provide an advantage for survival in a given natural system (5.4.1.1.1)

Try it!

Create/modify a graphic organizer that integrates the skills students

need to practice

Integration Scenario #2

• Framework: Place-based• Pedagogy: Conceptual (Big Ideas)• Curriculum: Craft and Structure + Geography• Literacy Skill: Identify Author & Purpose• Content Skill: Place – Reading Maps• Text: Map• Graphic Organizer: DESCRIBE

Place-based and Conceptual

• Draws on the local area, extends across the curriculum, and taps into community resources;

• “Place-based education is the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts” (Sobel, 2004, p. 19).

• From a student perspective, place-based education offers an opportunity to participate in local problem solving (Smith & Sobel, 2010).

Author’s Purpose

• http://fcit.usf.edu/FCAT/strategies/default.htm

• Identify the main purpose of text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe (2.2.6.6)

• Go beyond identifying purpose to asking students “to do what?”

Content Skill

• http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/maps/question4.html

• Bias in orientation (up & center); bias in projection (size and shape); bias in content (features shown or not shown on map).

• WHO produced the map, FOR WHOM, and to WHAT PURPOSE?

“Maps offer a useful tool by which students can explore the complex issue of ‘bias’.”

www.geog.gmul.ac.uk/map

Integration Scenario #3

• Framework: Brain-based• Pedagogy: Collaborative• Curriculum: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas +

Five Senses• Literacy Skill: Integrate information from texts on

the same topic• Content Skill: Health• Texts: My Five Senses and Me and My Senses• Graphic Organizer: Expanded Venn Diagram

Asking Questions

• Use questions and prompts such as: • What is the same about the points presented in

these texts? What is different? • Look at these two texts about the same topic. Can

you find the important information from both texts to add to your notes? Can you tell me about the important ideas you found in each text?

• www.sde.idaho.gov/site/common/.../4thGradeCCSSUnpacked.pdf

Graphic Organizer

• Think about a graphic organizer that would provide your students with an opportunity to practice integrating information from two texts on the same topic (4.2.9.9)

Reading Standards for Literature

• Integrating Common Core Standards with Content Area Standards using Fiction:

1. Identify a concept embedded in the text based on your purpose;

2. Highlight the big idea using a question, statement, or moral;

3. Follow-up reading using a discipline-specific strategy (e.g. make a map).

Next Steps . . .

• Review Concepts in Content Areas

• Resources by grade level

• Others? Make tables of student skills to assist in integrating standards in a way that makes sense for students!

Sources

• Ideas in Powerpoint from:

• Andy Furco

• Jehanne Beaton Zirps

• Judy Harrington