Middle School Professional Learning: Expository Reading and Writing Modules

Overview of our three days togetherDecember 11, 2013 February 11, 2014 February 25, 2014

Overview and background of ERWC

Debrief homework; Review ERWC outcomes

Debrief homework; Status check

Alignment of the CCSS standards and ERWC outcomes

What writers need, effective writing practice and writing argument

Integration of reading and writing to support academic literacy

Effective readers, academic literacy, close reading

Continued work with academic literacy

Differentiating ERWC for ELs, SPED, and advanced learners

Experience with a module and the assignment template

Adapting the assignment template to your own curriculum (Day Three)

Planning time

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Agenda: February 25, 2014 Status Check

– How is it going? What did you try? Integrating reading and writing to support academic

literacy– Habits of mind, academic vocabulary

– Close Reading and text complexity Differentiating ERWC for all types of learners Adapting the assignment template Planning time (woven throughout the day)

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There is only one way to acquire the language of literacy, and that is through literacy itself. Why? Because the only place students are likely to encounter these structures and patterns is in the materials they read. And that is possible only if the texts they read in school are written in such language. Complex texts provide school-age learners reliable access to this language, and interacting with such texts allows them to discover how academic language works.

Filmore & FilmoreUC Berkeley/Stanford University Understanding Language Project

http://ell.stanford.edu/

Issues of Text Complexity

Simply put, the easy texts schools give to English Learners and Language Minority students – given prophylactically as a safeguard against failure – actually prevent them from discovering how language works in academic discourse.

Filmore & FilmoreUC Berkeley/Stanford University

Understanding Language Projecthttp://ell.stanford.edu/

Issues of Text Complexity

What makes texts complex?Quantitative measuresQualitative measuresMatching readers to texts

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“A close reading is 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” (Doug Fisher).

Close Reading

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

Text Dependent Questioning

Practice with visual texts “Moving Day”:

http://artforsale.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=280

What does the text explicitly state?What is your evidence from the text?What can you infer from the text?What is your evidence from the text?

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Developing Text Dependent Questions

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Writing questions for informational text Unlocking complex texts:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap6v8TaBt-6LdDBuVk1xZzdYX2Myek95eWtsTll5ZFE&usp=sharing#gid=0

Try writing a question for each level of DOK for one of the texts or a text you use.

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Academic literacy—developing habits of mindText complexity, close reading, text-dependent questioning are part of academic literacy. Academic literacy is really about habits of mind.

Read through the three handouts (habits of mind, students who are college and career ready, classroom discussion strategies).Annotate to note the big ideas, interesting concepts, and important points.Make notes about what habits do your students already exhibit and what habits they are working toward.Put the big ideas onto sticky notes (one idea per note).

Create a concept map to represent your thinking about the concepts.

www.asccc.org/Publications/Papers/AcademicLiteracy/main.htm

Generate-Sort-Connect

Concept Map

Making Texts Accessible for ELs Analyze and plan how to address linguistic

difficulties of texts.

Teach strategies for learning vocabulary including how to use an English learner dictionary.

Teach the company words keep, not just their meanings (i.e. collocations and gradations).

Use good teaching strategies: interactive activities, graphic organizers, sentence frames, modeling, debriefing.

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Differentiating continued . . . Read the article on differentiating instruction for

English learners (it also applies to other learners)– Use your close reading strategies

– Highlighting big ideas, asking questions, making connections, noting interesting concepts

Discuss the ideas with your table group– What validated elements in your current practice?

– Were there any reminders of ideas you “used to know?”

– What did you read that was new? 15

Differentiating a module Review Social Network (8th grade) or Good As It

Goods (7th grade) Identify places in the module where your English

learners or students with special needs might struggle more than others

Strategize ways to modify the module using the strategies already in your repertoire (using the article as a reminder)

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Assignment Template

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Adapting the assignment template Read Appendix A (Questions to Consider) with

the curriculum/unit you brought with you in mind. What questions and big ideas from the article

seem most applicable as you think about adapting it to the Assignment Template?

Revise your curriculum by chunking it into each section of the AT.

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Planning Time

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