Literacy in ActionBased on 6 Chapters of the book,

What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy

National Institute for LiteracyUS Department of Education

and on

Strategies and Protocols Found to be Successful.

Stand-up…Hand-up…Pair-up• Think…What is one thing you are looking f

orward to this year?

The Six Modules of Literacy in Action

• Writing Fluency• Text Comprehension• Vocabulary• Reading Fluency• Close and Critical Reading• Reading and Writing Assessment

Focus for 2015-16

• Writing Fluency Oct., Nov., Dec.• Text Comprehension Jan., Feb., March• Vocabulary March, April, May

What is different about Literacy in Action from other literacy professional development?

Evidenceand

Support

“When I die, I hope it’s during an inservice. The transition would be

so subtle.” - Delores and

Margaret

“Quick fixes never last and teachers resent them; they resent going to inservices where someone is going to tell them what to do but not help them follow up. Teachers want someone that’s going to be there, that’s going to help them for the duration, not a fly-by-night program that’s here today gone tomorrow.”

- Lynn Barnes, instructional coach, Pathways to Success

Your turn…• Think about what “evidence” you currently use to

measure your students’ growth in your content area.• Each participant in a group of four will have one minute

to share their “evidence”.• One person from each group will summarize the

group’s responses.

Evidence

• How many stated “writing” as part of their “evidence”?

• List each type of writing cited as “evidence” on a separate sticky note and add it to the chart marked “Writing as Evidence”.

Literacy in Action

Writing Tracker in Content Areas

Meeting the Common Core Literacy Standards for Content Areas

Stand-up: Think about the kind of writing you have your students doing in your content-areaclasses.

Hand-up: Put your hand-up and walk around;Find a partner and give him/her a high five.

Pair-up: Share with your partner, the different types ofwriting you have your students do in your content area.

Nonfiction writing

There are no silver bullets in education. But writing—particularly nonfiction writing—is about as close as you can get to a single strategy that has significant and positive effects in nearly every other area of the curriculum. Nonfiction writing is the backbone of a successful literacy and student achievement strategy.

Douglas B Reeves

Writing improves Reading Comprehension

Research over the past decade fromColumbia and Vanderbilt universitiesand the University of Utah, amongmany others, concludes that, when students improve the quantity and quality of their writing, they improve in reading comprehension, math, science, and social studies.

Trust the system

Trust your hands. Forget your brain for a while, and let your fingers do the writing. Your hand bones are connected to your brain bones. I had the vaguest sense of what I wanted to say in this essay until my hands taught me.

The Fluent Writer by Roy Peter Clark

Count Words!

Count everything. Don Murray’s

favorite motto is “Never A Day Without a Line.”

Writing Development

Fluency

Focus

Form

Fluency (first)• An adequate level of fluency should be

developed before moving to focus and form.

• High School -- 150 words per 5 minutes• Middle School -- 125 words per 5 minutes

© 2015 The College Board

How Does the Redesigned SAT Compare?

COMPARISON OF THE MAJOR FEATURES: OF THE CURRENT SAT AND REDESIGNED SAT-

Category Current SAT Redesigned SAT

Total Testing Time(Subject to research)

3 hours and 45 minutes 3 hours (plus 50 minutes for the Essay [optional])

Components a) Critical Readingb) Writingc) Mathematicsd) Essay

a) Evidence-Based Reading and Writing Section» Reading Test» Writing and Language Testb) Math Section» Math Testb) Essay (optional)

Important Features » Emphasis on general reasoning skills » Emphasis on vocabulary, often in limited contexts» Complex scoring (a point for a correct answer and a

deduction for an incorrect answer; blank responses have no impact on scores)

» Continued emphasis on reasoning, alongside a clearer, stronger focus on the knowledge, skills, and understandings most important for college and career readiness and success

» Greater emphasis on the meaning of words in extended contexts and on how word choice shapes meaning, tone, and impact

» Rights-only scoring (a point for a correct answer but no deduction for an incorrect answer; blank responses have no impact on scores)

Essay » Required and given at the beginning of the SAT» 25 minutes to write the essay » Tests writing skill; students take a position on a

presented issue

» Optional and given at the end of the SAT; postsecondary institutions determine whether they will require the essay for admission

» 50 minutes to write the essay» Tests reading, analysis, and writing skills; students

produce a written analysis of a provided source text

18

© 2015 The College Board

Score Reporting on the Redesigned SAT

19

Writing Tracker System

The Writing Tracker system is a combination of: – Idea generators– Quickwrites– Chart recorders– Data analyzers– Reflections– Decision makers– Goal setters

Content Area Idea GeneratorsWrite about…

most important historical eventmost important inventionmost important use of mathematicsmost important event in aviationmost important item in the medicine cabinetmost important part in your favorite novelmost important part of your car (family car)most important state in the unionmost important impact of droughtmost useful animal on earth

All Record Round Robin

With your table groups, generate a list of content-related writing prompts that

would appeal to students.

Quickwrites• Select one of the prompts your group generated.• Write steadily for a designated period of time (five minutes).• Draw a line through something you want to omit but do not erase.• Keep writing. Do not pick up pencil/pen from

paper.• Ask yourself questions to get going again if you get stuck.

Which of these did you experience?

Did you… • add to your background knowledge?

• surprise yourself?• clarify your thinking?• find room for improvement in your writing fluency?

Writing Tracker: Chart the Progress

• Record the topic • Record the date• Record the number of words• Record the domain-specific words

Writing Tracker Progress Chart

Topic Date Number of words

Number of domain-specific words

Text Structure

Data Analyzer

• Create a line graph with number of words and date and topic

250

200

150

100

50

01/20 1/23 1/27 1/31 2/4 2/7 2/ 11 2/13 2/15

state inventions oceans continents wars cities

All Record Round Robin

With your table groups, generate a list of domain-specific words or concepts to

support your response.

Scaffolding UsingDomain-Specific Words

• Generate a list of domain-specific words orconcepts to support your response.

• Read over the list.• Repeat the quickwrite activity, writing steadily for

five minutes.• Record the total number of words and domain-

specific words used.• Compare the totals for the two quickwrites.

Your turn…• Discuss the effect of the scaffolding

(generating a domain-specific word list to incorporate in writing)

• Identify other strategies for scaffolding to improve writing fluency.

• Review suggestions provided in handout.

Reflections• In looking over your data, what trends or patterns do you

see?• Calculate the number of words you wrote over the

sessions. Total number of words _____• Reflect on the total numbers of words. Does this

number surprise you?• Calculate the average number of words.• Calculate the average number of domain-specific words.• Predict the number of words you will write if you continue

this process for ten more sessions.• Predict the number of words you will write when you are

especially interested in the topic.• How has this process helped you become a better

writer?

Goal Setting• Set a goal for the next time you write. Write it

down in your writing folder.

Examples:• To increase my writing fluency and use of

domain-specific words when I write on an unfamiliar topic.

• To increase the number of words I write so that I increase my confidence.

The National Report Card

• There is a lot of evidence that far too many students never do develop good processing abilities.

• Year after year, the NAEP Report has shown that 70 – 75% of grade 8 and grade 11 students cannot put their thoughts on paper effectively. Only 25 – 30% achieve basic proficiency on tests of writing skills.

• Nobody mentions the possibility that a lack of handwriting skills is part of the problem.

Handwriting Assessment• Handwriting speed: Letters Per Minute • Directions: Tell students to copy the provided

paragraph. Tell them that they will have one and a half minutes to legibly copy as much as they can. Set the timer for one and a half minutes and tell the students to begin. After one and a half minutes, tell them to stop. Have the students count the number of letters they were able to copy and record the number in the box labeled number of letters copied in 90 seconds. At your discretion you can have your students complete the formula for converting the number of letters copied in 90 seconds to Letters Per Minute (LPM).

•  

Text to be copied…• No man is an island, entire of itself; every

man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Proficient score: Mean Handwriting Speeds: Letters Per Minute

Girls BoysGrade 1 21 17Grade 2 36 32Grade 3 50 45Grade 4 66 61Grade 5 75 71Grade 6 91 78Grade 7 109 91Grade 8 118 112Grade 9 121 114 

Next Step…

• Beginning in October, have students in your discipline write twice a week for five minutes.

• Have students keep track of the number of words.

• Have students start setting goals.• Writing can be done at the beginning of

class, the end of class or somewhere in-between

Next Step cont…• On September 23rd and 24th I would like to have a

short meeting with each of you.• In November we’ll have our first checkpoint to

review student progress, and look at adding form to the writing.

• Bring samples of student work to this meeting. Examples of low, medium, high word counts.

• At that point we’ll also look briefly at some comprehension strategies.

Focus for 2015-16

• Writing Fluency Oct., Nov., Dec.• Text Comprehension Jan., Feb., March• Vocabulary March, April, May