STAAR Reading Comprehension November 2012

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STAAR Reading Comprehension

November 2012

HOUSTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT

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Session Goal

Teachers explore strategies to prepare students for the rigorous reading comprehension demands of the STAAR and EOC exams.

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Areas Under Construction

Subject Overarching Ideas Instructional Hot Spots/Adjustments

Reading •Reading as an inferential task•Equal weight to literary and informational text•Readiness genres and supporting genres•Figure 19 connections•Reading-writing connections for expository

•Academic vocabulary of genre•Persistence in extended reading•Planning for genre•Opportunities for inferential thinking•Thematic links•Strategies•Textual evidence vs. find the answer

Information provided by Lead4ward

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Table Talk

• What do you do before you read?

• What do you do while you read?

• What do you do after you read?

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The Reading Process

• Prereading Strategies: set a purpose for reading, preview the text, make predictions

• During Reading Strategies: make connections, ask questions, visualize, monitor and clarify understanding

• After Reading Strategies: summarizing and synthesizing, determine what’s important, analyze author’s craft

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Figure 19 for Middle SchoolReading Comprehension (RCs)

In a nutshell:• RC.A – Purpose for Reading• RC.B – Universal Questions about Text• RC.C – Monitor Comprehension• RC.D – Making Inferences• RC.E – Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and

Synthesizing• RC.F – Making Connections Between Texts

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Figure 19 for High SchoolReading Comprehension (RCs)

• RC.A = reflect on understanding to monitor comprehension (asking questions, summarizing and synthesizing, making connections, creating sensory images)

• RC.B = making inferences (replaces RC.D)

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Instructional Implications

1) Read for comprehension2) Read for craft3) Skills must become automatic

Handouts – Strategies and tools:

• Annotate for Comprehension – Mark it Up (AVID)

• Annotate for Craft – LTF

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The Reading Process

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Edna’s Ruthie

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Strategic Reading

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Reading as Thinking

The three column model was borrowed from Charles Fuhrken. Most of the information provided within the charts are from the Reader’s Handbook by Jim Burke.

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Fiction

What?What was the text about?

How? How did the author write it?

Why?Why did the author write it?

• What is the setting?• What is the relationship

between the characters? (Protagonist and Antagonist)

• What is the story about? (Plot Summary)

• What is the central conflict?

• What is the resolution?

• How does the author structure the story? (flashback, foreshadowing, linear narrative)

• How does the author write it? (Style – word choice, sentence structure, length)

• How is the story told? (Narrator/Point of View)

• How does the author create, or utilize, certain literary elements? (dialogue, imagery, mood, tone, figurative language, symbolism)

• Why did the author write it? (author’s purpose, theme, message, or moral)

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Setting - House owned by an old man who has a caretaker.

Characters – Narrator, Old Man, Police, Neighbor

Plot - The caretaker, (main character and narrator) tells the story of how he becomes fixated on the old man’s eye, whom he cares for. He becomes so crazed by it that he kills the old man and hides him under the floor boards. The police come to check on the house, and the narrator “hears the beating heart” through the floor board and reveals what he’s done.

Conflict - Since the eye, not the man, is the problem, the narrator can't kill him if the offending eye isn't open.

Resolution – Eye opens, Man killed, and he gives himself up

Structure – Horror/Gothic Fiction

Style – Notice how the longer sentence is actually less ambiguous and frustrating than the very short ones. The long sentence gives us a precise description, while the short ones leave us grasping for meaning.

Point of View – Poe uses an unreliable narrator and reveals the insanity of the caretaker through the point-of-view.

The imagery in the story is what is most prevalent. Poe conveys the internal conflict of the narrator/caretaker with vivid sensory description.

Theme - Poe reveals a theme of guilt through the imagery of the “beating heart.” Because it is human and always present, it has the ability to be maddeningly constant, especially if it is filled with guilt.

Let’s take a closer look

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Let’s Give it a Try

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Fiction – Edna’s Ruthie




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Fiction – Edna’s Ruthie What?

What was the text about?How?

How did the author write it?Why?

Why did the author write it?

Setting – Apartment

Characters – Edna, Ruthie, Ruthie’s husband, kids

Conflict - Ruthie seems to have a fear of enclosed spaces – she doesn't like to go into stores with the kids, and if she does, she "keeps looking around her like a wild animal in a house for the first time" (26.4).

Resolution – Remained trapped within herself.

She likes to play with the children because she has never grown up enough to handle the adult world. She doesn’t go into stores with the children, and one night when her mother’s friends invite her to play bingo, she is paralyzed at the thought of going out with them. Ruthie is talented, but when she was young she got married instead of taking a job. Now she lives with her mother, but she waits for her husband to come and take her home. Esperanza brings her books. One day, Esperanza memorizes and recites passages from Through the Looking Glass. The beauty of Esperanza’s recital moves Ruthie, but she cannot express herself. Instead, she tells Esperanza she has beautiful teeth.

Genre – Fiction: Vignette – Coming of Age

Tone – Critical, yet ambitious and hopeful

Style – Clear, readable, succinct, and poetic

Narrator – Esperanza, First Person

Allusion – The Walrus and the Carpenter

Symbolism – houses = “Shame and Fantasy” and "Confinement and Independence.“

Mood - the mood is childish and adult by turns.

Theme – In life you can't wait around for things to happen, you have to get up and make them happen.

Purpose – to create a foil for Esperanza . Ruthie’s loss of power over her life and her potential as a writer shines a light on Esperanza’s power to take control over her situation and become a successful writer.

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Persuasive




• What viewpoint and/or position does the author take in the introduction?

• What supporting details and evidence does the author use?

• What opposing viewpoint (counterargument) does the author address and what is the refutation?

• What idea does the author leave you with in the conclusion?

• How does the author support his or her reasoning? (facts and statistics, firsthand experience or examples, opinions of experts)

• How does the author structure the argument? (compare/contrast, inductive, deductive)

• How does the author create appeals to emotion or logic?

Why did the author write it? (Author’s Purpose – Call to Action or Convincing you of something)

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In the introduction, MLK demands justice now.

MLK concedes when he tells that he knows they’ve been brutally persecuted, but he refutes it when he tells the audience that we must still have dignity and faith.

MLK concludes the speech leaving the audience feeling like we must all come together.

MLK uses the metaphor cashing the check of freedom.

MLK alludes to the Declaration of Independence

MLK creates an appeal to emotion when he utilizes emotional words such as brutality and manacles (diction)

MLK repeats the phrase “I have a dream” throughout the speech. (anaphora)

MLK is trying to convince his audience that freedom is the destiny of the oppressed.

Let’s take a closer look

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ExpositoryWhat?




What is the subject?

What is the author saying? (Summary – 4 W’s = Who, What, Where, and When)

What is the thesis?

What supporting details does the author use?

• How was the text organized? (chronologically, enumeration/description Comparison/Contrast Cause/Effect)

• How do the text features signal importance? (Fonts and Effects -Titles, headings, boldface print, color print, italics, bullets, captions, labels)

• How do certain words, phrases, illustrations, and photographs help convey information?

• How do graphics help convey information? (Diagrams, cross-sections, overlays, distribution maps, word bubbles, tables, graphs, charts)

Why did the author write this article?

Do you agree with the author? Why? Why not?

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Literary NonfictionWhat?



Why did the author write it?What is the Controlling Idea?

What are the details?• Details about time period• Details about place• Details about key events• Details about the subject

How does the author structure it? (This depends on the selection: is it an essay, biography, autobiography, or a personal narrative?)

Examples:• Chronologically• Compare/Contrast• Cause and Effect• Through a certain point of

view or perspective


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PoetryWhat?



Why did the author write it?• What is the title of the

poem and the name of poet?

• What is the poem saying?• What role do the

characters play? (narrator/speaker)

• What is the concept or topic?

• What is the setting?• What is the point of view?

ORT - titleP - paraphraseC - connotationA - attitudeS - shiftsT – revisit titleT – theme

How does the author utilize certain elements of poetry? Examples• Alliteration• Figurative Language• Poem Type (free verse)• Imagery• Repetition• Rhyme Scheme and

Rythym• Stanzas• Tone and Voice

Why did the author write it?(Theme or Message)

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Drama




• What type of drama? Tragedy, Comedy, Romance, etc.

• What is the setting?• What is the relationship

between the characters?• What is the play about?

(summary of the plot)• What is the central

conflict?• What is the resolution?

• How do the stage directions help tell the story?

• How does the author create imagery? Visualize what the lines would sound like/what an actor would look like speaking the lines.

• How does the author create mood and tone?

• How does dialogue, or a Monologue, move plot and contribute to characterization, and theme?

• How does the author create symbolism?

Why did the author write? (Theme, message, or moral of the play)

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Let’s Get Analytical

• Question: How can we take the three-column notes from comprehension level responses to analytical responses?

• Answer: Focus on reading and annotating for specific elements such as style, diction, and literary devices.

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Short Answer Response and The Three-Column Notes

• The next three slides illustrate how 3 column notes expand on the “audience impact” connection that correlates to the type of analytical Short Answer Response (SAR) writing that is required on the Reading EOC.

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Let’s Step it up! “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber,”

by Ernest Hemingway” (fiction)

What?What is the quote or device?

How? How does it impact the audience ?


“But more than shame he felt cold, hollow fear in him. The fear was still there like a cold slimy hollow in all the emptiness where once his confidence had been and it made him feel sick. It was still there with him now.” (p. 157)

Hemingway’s simplistic use of language is what makes this statement so powerful. He begins with the conjunction “but,” which is indicative of Hemingway’s writing style, and clearly relates the feeling of “fear” to being “hollow” through repetition of the words. He ends the paragraph with a simple statement that the fear was still there, which leaves the reader with a concrete idea of what Macomber is dealing with.

Hemingway conveys the fear that comes from the possibility of death, which is a theme that Hemingway explores in much of his writing.

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Let’s Step it up! “On Seeing England for the First Time,” by Jamaica Kinkaid

(literary nonfiction)What?

What is the quote or device?How?

How does it impact the audience ?


Contrasting images of England between it being presented “gently, beautifully, delicately, a very special jewel” and how it is received, “like a leg of mutton.” (para. 1)

By being presented as something beautiful and delicate, and as a “very special jewel,” the reader feels the envy, or pride that is associated with the person who is presenting England, and who is attempting to instill a sense of awe. However, the contrasting image of a “leg of mutton” gives a more repulsive feeling on the part of Kincaid. A jewel is something that is a prize possession by most, whereas a leg of mutton is food for the common people.

Kincaid conveys her resentment towards the oppressive imperialistic rule of England when she was growing up.

(note: In this essay, Kinkaid is not trying to persuade her audience as much as she is trying to explain her resentment.)

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What?What is the quote or device?

How? How does it impact the audience ?


Lippmann claims that most men view political freedom as “a noble ideal rather than a practical necessity.” (para. 1)

By juxtaposing the contrasting ideas of “noble ideal” and “practical necessity,” Lippmann reveals the opposing viewpoints that political freedom is either conditional or unconditional.

Lippmann argues that it is within the freedom of speech that our own opinions evolve, and, therefore, without it our society would diminish.

Let’s Step it up! “The Indispensible Opposition,” by Walter Lippman

(persuasive)

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The subtle differences between TAKS and STAAR

TAKS• Step-by-step testing

strategies may have been helpful to keep students focused during the all-day testing period.

• The TEKS were worded differently, so the student expectations for mastery of the objective were different.

STAAR

• Students must continuously read metacognitively so that

they can dissect and understand the passage as

they read and answer questions.

• Answer choices are harder to distinguish between because

distracters are more closely related and questions are

more inferential.

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8.12A: Identify the purposes of different types of texts such as to inform, influence, express, or entertain. (2008)

8.9: Analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author’s purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide text support. (2012)

TAKS The author probably wrote this selection to – A compare a student’s work to Lawrence’sB persuade people to buy Lawrence’s paintingsC explain how he was inspired by LawrenceD describe the art world of the twentieth century

STAAR

The author uses the first paragraph mostly to—

A identify the source of his claims B provide definitions of complex terms C present the position of his argument

D reveal the solution to a problem

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8.12A: Identify the purposes of different types of texts such as to inform, influence, express, or entertain. (2008)

8.9: Analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author’s purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide text support. (2012)

TAKS Why does the author focus on the fact that Lawrence liked to paint black heroes?A to emphasize Lawrence’s interest in historical figuresB to suggest that Lawrence’s skill was uniqueC to list examples of Lawrence’s best workD to show Lawrence’s pride in his heritage

STAAR

Why does the author include paragraphs 2 and 3?

A To share a humorous story about daylight saving time

B To explain to the reader how daylight saving time benefited the city of Paris

C To support the claim that daylight saving time saves money

D To help the reader understand where the idea for daylight saving time originated

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The Rigors of STAAR Reading

Consider the following: In paragraph 1, the description of Anne in the stage directions is

intended to evoke feelings of — A fear B doubtC angerD pity

What do students need to know or be able to do to answer this question?

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Model Your Thinking

In paragraph 1, the description of Anne in the stage directions is intended to evoke feelings of —

Only look here, not the whole selection.

This is what I am looking for.

I’m only looking in the Stage Directions. If I don’t know what this is I need to look it up. Remember, this story is a play. What do I know about plays?

Do I know what this word means? I can tell it’s a verb. I might need to look it up.

This is another hard work. What does it mean?

Who’s feelings?

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Academic Vocabulary

In addition to content specific vocabulary, consider including academic vocabulary in your daily routine.

Word of the day: Convey

• The author conveys the theme by _____________• The diction in this piece conveys a mood of___________• The piece conveys a sense of ________________

Encourage students to use the word in a complete sentence when speaking and writing about a text.

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Short Answer Reponses-SARs

TAKS OERs• Less rigorous • Not crucial for scoring well

overall• Fewer lines• Allowed doubling-up on

lines

STAAR SARs

• More rigorous• Less obvious (sometimes

opinion based “do you think…” questions)

• More lines (10 for single selection and connecting)

• Cannot double-up on lines• More weight in overall score

(32% of test)

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Partially Sufficient Responses Score point 1

1. Have flawed textual evidence that is:*Only a general reference to text-not specific.*Weakly linked to the idea.*Wrongly manipulating the meaning of the text.

2. Have an idea that needs more explanation or specificity or indicates only a literal reading of text.

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Exemplary ResponsesScore point 3

*Are perceptive and reflect an awareness of the complexities of the text.

*Use text evidence to support the idea that is specific and well chosen, and strongly supports the validity of the idea.

*Demonstrate a deep understanding of the text.

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Questions?

Contact:Curriculum:

Marisa Hartling, Secondary ELA Curriculum Manager

Professional Support & Development: Georgina Castilleja, Lead ELA TDS

Documents

STAAR Reading Comprehension November 2012