Pre-conference day . . . a day to get the conference up and running. For some a day to visit, vacation, or view some local attractions.
For others, a day of learning! Day 1 of #ILA15 in St. Louis with @LitLearnAct. A MARVELOUS day of learning! Institute 09 – Reading with Rigor: Interpreting Complex Texts Using Annotation and Close Reading Strategies wth Dana Johansen and Sonja Cherry-Paul, the authors of this Heinemann text.
There are many definitions of rigor and the dictionary ones are not conducive to joyous literacy learning. We created posters among our table groups of our own definitions of rigor. This view of rigor extends the possibilities for our students.
What are some common myths about “rigor”?
1. Rigor means increasing homework for the students.
2. Rigor means students should do more and more work.
3. Rigor is for some students but definitely not for ALL students.
4. With rigor, students should be able to do the learning without any supports or scaffolds.
5. The more resources you have and use, the more rigor increases for students.
6. No need to worry about rigor; the standards cover it.
7. Rigor is an addition to the curriculum. So of course, you are going to have to take a favorite unit out of your school year.
8. A teacher who is teaching with rigor will be a “Mean” teacher.
Of course, none of those myths are true according to Barbara Blackman in this resource.
How many of those have you heard?
Stop, pause and have a moment of reflection. How does this match your current knowledge and your thinking?
So just how do we keep the “FUN” and yet learn?
Listen carefully to what the girl says in this video. Do you have any doubt about what she does and does not know?
Is that what your students are saying?
How are wordless picture books rated on text complexity?
Where and how do we find complex texts?
There is NO magic list of complex text.
Text selection should depend on the students, their needs, the strategies they know, the strategies they need, their data, and their interests! Text selection should not be the same, year after year, after year, after year, after year!
How much text should be used for a “Close Read”?
This has been answered previously; but only as much text as is needed. An entire text is NOT read closely. Doug Fisher’s beliefs in a range from three paragraphs to three pages was shared. NOT a whole book! Only pick the part of a text that is worthy, be strategic, because you are going to read that text over and over and over and over! You may have to trick the students into rereading by changing the purpose and the questions. The questions you raise should drive them back into the text and be so interesting that the students want to answer them. For over forty years we have had data that tells us that rereading improves comprehension.
And then we moved to Text Dependent Questions. These are huge in the Publishers’ Criteria. However, if you have a “Word” version of the ELA standards, search for the phrase “Text Dependent Questions” and see what your results are!
In this section, we worked with “Last Kiss” by Ralph Fletcher and had great conversations about whether a question that required inferencing beyond the words of the text was a “Text Dependent Question”. At this stage it really makes sense to think about a variety of questions that are well balanced at the different DOK levels!!!
Cartoons (do our students REALLY understand them?) . . . Many students don’t really see the humor so they might be great sources of short text to practice on with students. Depending on the age of your students, you might look to “Calvin and Hobbes” to see how students explain what is really happening in the cartoon strip.
We also spent some time on the pitfalls or challenges of Nonfiction. We explored an immigration text set that included a picture, first person recollection, and immigration statistics from the Library of Congress. .
Steerage passengers taking it easy on ocean liner . . . or is that a “sad” version of humor!
Do the challenges increase or decrease when additional source documents are added? What do you think?
Who should be generating the questions?
It is possible to teach toward the ambitious new goals of the Common Core Standards.
Teachers and students need to use knowledge to sort, question, reank, synthesize, interpret, and to apply knowledge.
Teachers need to continue to READ complex texts collaboratively and share their thinking and the puzzles that remain.
The title of this post comes from a direct quote from Vicki Vinton (coauthor of What Readers Really Do with Dorothy Barnhouse) in the comments section on her blog here. This is a HUGE shift for many teachers and students.
Is this appropriate? What about text-dependent questions for complex text? What does the Iowa Core say (100% of Common Core is inside the Iowa Core)?
The picture below is of a “word search” for “text-dependent questions” in the ENTIRE K-12 ELA document including all content area supports for grades 6-12. Are you surprised by the results?
The phrase “text-dependent questions” was not found when the entire document was searched.
A second search for “text-dependent” had this result.
Please check your own state standards document. Does it “REALLY” require “text-dependent questions” or is that “someone’s” interpretation of the standards? Should close reading result in students who can answer those text-dependent teacher questions? Or do our students deserve something better?