p. david pearson university of california, berkeley

Literacy Policy and Practice in the Era of the Common Core: Critical Concerns and Research Guidance for Classroom Practice P. David PearsonUniversity of California, Berkeley

Goals for Today

• Remind ourselves of what the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts are designed to do.

• Examine their potential• New possibilities: The high road on curriculum, text,

and cognitive challenge• Explore their dark side: Pot holes, sink holes, and

black holes• Discuss some defensible positions to take on curriculum

and pedagogy as we move into the all important implementation phase.

Slides will be posted on www.scienceandliteracy.org

SurveyElementary?Secondary?College?What’s the difference

Elementary Teachers LoveTheir kids

Secondary Teachers LoveTheir subjects

College Teachers Love

Themselves

A Confession:My Relationship with CCSS• Member of the Validation Committee• Background work on text complexity with a

grant from Gates Foundation• Long (and occasionally checkered) history with

standards going back to– NBPTS: Standards for Teaching– IRA/NCTE Standards

• Research and development work on assessment, especially the sorts of assessments that are allegedly going to be privileged by the CCSS for ELA

What sold me on the standards

What they said about reading

• Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the close, attentive, reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature. They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to pick carefully through the staggering amount of information available today in print and digitally. They actively seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens world views. They reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence essential to both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic. (CCSSO/NGA, 2010, p. 3)

So what’s not to like?

• Nothing• Everything I believe in about literacy

learning

What they said about teacher choice

• By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed. Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning. Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards. (CCSSO/NGA, 2010, p. 4).

Just the right balance

• NCLB relief package• Let the body politic at every level have a

voice in the big overarching goals• At every level along the way, from the state

to the district to the school to the classroom, leave a little room for each player to place his or her “signature” on the effort…

• Identity, buy-in, the right kind of political negotiation among levels within the system…

So…….

• In 2010, I signed on the dotted line to say these standards are worthy of our professional support and implementation

• Ready to go on the road and seek converts.

• But the road to paradise has been a little rocky…

Today’s Agenda

• Raise and try to answer several questions about the current prospects for new policies and classroom practices

• Focus particularly on the role of the CCSS• Especially in the implementation Phase we are just

entering

Issues and Questions…

1. Do students need more challenge in the texts they encounter?

2. Is literacy best enacted in the service of acquiring disciplinary knowledge?

3. Do the standards get comprehension right?4. Is the developmental trajectory of the standards

across grade levels valid?5. Will the assessments prove to be matches to the

standards?6. How can the CCSS make peace with NCLB: What

about the role of foundational skills?

These and other issues are discussed in several papers at www.scienceandliteracy.org: • Pearson, P. D. (2013). Research foundations for the

Common Core State Standards in English language arts. In S. Neuman and L. Gambrell (Eds.), Quality reading instruction in the age of Common Core State Standards (pp. 237-262). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

• Hiebert, E.H., & Pearson, P.D. (2013). What happens to the basics? Educational Leadership. 70(4), 48-63.

• Pearson, P. D., & Hiebert, E. H. (2013). Understanding the Common Core State Standards. In L. Morrow, T. Shanahan, & K. K. Wixson (Eds.), Teaching with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts: What Educators Need to Know, Grades PreK-2 (pp. 1-21). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

1. Do students read better and learn more when they experience greater challenge in the texts they encounter.

• Based on two assumptions• Students are not college or career ready

• 200 lexile gap• We have been dumbing down textbooks

• Hayes (1996)• Chall (197os)

• Will productive struggle be good for kids?

Why text complexity? The gap for college and career readiness

Jack Stenner’s (lexile guy) depiction of the 200 lexile gap

Productive struggle has its place, as does upping the ante…BUT

• Not because we have dumbed down textbooks• Hiebert and Mesmer• Gamson

• But because we have NEVER met the challenge of college and career readiness

• And because students need the tools and opportunity to read and learn whatever they wish

• We all need strategies for coping with our own Waterloo texts.

What’s a body to do?

• Journey not a mandate• Two general approaches

• Gradually scale up the challenge in some sort of digitally delivered learning space

• Offer high support for the productive struggle• Rethink the scaffolding metaphor: Not

whether a kid can read a text at a given level but• Under what conditions of support can a student

make meaning while reading a text?

What’s a body to do?

Text-task scenarios (Valencia, Pearson, & Wixson)• Texts are not inherently difficult or easy• Neither ability nor disability is behind the eyes and

between the ears (Meehan, McDermott)• Show me an abled reader today and I’ll show you a disabled

reader tomorrow• Show me a disabled reader today and I’ll show you an abled

reader tomorrow• Depends on Context-

• Support (how is it scaffolded) (3rd leg of the CCSS appendix)• Task demands (what do you have to do to demonstrate

understanding)• Knowledge, interest, motivation, engagement…

2. Are reading and writing best developed and enacted in the service acquiring disciplinary expertise?

• Minimize Reading to Learn vs Learning to Read• Always learning to read (that’s why we need

secondary programs• Always reading to learn (that’s why texts for even

our youngest readers must promote knowledge and insight)

• Reading, Writing, and Language are best conceptualized as tools, not goals• Mischief—Means not ends

Our current view of curriculum

Lang

uage

Art

s

Mat

hem

atics

Soci

al S

tudi

es

Scie

nce

A model I like: Tools by Disciplines

Science Social Studies

Mathe-matics

Literature

Reading

Writing

Language

Academic Disciplines………..

Lang

uage

Too

ls

Early: Tools are privileged


Mathe-matics

Literature

Reading

Writing

Language


Lang

uage

Too

ls

Later: Disciplines are privileged


Mathematics

Literature

Reading

Writing

Language


Lang

uage

Too

ls

Weaving is even a better metaphor than a matrix

mathliterature

Social studiesScience

ReadingWriting Language

ScienceW

riting

Read

ing

Lang

uage

Social Studies

LiteratureMathematics

Integration is tough…What happens when you try to integrate reading and math?

• The evolution of mathematics story problems during the last 40 years.

1960's• A peasant sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of his selling price. What is his profit?

1970's (New Math)

• A farmer exchanges a set P of potatoes with a set M of money.

• The cardinality of the set M is equal to $10 and each element of M is worth $1. Draw 10 big dots representing the elements of M.

• The set C of production costs is comprised of 2 big dots less than the set M.

• Represent C as a subset of M and give the answer to the question: What is the cardinality of the set of profits? (Draw everything in red).

1980's•A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His production costs are $8 and his profit is $2. Underline the word "potatoes" and discuss with your classmates.

1990's

• A kapitalist pigg undjustlee akires $2 on a sak of patatos. Analiz this tekst and sertch for erors in speling, contens, grandmar and ponctuassion, and than ekspress your vioos regardeng this metid of geting ritch.

Author unknown

2000's• Dan was a man.• Dan had a sack.• The sack was tan.• The sack had spuds• The spuds cost 8.• Dan got 10 for the tan sack of spuds.

• How much can Dan the man have?

3. Do the CCSS get comprehension right?

http://www.scienceandliteracy.org/research/pdavidpearson


Prevailing research-based wisdom about comprehension…

• Kintsch’s Construction-Integration Model• Rand Report on Comprehension

Kintsch, W. (1998). Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.RAND Reading Study Group. (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward an R&D program in reading comprehension. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

The End of Elegance

• Business had been slow since the latest rise in the price of crude.

• Nobody seemed to want anything elegant anymore.

• Suddenly a well-dressed man burst through the showroom door,

• and headed straight for the most expensive model on the floor.

• John Ingham peered over the rims of his horn-rimmed glasses,

• over the top of the want ad section of the newspaper,

• adjusted his loose-fitting jacket to hide the frayed sleeves of his shirt,

• and rose to meet the man whose rhinestone stickpin and alligator boots (but were they?) seemed incongruous amidst the dazzling array of steel-gray

• Mercedes sedans.

• “Ill take this one”, he said confidently, pointing to most expensive model on the floor…

• “cash on the line!”• Later, the paperwork complete, John muttered

to himself, “I’m glad I didn’t blow this one.” • He added, “What does he know about

elegance? What does anyone know about elegance anymore?

• Then he smiled wryly as he returned to his newfound pastime.

Kintchian Model

3Knowledge Base Text

1Text Base

2Situation Model

Inside the head Out in the world

Experience

Says

Means

Does>>>>>>>>>

Kintsch’s Construction-Integration Model• As you read, for each unit, you

• Construct a Textbase• Integrate the Text and Knowledge Base to create a

Situation Model• Incorporate information from the Situation Model

back into your knowledge base• Use your knowledge to nudge the world a bit.• Start all over again with the next bit of reading• C-I-C-I, anon anon

Says

Means

Does

My claim in 2010: The vision of comprehension in the CCSS maps onto important theoretical, assessment, and curricular research

• National Assessment of Educational Progress• Four Resources Model of Freebody and Luke• Kintsch’s Construction-Integration Model



• Key Ideas and Details• 1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences

from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

• 2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

• 3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

• Craft and Structure• 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical,

connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

• 5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

• 6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text. • Integration of Knowledge and Ideas• 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including

visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.* • 8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity

of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence. • 9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build

knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Common Core

• Standards 1-3: Key ideas and details• Standards 4-6: Craft and structure• Standards 7-9: Integration of knowledge

and ideas



NAEP

• Locate and Recall• Interpret and Integrate• Critique and Evaluate

• Key ideas and details• Craft and structure• Integration of

knowledge and ideas

• Locate and Recall• Interpret and

Integrate• Critique and Evaluate

CCSS NAEP

Freebody and Luke’s 4 Resources• Reader as Decoder: Get the message: • Reader as Meaning Maker: Integrate with

knowledge:• Reader as Text Analyst: What’s the real

message and how is it crafted• Reader as Text Critic: What’s the subtext?

The hidden (or not so hidden) agenda?

SAYS

MEANS

DOES

Consistent with Cognitive Views of Reading

What the text saysWhat the text meansWhat the text does

Locate and RecallIntegrate and Interpret

Critique and Evaluate

Decoder

Meaning Maker

User/Analyst/Critic

Key Ideas and DetailsIntegration of Knowledge and Ideas

Craft and Structure

For those who want to see everything at once…

Pearson Kintsch 4 Resources NAEP CCSS

Says Text Base Decoder Locate and Recall Key Ideas and Details

Means Situation Model Meaning Maker Interpret and Integrate

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

Does Put Knowledge to Work

Text Analyst Critique and Evaluate

Craft and Structure

These consistencies provide…

• Credibility• Stretch• Research “patina”

I was ready to go on the road to sell these standards to anyone who would listen

And now… for something completely different

Problems with the implementation guides…• Misconstrual of the role of prior

knowledge in the comprehension process• Misreading of the role of CLOSE

READING…

Text dependency of questions

• Regarding the nature of texts: “A significant percentage of tasks and questions are text dependent…Rigorous text-dependent questions require students to demonstrate that they not only can follow the details of what is explicitly stated but also are able to make valid claims that square with all the evidence in the text. Text-dependent questions do not require information or evidence from outside the text or texts; they establish what follows and what does not follow from the text itself.” (page 6)

Stay close to the text

• Staying close to the text. “Materials make the text the focus of instruction by avoiding features that distract from the text. Teachers’ guides or students’ editions of curriculum materials should highlight the reading selections…Given the focus of the Common Core State Standards, publishers should be extremely sparing in offering activities that are not text based.”

My concern

• We will operationally define text dependent as literal, factual questions

• Forgetting that LOTS of other questions/tasks are also text-reliant

• Compare• What were two reasons pioneers moved west?• What does the author believe about the causes of westward expansion in the

United States?• How valid is the claim that author X writes from an ideology of manifest

destiny?

• YOU DON’T NEED A LITERAL FACTUAL QUESTION TO PROMOTE CLOSE READING…

• Fundamental misunderstanding about reading theory:• Every action—critical, inferential, or literal—requires the use of prior knowledge

to carry it out…

intepretive

literal

critical

Text before all else

“The Common Core State Standards call for students to demonstrate a careful understanding of what they read before engaging their opinions, appraisals, or interpretations. Aligned materials should therefore require students to demonstrate that they have followed the details and logic of an author’s argument before they are asked to evaluate the thesis or compare the thesis to others.” (page 9)

My concern

• We will view literal comprehension as a prerequisite to inferential or critical comprehension.

• Compare• We could read text X. Then read text Y. Then

compare them on Z.• Or just ask them to conduct a comparative

reading of X and Y on Z.• Sometimes the comparison or critique question

better rationalizes the close reading

My concern

• Fundamental misunderstanding of the role of prior knowledge in comprehension.• Assumes that you don’t need prior knowledge to get the meaning

of the text…

• WHAT THEY FORGOT: The text drags prior knowledge along even if you don’t want it to.• Schema Theory Tenet: Words INSTANTIATE schemata

• Business had been slow since the oil crisis…

• The text cries out for a schema to attach itself to.• Ideas that don’t connect don’t last long enough to allow learning

(assimilation or accommodation) to occur• They drop out of memory pretty fast• In one eye and out the other!• The best way to encourage learning that lasts is to connect to PK.

Yet another role for knowledge: Monitoring• How do we know that our understanding is good

enough?• We use two standards…

• Does it square with the textbase I have built thus far in today’s reading?• The last clause, sentence, paragraph, page, and more…

• Does it square with what I know to be true about the world?

I wonder why Coleman and Pimentel are so down on prior knowledge?

So what about Prior Knowledge• Why has it taken a beating in the Publishers’ Criteria• One thought: Too much Indulgence at the trough of

prior knowledge• Too much Know, not enough Want to Learn and Learn• Too much picture walk• Too much story swapping about our experiences with roadrunners

before reading…

• Let’s right the wrongs• Need a mid course correction not a pendulum swing

• Knowledge in proper perspective?• Balanced view of knowledge?• Knowledge in the service of understanding

But asking kids to hold their prior knowledge at bay…

• Is like• Asking dogs not to bark or • Leaves not to fall.• It’s in the nature of things• Dogs bark.• Leaves fall.• Readers use their prior knowledge to

render text sensible and figure out what to retain for later.

So what’s a body to do?

• Embrace the construct of close reading as it has evolved in literary theory, but embrace it ALL.

• Look at what the advocates of close reading have said about it.

Historically…

• Close reading was a reaction to the historicism and psychoanalytic traditions of the 20s in literary theory.• Knowing what Keats had for breakfast won’t help you

understand Ode to a Grecian Urn

• New Criticism: I. A. Richards, William Empson, Brooks and Warren: a rigorous objective method for extracting the correct meaning of a text.• (what does the text say?)

My favorite: A debunking of the idea that the meaning is in the text: From one of the close reading heroes of the past: Mortimer Adler—How to read a book (reading with a pencil)

• And that is exactly what reading a book should be: a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; naturally, you'll have the proper humility as you approach him. But don't let anybody tell you that a reader is supposed to be solely on the receiving end. Understanding is a two-way operation; learning doesn't consist in being an empty receptacle. The learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. And marking a book is literally an expression of differences, or agreements of opinion, with the author.

So what’s a body to do?

• Embrace the construct of close reading • But make sure that it applies to several purposes for reading

• Reading to get the flow of ideas in the piece. • Reading to enhance our knowledge base!!!!• Reading to compare (with another text or body of experience or

knowledge• Reading to critique

• how good is the argument or the craft or • what is his bias/slant/perspective)

• All of these approaches interrogate the text as an evidentiary base.

• Develop a set of routines to enact these purposes for close reading

• My sure fire Close Reading Strategy• What do you think?• What makes you think so?

• All about warranting claims about what the text says, means, or does...

• From Cyndy Greenleaf • and Mary Uboldi, my sophomore and senior

English teacher at Healdsburg High School

Mr. Martin bought a pack of Camels on Monday night in the most crowded cigar store on Broadway. It was theatre time and seven or ten men were buying cigarettes. The clerk didn’t even glance at Mr. Martin, who put the pack in his overcoat pocket and went out. If any of the staff at F&S had seen him buy cigarettes, they would have been astonished, for it was generally known that Mr. Martin did not smoke, and never had. No one saw him.

What you think you know

What in the text makes you think so?

More a body can do…

• Stay closer to the standards than to the interpretations of the standards we have seen thus far.• I never had any issue with the construct of close reading

embedded in the CCSS

• Pay more attention to the anchor standards than to the grade level instantiations of them.

• Why? • I’m not convinced that they got the sequencing right.• What matters most is the students are traversing the full

range of cognitive moves involved in text understanding.


• Enact a full model of close reading…• Says—Means—Does

• Lots of good candidates:• Four Resources• QAR• NAEP

• Locate & Recall• Integrate & Interpret• Critique & Evaluate

• Text as an evidentiary resource that, along with knowledge and experience, can allow us to render things meaningful


• Stay closer to the standards than to the interpretations of the standards we have seen thus far.• I never had any issue with the construct of close reading

embedded in the CCSS

• Pay more attention to the anchor standards than to the grade level instantiations of them.

• Why? • I’m not convinced that they got the sequencing right.• What matters most is the students are traversing the full

range of cognitive moves involved in text understanding.

Work with teachers to appropriate some routines that serve different close reading purposes• Work through lots of different texts• Create a range of routines…

• Look Out For Lightning• Chapter 9, A Warrior Rescue• • “Wow, lightning struck that tree!” Dennis yelled.• Wendy had only seen the lightning flash from the corner of her eye,

but she could see the black streak along the side of the big oak tree behind the school fence. It looked like someone had just pulled off the bark with a giant potato peeler.

• Mrs. Stuard grabbed the microphone. “The game is postponed. Everyone, leave the field and go inside the school until the storm passes.”

• Mr. Holmes was already leading the two soccer teams across the field. He unlocked the back door of the school.

• People climbed down from the bleachers and walked away from the sidelines as more thunder rumbled.

• Wendy looked at the sky, but there were still no cumulonimbus clouds over them and no rain. The lightning video had been right. You didn’t have to be in the middle of a storm for lightning to be dangerous.

• Wendy waved at her parents and Dennis’s father as they followed the crowd into the school.

• “Get inside, Wendy,” her father said.• Wendy nodded. She turned to follow Dennis and Jessica. Then, she

saw Austin and his parents hurrying toward the parking lot.• “Wait!” Wendy shouted.• “Come on,” she said to Dennis and Jessica. They had to stop Austin’s

family from getting into their car. Sometimes Austin could be weird, but Wendy didn’t want him or his family to get hurt.

• “Stop!” she shouted again as more thunder echoed.• But Austin’s parents kept walking. Dennis ran past Wendy and

Jessica. He stopped in front of Austin’s parents.• “Mr. and Mrs. Scott, you have to get into the school until the

lightning stops,” Dennis said, gasping to catch his breath.•

• Mr. Scott’s eyes widened. “We’re going home, young man. Did you see what happened to that tree?”

• “Kaboom!” Austin’s little sister shouted.• Austin folded his arms. “I didn’t hear anything about cars.”• “Because you were too busy folding paper airplanes,” Jessica said.• Mr. Scott shook his finger in Wendy’s face. “Listen, kids, you all can

stay in the school with your families if you want, but we’re leaving.”• Suddenly the sky was filled with light. An explosion echoed and

sparks flew as lightning slammed into a van in the middle of the school parking lot. Jessica screamed and everyone dropped to the ground as car alarms were set off.

• “We’ve got to get inside,” Wendy said.•

• Mr. Scott nodded. The color had drained from his face. Everyone jumped up and ran back across the soccer field. Mr. Scott grabbed Austin’s sister in his arms. Austin’s mother pulled him by the hand.

• Mr. Andrews held the door open as they ran inside the school.

• “Did you see that?” Austin gasped.• Wendy nodded. She’d never been so close to a lightning strike. It

was the biggest explosion she’d ever heard. And there were sparks coming out of the car. Real sparks!

• Mr. Scott stared into Wendy’s eyes. “That van was two rows ahead of our car. We could’ve been walking past it when it the lightning hit.” He put his daughter down and leaned against the wall. “Thank you. You may have saved our lives!”

•

• Look Out For Lightning• Chapter 9, A Warrior Rescue• • “Wow, lightning struck that tree!” Dennis yelled.• Wendy had only seen the lightning flash from the corner of

her eye, but she could see the black streak along the side of the big oak tree behind the school fence. It looked like someone had just pulled off the bark with a giant potato peeler.





Story Questions

What is the setting of the story and what’s going on? How does that shape the action?


• “Get inside, Wendy,” her father said.• Wendy nodded. She turned to follow Dennis and Jessica.

Then, she saw Austin and his parents hurrying toward the parking lot.

• “Wait!” Wendy shouted.• “Come on,” she said to Dennis and Jessica. They had to stop

Austin’s family from getting into their car. Sometimes Austin could be weird, but Wendy didn’t want him or his family to get hurt.

• “Stop!” she shouted again as more thunder echoed.• But Austin’s parents kept walking. Dennis ran past Wendy

and Jessica. He stopped in front of Austin’s parents.• “Mr. and Mrs. Scott, you have to get into the school until

the lightning stops,” Dennis said, gasping to catch his breath.•

What problem did Wendy recognize?

How did Wendy and Dennis try to solve the problem?






Why weren’t Wendy and Dennis successful at first?






•

What changed Mr. Scott’s mind

What did Mr. Scott do when he realized what Dennis and Wendy had done?







Stock Taking






•







This time we are going to look for examples of figuratve language and how and why the author might have used them.

Second Pass


• Mr. Andrews held the door open as they ran inside the school.• “Did you see that?” Austin gasped.• Wendy nodded. She’d never been so close to a lightning strike. It



• Second Pass Options:What can we learn about weather?How does the author shape our attitude toward different characters? What’s your evidence?What can we infer about what went on in earlier chapters?

4. Are the standard sequenced in a valid, sensible and logical way?

Table 1. Progression of Standard 3 (How elements develop and interact) for Literary and Informational Texts Across Grades K-5

Grade Literary Informational

K With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

1 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

2 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges

Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

4 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions)

Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

5 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).

Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

What is the logic that moves us from one grade to the next…and the next…?

Transitional Moves…• Change the level of support: The removal of scaffolding in

moving from K-1 for both L and I texts.• Change the number of entities involved in the process. In

moving L3-L4, the number of entities increases—from characters in L3 to characters, settings or events in L4.

• Change the type of entities: In moving from I1-I2 there is a change from general to discipline-specific entities. In moving from I4-I5, the change is from explaining entities to explaining relationships and interactions.

• Increase the cognitive demand of the process: There is a change from description to explanation in moving from L2-L3 and from I3 to I4; also moving from explanation to comparison in L4-L5.

• Add evidentiary requirements: This is the move represented in I3-I4.

Table 1. Progression of Standard 3 (How elements develop and interact) for Literary and Informational Texts Across Grades K-5

Grade Literary Informational

K With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

1 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

2 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges

Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events

Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

4 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions)

Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

5 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).

Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

Δ TYPE

Δ TYPE

SCAFFOLD SCAFFOLD

#

DEMAND

DEMAND

DEMAND

+ EVIDENCE

Standard 4 on Vocabulary: Literature: 6, 7, & 8• 6. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are

used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone.

• 7. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.

• 8. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

What’s the basis of progressions?• Research?• Tradition?• Professional consensus?• Best guesses?

My evidence

• Talked to the Standards Writers• How did you decide on the grade level to

grade level progressions• Evidence• Models for exemplary standards

• States• High achieving countries like Finland and Korea

• Professional consensus among the writers and reviewers

• These are not handed down on stone tablets

Implications of this approach

• The degree to which research is reflected in these progressions is a function of• Whether the models they examined were research-based• Whether the mental models of the authors/reviewers were

research-based.

• Classic consensus process.• Doesn’t distinguish it from most other standards efforts.

• National Board for Professional Teaching Standards• State standards• NAEP achievement levels

• What does distinguish the CCSS from these other efforts:• Grade level specificity

So what to do about the sequencing problem

• Watch carefully:• Is the 4th grade version harder than the 3rd grade

version?• Are the width of the steps between grade levels

about the same size?• When you find discontinuities, send them to the

CCSS folks or to me.• Concern yourself more with the big picture (the

anchor standards) than the specific versions of the standards at each level.

5. Will the assessments live up to the promise and challenge of the standards?

• Remains to be seen• Wisconsin is a Smarter Balanced State, right?• So is California• Much ado about nothing much new• Still fundamentally multiple choice tests• The performance assessments are likely to be

so psychometrically compromised that they won’t be able to do their job…• The patina of deeper learning, project-based learning, and

integrated curriculum will lose their luster

100

· Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun, but I never have been able to make out the numbers.

· There are four seasons: salt, pepper, mustard, and catsup.

The perils of performance assessment: or maybe those multiple-choice assessments aren’t so bad after all…….

101

• "Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water."

The perils of performance assessment

102

• "Germinate: To become a naturalized German."

• "Vacumm: A large, empty space where the pope lives."


103

· Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.


104

• You can listen to thunder and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind.

• "When you breath, you inspire. When you do not breath, you expire."


6. How will the foundational skills so prominent in NCLB fare in the world of the CCSS? • From Center Stage to an Afterthought in

terms of placement in the document.• Everything from NCLB is there, it’s just that

we don’t hear as much about it…• Varies by State

• North Carolina• California

Legacy of NCLB

• Ensure that kids get off to a good start in • Decoding• Phonemic Awareness• Fluency• Vocabulary • Comprehension

• Ensure that we attend to all of the potential achievement gaps• Disaggregated Reporting…

• Accountability all the way down…

Effective programs provide instruction that allows students to develop skills and strategies that support reading and writing.

• Effective teachers do not leave skill development to chance.

• They teach skills explicitly and then ask students to apply them in functional reading and writing activities.

My own view of what we need to do for early literacy in the era of the CCSS

• We are as obligated to ensure that students have a repertoire of word reading skills as we are that …

• They know a LOT of everyday and domain specific words as we are that…

• They read, write, discuss, and critique a wide range of stories and articles as we are that…

• They get a chance to read on their own a lot…

Goals of Word Strand

• Immediate: to allow initial word identification of unknown words;

• Long term: to help students move words into their sight word repertoire, where they can be recognized instantly, without arduous analysis.

• Ultimate: to get to word meaning on the way to understanding what is read.

Word reading is supported by

• letter-sound decoding (buh-ah-tuh=/bat/) • decoding words by analogy with known words

(mother looks like brother so it must sound like it)

• sight word learning• context clues (it must have something to do

with birds because that is what the story is about).

• Ehri’s work: 1995-2002 period

Sight Word Reading: 2 kinds: both are important• Repertoire of words that cannot be

approximated by decoding rules or analogy: give, the, of, love, river, laugh, through, though, tough

• Repertoire of words that students have moved, through decoding strategies from• The arduously analyzable to• The immediately apprehensible

• Including many multi-syllabic words: irresistible, Jefferson, persnickety

Pre-K and K essentials

• Letter name knowledge• Phonemic awareness• Oral language• Print awareness

Table 2. Evaluation of the Questions About CCSS-ELA

Assumption Strength of Research Base

Clarity of Representation in the Standards

Likelihood of high fidelity

implementationBenefits of Text Complexity

Moderate Very High High

Disciplinary Grounding

Strong High High

Comprehension Model

Strong Moderately High Low

Learning Progressions

Very Weak Low Low

Assessments Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain

Foundational Skills

Strong Weak Uncertain

Hopes for the standards…

• I’m hangin’ in there for the near term.• They are still the best game in town• They are moving in the right direction in terms of

reading theory and research—deeper learning.• Hoping they prove to be a living document

• Regularly revised with advances in• our knowledge of reading• research on their “consequences”

p. david pearson university of california, berkeley

Documents

common core state standards

classroom practice

curriculum developers

critical reading necessary

text complexity

development work

critical concerns

pot holes