Shift Happens

Six Instructional ELA Shifts#1: Balancing Informational and Literary

Text

#2: Building Knowledge in

the Disciplines

#3: Staircase of

Complexity

#4: Text-Based

Answers

#5: Writing From

Sources

#6: Academic Vocabulary

Shift #1 PK-5: Balancing Informational and Literary Texts

Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts. Elementary school classrooms, are therefore, places where students access the world- science, social studies, the arts and literature- through text.

Transdisciplinary

units of study

Implemented

Science reading materials in all K-5

Classrooms

Literacy Units of Instruction

Developed and Implemented

Program Reviews Including ELA

Anchor Standards

4 8 12

50% 55%70%

50% 45%30%

Informational Literary

Shift #2: 6-12 Knowledge in the Disciplines

• Content area teachers outside of the ELA classroom emphasize literacy experiences in their planning and instruction.

• Students learn through domain-specific texts. They are expected to learn from what they read.

Shift #2 - 6-12 Knowledge in the Disciplines

• Complement, not replace content standards

Reading & Writing Literacy Standards

• Read a president’s speech & write a response• Read scientific papers & write an analysis

Depend on text rather than reference it:

• Analyze and evaluate texts within disciplines• Gain knowledge from texts that convey complex

information through diagrams, charts, evidence, & illustrations

Think Sophisticated Non-Fiction

Implementation Example: GDDT Subcommittees developing action plan to address Writing across grade levels and disciplines

Shift #3: Staircase of Complexity

In order to prepare students for the complexity of college and career ready texts, each grade level requires a “step” of growth on the “staircase”. Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered. Teachers are patient, create more time and space in the curriculum for this close and careful reading, and provide appropriate and necessary scaffolding and supports so that is possible for students reading below grade level.

Part 1 of this workshop presented at August Leadership Institute; Part 2 to come…

Shift #4: Text Based Answers

Students have rich and rigorous conversations, which are dependent on a common text. Teachers insist that classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text on the page and that students develop habits for making evidentiary arguments both in conversation, as well as in writing to assess comprehension of a text.

Shift #4: Text Based Answers

Text Based

Answers

Students must cite text to

support answers

Personal opinions,

experiences, and connections to

the text are minimized in

favor of what the text actually says

or doesn’t say Questions tied directly to the text, but extend beyond the

literal

A great amount of work in this area. Teachers have been expecting the students from Kindergarten through Grade 12 to provide evidence from the text when they answer questions.

Moving forward in this area, staff can refer to the GPS CCSS wiki- “ELA Shift 4 and 5” as a resource. There is a seven-step process for teachers to follow to create effective, text-dependent questions.

Shift #5: Writing from Sources

Writing needs to emphasize use of evidence to inform or make an argument rather than the personal narrative and other forms of decontextualized prompts. While the narrative still has an important role, students develop skills through written arguments that respond to the ideas, events, facts, and arguments presented in the texts they read.

Pre-CCSS Writing Expectations

“Why does the author describe some of the special equipment as ordinary? Use details from the article to explain your answer.”

Open Ended

Response “You have just heard school is closed due to snow. What do you do? Write to a friend and explain the best way to spend a snowy day.”

Direct Assessment of Writing

Shift #5: Writing from Sources

Shift #5 - Writing from SourcesStories, Drama, and

Poetry

• Students compare and contrast Laurence Yep’s fictional portrayal of Chinese immigrants in turn‐of-the-twentieth-century San Francisco in Dragonwings to historical accounts of the same period (using materials detailing the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) in order to glean a deeper understanding of how authors use or alter historical sources to create a sense of time and place as well as make fictional characters lifelike and real.

Informational Texts: English Language Arts

• 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.

Informational Texts: History/Social Studies & Science, Mathematics,

and Technical Subjects

• Students analyze the governmental structure of the United States and support their analysis by citing specific textual evidence from primary sources such as the Preamble and First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well as secondary sources such as Linda R. Monk’s The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution.

POST CCSS Implementation Grades 6-8 Sample Performance Tasks

Shift #6: Academic Vocabulary

Students constantly build the vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. By focusing strategically on comprehension of pivotal and commonly found words (such as “discourse”, “generation”, “theory”, and “principled”) and less on esoteric literary terms (such as “onomatopoeia” or “homonym”), teachers constantly build students’ ability to access more complex texts across the content areas.

Shift 6 Academic Vocabulary

Robust Vocabulary Instruction involves directly and explicitly explaining meanings of words along with thought-provoking, interactive follow-up.• Contextualize (C)• Explain meaning (M)• Provide examples (E)• Provide guided meaning interactions (I)

Word: Stalking• In the story, the pack of wolves weave like shadows, stalking a deer. (C) • Another way of saying the wolf pack was stalking a deer is they were

tracking the deer. (M)• When you track someone or something, it means you are following them or

stalking them (E)• Have you ever stalked someone or something? Tell your partner. (I)

Shift #6: Academic Vocabulary“A pack of wolves wandered through the valley.”

Pre CCSS: Surface Level of

Vocabulary Comprehension:

Literal, word, and phrase meanings.

At a surface level the reader would know who was in the valley, what

the wolves did, and where the wolves wandered.

Post CCSS: Deep Level of

Vocabulary Comprehension:

What we know about the vocabulary in this sentence that is not explicitly stated.

At a deep level the reader would infer: groups of 6-12 large wild

animals, have a social structure, move about freely, and wander

in an elongated depression between hills or mountains