dive into text complexity

Dive into Text ComplexityStanislaus County Office of EducationDive into Common Core Literacy - Day 2

Dual Roles

As a Learner

1 2

As a Leader

Dual Roles

• What do I understand and what is still unclear?

• What aspect of the presentation is supporting my learning?

• What else would support my learning?

As a Learner

1

Dual Roles

• What are the implications for our local context?

• What challenges will we face as we move forward?

• How will we use / modify these tools to support the learning for our staff?

2

As a Leader

Review of Yesterday’s Learning

• Brainstorm a list of ten things you remember from yesterday. Prioritize your list in order of most to least meaningful.

• Compare your list with others at your table. Collapse your lists into a single, prioritized list

• Select a reporter for your table• Each table will share their most meaningful

thing, sharing novel ideas only. If your top idea has been shared, move down your list until you find a novel idea.

Text Complexity Rating Tools

From Supplemental Information for Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy: New Research on Text Complexity

Shifts in Content and Instruction

• Building knowledge through content rich ‐nonfiction

• Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational

• Regular practice with complex text and its academic language

Close Reading

“A close reading [results from] a careful and purposeful rereading of a text. It’s an encounter with the text where students really focus on what the author had to say, what the author’s purpose was, what the words mean, and what the structure of the text tells us.”

--Dr. Doug Fisher

Shanahan on Close ReadingClose reading requires a substantial emphasis on readers figuring out a high quality text. This "figuring out" is accomplished primarily by reading and discussing the text. Essentials of close reading include:• intense emphasis on text, • figuring out the text by thinking about the words

and ideas in the text, • minimization of external explanations, • multiple and dynamic rereading, • multiple purposes that focus on what a text says,

how it says it, and what it means or what its value is

Close Reading

Close reading can not be reserved for students who are already strong readers; it should be a vehicle through which all students grapple with advanced concepts and participate in engaging discussions regardless of their independent reading skills. It builds skill and motivation in the reader.

(Pearson & Gallagher, 1983 as cited in Brown & Kappes, 2012)

David Coleman: Interview “And I think that careful reading can be the basis for then making wonderful, deeper connections. But you need time for the text to live almost on its own. And it’s funny because I think the movement away from the text is a lot, Kate, just like you’re saying, to engage students, to interest them, to try to make it more interesting, it’s interesting to talk about myself, what do I feel, how I connected to it, how it resembles my life. Often people describe it as the golden hook that gets kids interested in what they’re reading. And so I do think there’s a challenge here, at the heart of teaching, which is how do we develop a fascination with what the text is up to?”

“When we talk about text-based questions it’s of course also the inferences you make, what can we infer from what is said and unsaid, how does the argument fit together….how can we create interesting sequences that help get kids interested in this work so we don’t have to go outside the text for excitement.” – David Coleman in the video interview “Common Core in ELA/ Literacy: Shift 4:

Text-based Answers” from Engage NY (2012).

“If a teacher feels the need to deliver content from the text rather than allow students to discover the content independently and through text-dependent questions and discussion, then either the text is not appropriate for a close reading lesson or the teacher does not believe his/her students are ready for the rigor that close reading of complex text demands.”

~Amy Koehler Catterson and P. David Pearson, The University of California, Berkeley

Zone of Proximal Development

The distance between what a child can achieve alone, and what the same child can achieve with guidance from another person.

According to Vygotsky (1978), ‘..what is the zone of proximal development today will be the actual development level tomorrow.’

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

ZPD is the gap between actual competence level (what problem level a student is able to independently solve), and the potential development level (what problem level could she solve with guidance)

“The clearest differentiator in reading between students who are college ready and students who are not is the ability to comprehend complex texts.”

~Reading Between The Lines: What the ACT Reveals about College Readiness in Reading, 2005

Text Complexity

Text Complexity and Rigor

“Just as rigor does not reside in the barbell but in the act of lifting it, rigor in reading is not an attribute of a text but rather of a reader’s behavior --engaged, observant, responsive, questioning, analytical.”

(Beers & Probst, 2012).

Text Complexity and Rigor

• Not synonymous• But equally important

We can’t get students to College and Career Readiness without providing multiple, ongoing opportunities to grapple with both simultaneously.

Connect-Extend-Challenge

Consider the following questions, making some notes of your reflection. Be prepared to share at your table.• How are the ideas and information presented

connected to what you already knew?• What new ideas did you get that extended or

broadened your thinking in new directions?• What challenges or puzzles have come up in your

mind from the ideas or information presented?

Two Critical Questions for

Constructing a Close Reading Experience

•Why are students reading this text?

•What are we asking them to do with the information that they are getting from it?

Close Reading: Not a Linear Process

• It is a process that should be constructed to lead to a particular reader and task outcome

• There is no one right way to “do” a close reading

The Very Hungry CaterpillarA Close Reading Exemplar

Progression of Text-dependent Questions

Opinions, Arguments, Intertextual Connections

Inferences

Author’s Purpose

Vocab & Text Structure

Key Details

General UnderstandingsPart

Sentence

Paragraph

Entire text

Across texts

Word

Whole

Segments

General Understandings

• Overall view • Sequence of

information• Story arc• Main claim and

evidence• Gist of passage


Inferences

Author’s Purpose


Key Details


General Understandings in Kindergarten

Retell the story in order using the words beginning, middle, and end.

Key Details• Search for nuances in meaning• Determine importance of ideas• Find supporting details that

support main ideas• Answers who, what, when,

where, why, how much, or how many.


Inferences

Author’s Purpose


Key Details


Key Details in Kindergarten

• How long did it take to go from a hatched egg to a butterfly?

• What is one food that gave him a stomachache? What is one food that did not him a stomachache?

It took more than 3 weeks. He ate for one week, and then “he stayed inside [his cocoon] for more than two weeks.”

Foods that did not give him a stomachache

• Apples• Pears• Plums• Strawberries• Oranges• Green leaf

Foods that gave him a stomachache

• Chocolate cake• Ice cream• Pickle• Swiss cheese• Salami• Lollipop• Cherry pie• Sausage• Cupcake• watermelon

Vocabulary and Text Structure• Bridges literal and inferential

meanings• Denotation• Connotation• Shades of meaning• Figurative language• How organization contributes to

meaningOpinions, Arguments,

Intertextual Connections

Inferences

Author’s Purpose


Key Details


Vocabulary in KindergartenHow does the author help us to understand what cocoon means?

There is an illustration of the cocoon, and a sentence that reads, “He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself.”

Author’s Purpose

• Genre: Entertain? Explain? Inform? Persuade?

• Point of view: First-person, third-person limited, omniscient, unreliable narrator

• Critical Literacy: Whose story is not represented?


Inferences

Author’s Purpose


Key Details


Author’s Purpose in Kindergarten

Who tells the story—the narrator or the caterpillar?

A narrator tells the story, because he uses the words he and his. If it was the caterpillar, he would say I and my.

Inferences

Probe each argument in persuasive text,

each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these

build to a whole.


Inferences

Author’s Purpose


Key Details


Inferences in Kindergarten

The title of the book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. How do we know he is

hungry?

The caterpillar ate food every day “but he was still hungry.” On Saturday he ate so much food he got a stomachache! Then he was “a big, fat caterpillar” so he could build a cocoon and turn into a butterfly.

Opinions, Arguments, and Intertextual Connections• Author’s opinion and reasoning (K-5)• Claims• Evidence• Counterclaims• Ethos, Pathos, Logos• Rhetoric

Links to other texts throughout the gradesOpinions, Arguments,

Intertextual Connections

Inferences

Author’s Purpose


Key Details


Opinions and Intertextual Connections in Kindergarten

NarrativeIs this a happy story or a sad one? How do you

know?

InformationalHow are these two

books similar? How are they different?

Develop Text-dependent Questions for Your Text

Do the questions require the reader to return to the text?

Do the questions require the reader to use evidence to support his or her ideas or claims?

Do the questions move from text-explicit to text-implicit knowledge?

Are there questions that require the reader to analyze, evaluate, and create?

Reflection on Hungry Caterpillar• This was a close reading exemplar. In

what ways did these questions lead students to look more carefully at the text?

• How would you systematically implement this type of questioning in your classroom so that all students have a close reading experience?

Task Analysis for Child Labor

Student Task: (RI.8.6) Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.

• In your table groups, determine the skills that a student will need to successfully complete this task. What reading, writing, speaking and and & listening, and language will be required?

Semantic Mapping

Determine an author’s point of

view

Reading

Writing Language

Speaking & Listening

Childhood Lost Another close reading exemplar with photographs

A First Hand Account

THE MORE YOU LOOK, THE MORE YOU SEE PHOTO ANALYSIS

• What I See (observe)• Describe exactly what you see in the photo.• What people and objects are shown? How are they arranged? What is the physical

setting?• What other details can you see?

• What I Infer (deduction)• Summarize what you already know about the situation and time period shown and

people and objects that appear. I see ___ and I think ___

• Interpretation• Write what you conclude from what you see.• What is going on in the picture? Who are the people and what are they doing? What

might be the function of the objects? What can we conclude about the time period?• Why do you believe the photo was taken?• Why do you believe this photo was saved?

• What I Need to Investigate• What are three questions you have about the photo?• Where can you research the answers to your questions?

Building Background vs. Scaffolding• How might engaging students in an activity like

this prepare students to engage in a complex text like Child Labor?

• Is there a distinction between frontloading (aka building background) and scaffolding?

• What distinguishes a “good” frontloading activity from a “bad” one in the era of the common core?

Effective Schema-Building• Students are the ones doing the heavy lifting• We provide the focus materials, but they provide

the meaning• We aren’t telling them what to think about the

issue, but their thoughts come naturally from their exposure to and work with the non-text documents

• They are building knowledge and ideas that will help them to connect and make meaning of the complex text they will eventually be asked to read

Text Dependent Questioning

The Common Core State Standards for reading strongly focus on students gathering evidence, knowledge, and insight from what they read. Indeed, eighty to ninety percent of the Reading Standards in each grade require text dependent analysis; accordingly, aligned curriculum materials should have a similar percentage of text dependent questions.

www.achievethecore.org

Non-Examples and Examples

53

•In Henry and Mudge Puddle Trouble, the dog, Mudge, eats a flower. What other things can dogs do that might get them in trouble with their owners?

•In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something.

•In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair.

When Henry was mad at Mudge for eating the flower, why did Henry stop and decide not to call Mudge a “bad dog”? Find the sentences that support your ideas.

What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous?

What can you infer from King’s letter about the letter that he received?

Not Text-Dependent Text-Dependent


Source: Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (in press). Common Core State Standards in Literacy (Grades 3-5). Solution Tree


Review the handout Creating Text-Dependent Questions for Close Analytic Reading of Text.

Highlight the seven steps for creating text dependent questions.

Review the types of text dependent questions, and make a connection between the two.

English-Language Learners

• Word learning takes place when students engage in purposeful talk with others that embeds the target words and displays their uses (Corson, 1995)

• Conversation and discussion are needed to provide the necessary elaboration to master rules of use of words across contexts (Kowal & Swain, 1994)

• Meaningful contexts must be provided for functional use of language along with opportunities for practice and application (Dutro & Moran, 2003)

Speaking and Listening:Anchor Standards

Comprehension and Collaboration1. Participate effectively and interactively in conversations2. Integrate and evaluate information from different media

and formats3. Evaluate a speaker’s view, reasoning and use of evidence

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas4. Present information effectively5. Use various methods to present information6. Adapt speech to fit different contexts

Key Features of a Collaborative Conversation• Structured• Rich• Academically oriented• Built and conducted around grade-level

appropriate texts and standards• Frequently complex and centered on

questions without one correct answer• Requires students to respond and interact

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

• Communication

• Collaboration

• Creativity and Innovation

21st Century Thinking Skills

Summary: Collaboration is important because it …

• Builds College and Career Readiness Standards• Develops the academic language register• Builds academic vocabulary• Assists in building content knowledge• Develops language skills for writing• Provides instructional scaffolding beyond

teacher• Promotes work place communication skills

The Big ChangesWe are now responsible for a different type of conversation.• Conversation is more academic and less social.• The overall amount of conversation will increase.• Teachers will spend more effort in identifying

appropriate tasks worthy of this investment of time.

• Teachers will dedicate more effort to carefully orchestrating conversations.

• There will need to be instruction for students on how to conduct academic conversations.

Instructional Decision Making

STUDENT

CONTENTTEACHER

Balance of Instructional Models

Short and Long Term Goals

What is on the Students’ Desks?

Mindset / Relationship

The new standards demand student collaboration, both as a direct requirement of and facilitator for mastering the new standards. This requires:• Picking the right tasks and times for

collaboration• Direct teaching of interactive skills• Student facilitated feedback• Providing structure for partnering• Scaffolding/gradual release • Sufficient time for meaningful interaction

Making Collaboration Happen

Tools for Teaching Conversation

• Directly teach skills of conversation• Model collaborative conversations• Use video of collaborative conversations• Provide sentence starters or conversation

prompts• Conversation accountability tools

• Color coded charts• Markers• Whiteboards

Successful Cooperative LearningJohnson and Johnson (2009)

• Structuring tasks for interdependency

• A spirit of cooperation• Individual accountability• Use of critical social skills• Professional development

Tone of Collaborative Conversations

• Argue without being argumentative• Disagree without being disagreeable• Maintain the demeanor of an academic

conversation• Space for passion and engagement

Student Tools for Collaborative Conversation

• Let other speakers finish before stating your point• Use your turns as an opportunity to respond to

others• Raise your hand (or other indicator) to signal other

speakers that you would like to share• Make eye contact with others while they are

speaking• Orient your body to others while they are speaking• Ask others to clarify or state their opinions or

points

Academic Conversation Starters

Speaker: I contend that _________________.Responder: Can you cite evidence that supports your assertion?

Speaker: A central point in this discussion is_____________.Responder: My summary of what you just said is _________.

Speaker: My opinion is ___________because ___________.Do you have any more information to support your opinion?

How does this differ from current practice in pair-share?

• Students must use evidence to justify their arguments

• There must be active turn taking for claims and counter claims

• It is not social in nature

Basic Principles for Partnering

• Equal participation

• Interdependent partners

• Individual accountability

• Efficient use of time

Paired Work:Advantages and Disadvantages

• Advantages

• Disadvantages

Steps for Partner Response

• Assign partners• Choose partners one and two• Give task• Have partner 1 or 2 answer• Monitor pairs as they share• Bring answer to whole group• Provide feedback

Paired Reading Procedures

• Pick appropriate text• Place in pairs• Assign coach and reader role• Teach coach to assist• Assign portion for reading• Have students take turns• Monitor

Crucial Points for Paired Work

• Management • Academic pairing• Social pairing• Set rules in advance• Use in varied settings• Pair with other responses

Conversation Management

• Room arrangement• Quiet signal• Teacher and student modeling• Manageable noise level• Efficient distribution of materials• Class rules and procedures

Discourse Through Routines:Discourse Book

Planning for Success

• Prepare the learner• Interact with text• Extend Understanding

• What supports, scaffolds and tasks will you put into place to support your students in interacting with complex texts?

The Planning Process

• Teachers select a text that is worthy of close reading due to its complexity

• Teachers craft a close reading experience for their students by • Determining what makes their chosen text

complex• Creating activities and experience for students

to help them successfully navigate and negotiate that complexity

Text Selection for Close Reading

Be sure to draw upon the resources you have available to you to find concise passages for close reading:• History text• Science text• Portions of ELA/ELD adoption and/or ancillaries• Media

Address the two critical questions:

• Why are students reading this text?

• What are we asking them to do with the information that they are getting from it?

Sample Performance Tasks for Informational Texts: English Language Arts• Students determine the point of view of John Adams in his “Letter on

Thomas Jefferson” and analyze how he distinguishes his position from an alternative approach articulated by Thomas Jefferson. [RI.7.6]

• Students trace the line of argument in Winston Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” address to Parliament and evaluate his specific claims and opinions in the text, distinguishing which claims are supported by facts, reasons, and evidence, and which are not. [RI.6.8]

• Students analyze in detail how the early years of Harriet Tubman (as related by author Ann Petry) contributed to her later becoming a conductor on the Underground Railroad, attending to how the author introduces, illustrates,

• and elaborates upon the events in Tubman’s life. [RI.6.3]• Students determine the figurative and connotative meanings of words such

as wayfaring, laconic, and taciturnity as well as of phrases such as hold his peace in John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America. They analyze how Steinbeck’s specific word choices and diction impact the meaning and tone of his writing and the characterization of the individuals and places he describes. [RI.7.4]

Sample Performance Tasks for Informational Text: History/Social Studies

• Students evaluate Jim Murphy’s The Great Fire to identify which aspects of the text (e.g., loaded language and the inclusion of particular facts) reveal his purpose; presenting Chicago as a city that was “ready to burn.” [RH.6–8.6]

• Students describe how Russell Freedman in his book Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott integrates and presents information both sequentially and causally to explain how the civil rights movement began. [RH.6–8.5]

Sample Performance Tasks for Info Text: Science, Mathematics and Tech Subjects• Students integrate the quantitative or technical information

expressed in the text of David Macaulay’s Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction with the information conveyed by the diagrams and models Macaulay provides, developing a deeper understanding of Gothic architecture. [RST.6–8.7]

• Students construct a holistic picture of the history of Manhattan by comparing and contrasting the information gained from Donald Mackay’s The Building of Manhattan with the multimedia sources available on the “Manhattan on the Web” portal hosted by the New York Public Library (http://legacy.www.nypl.org/branch/manhattan/index2.cfm?Trg=1&d1=865). [RST.6–8.9]

Planning Time

• Choose something that you will implement prior to our next meeting, September 24

• Choose a text that is worthy of close reading• Be sure there is some kind of outcome expected

of the close reading experience – something students will have to do with the information

• Feel free to regroup with other teachers at your grade level to plan collaboratively

What’s In and What’s Out?IN

1. Daily encounters w/complex texts2. Texts worthy of close attention3. Balance of literary and info texts4. Coherent sequences of texts5. Mostly text-dependent questions6. Mainly evidence-based analyses7. Accent on academic vocabulary8. Emphasis on reading & re-reading9. Reading strategies (as means)10. Reading foundations

(central and integrated)

OUT1. Leveled texts (only)2. Reading any ‘ol text3. Solely literature4. Collection of unrelated texts5. Mostly text-to-self questions6. Mainly writing without sources7. Accent on literary terminology8. Emphasis on pre-reading9. Reading strategies (as end goal)10. Reading foundations

(peripheral and detached)

The Power of a Teacher“I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.”

Dr. Haim Ginott

It All Begins with Attitude

“The key here is not the kind of instruction but the attitude underlying it. When teachers (and administrators) do

not understand the potential of the students they teach, they will under

teach them no matter what the methodology.”

Lisa DelpitOther People’s Children:

Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

Think – Write – Pair – Share

If Close Reading is an outcome, what activities and strategies will get us to that outcome?• Privately make a list of at least five activities or

strategies you employ that could elicit close reading• Talk about your list with a partner• As a table, create a chart with at least one idea

from each table mate

dive into text complexity

Documents