PLC Quick Notes 3

* The instructional shift of evidence based reading, thinking and discussing has a focus of using evidence from text instead of relying on prior knowledge.  It levels the playing field for those without strong background knowledge or relevant experience.

* LEADER IN ME MOMENTS:
"We need citizens and leaders across every level of community, business, and government who SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND issues from multiple perspectives, listening to and analyzing evidence presented by stakeholders with diverse experiences and backgrounds."
"Knowing [the standards] deeply is the first step in walking students up the ladder of complexity from kindergarten to college, career, and civic readiness.  This understanding of where students are heading underpins the design of curriculum and instruction for reading and writing grounded in evidence." (BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND)

* Become "a student of the standards":

     -In this standard, what cognitive skills are called out?

     -Which specific words in the standard seem particularly important in terms of what is required of students? Why?

     -Are there any key words such as and and or that convey what it means to fully master this standard at a given grade level?

     -In the phrasing of the standard, what is unique to this grade level?

GOOD IDEAS:
* Four Ts- Topic, Task, Targets, Text
   Topic- the compelling topic that brings the content to life
   Task- the culminating assignment
   Targets- the learning targets
   Text- the complex texts that students will read closely and additional texts that ensure students experience a volume of reading at their independent reading level
* Read-Think-Talk-Write
* SNAP- Summary of the text, New learning, Already known information, Picture that represents important aspect of the text
* Frequent short writing opportunities
* Rubrics for descriptive feedback

   

Part 2- Reading for and Writing with Evidence

"Does adherence to the shift-reading and writing with evidence, effectively develop stronger readers, writers and thinkers who are more prepared for college and career, as is the aim of Common Core State Standards?"  In my opinion, the answer to this question is a resounding YES!  Anything we as educators can do to make reading relevant to kids from day one is one of the most important things we do.  When we ask them to read with evidence we, "level the playing field for students without strong background knowledge or relevant experience."  Without this method, several things students are asked to read in school have little or no relevance to especially students in the lower socio-economic status. These are notoriously the kids we see who simply "check out" when it comes to reading during tests or even during Teacher Directed Reading.  Unless it is something they CHOOSE to read they are uninterested and oftentimes they have no desire to choose something on their own because they have never understood the value of reading.

Through development of an evidence based classroom, this shift gives students who are generally unmotivated a reason to read and a confidence boost from page one.  All of a sudden, everyone in the classroom, regardless of diverse needs, has the same goal in mind and the same foundation from which to begin.

Two of the lines that resonates with me most is on page 83, "And no matter a person's career path, being an active and engaged member of civic life requires comfort in this "argument culture".  If young people do not develop these critical thinking, speaking, and writing skills, many opportunities will be closed to them."  This is an important thought because we have to remember that no matter the intellect, the future goals, the opportunity afforded a child, they all must be taught to think critically and to find motivation and satisfaction from reading.  I have always believed that all children can be motivated you just have to find the thing that sparks that interest.  With this shift in thinking, the motivated is created as you go.  In my classroom right now, with my EC group of kids, we are whole-class reading The Cay by Theodore Taylor.  Alongside the reading, I have pulled books from the library on World War II, the Holocaust, Hitler, Pearl Harbor and the kids have researched things on their own like the cays, coral reef, blindness, hurricanes, shipwrecks, even how islands are formed.  It has been such a great enhancement to the fiction we are reading and these kids, who are usually uninterested, hang on every word.  At the end of the book they will have an accomplishment, A FINISHED BOOK!  This is something they can build upon throughout the year.  It's all about "selling it" until they can't imagine themselves without it.  

I am loving Transformational Literacy!

PLC Quick Notes 2

* Strategically organize text sets.
* "Read" a scene to practice main idea and supporting details.
* Don't ask, "Am I teaching enough informational text?".  Instead ask, "What informational texts are worth reading?" Think broadly- brochures, recipes, manuals, autobiographies, primary source documents.
* Choose an anchor text.  "In the universe of all the rich resources students will read in a given unit, the anchor text is like the sun: all the other articles, poems, maps, charts, and other forms of text circle around this one text."
* When analyzing text, think about checking released test items to see if the text you have chosen helps meet the standards.
* Saturate students with opportunities to build their knowledge about topics.
* "Reading for pleasure is key for building lifelong readers and enables developing readers to make choices about their own reading likes and dislikes as they construct their own reading identities."
* "Content area teachers must also become literacy teachers within their discipline."
* It is ok to let a great text guide your lesson planning.
* "Deeper learning comes from great questions, not great answers."

Chapter 2- Bringing Text To Life

I love the ideas this chapter gives about motivating students to read and making the best use of text! In my classroom, I have had great experiences with readers' theater presentations, debates and socratic seminars and I am looking forward to trying out the text sets.  I also love the idea of giving students opportunities to teach a text to their peers.  I think the best way to learn something is through teaching it.  I used that strategy often when I taught math, but I think it could work equally as effectively with reading comprehension on a deep level.

The case study idea is interesting as well, especially the part about finding an authentic audience. If students had a reason for learning about a topic that involved presenting to others with the idea that some issue could be improved...wow, how powerful that could be!

The BBK Workshop is another technique I want to try with my students because it reminds me of an activity AIG specialists often used to use, (and hopefully still do!)  They would show students a picture of an object that was not easily recognizable, it may be an antique tool or an antique kitchen utensil.  The students could only ask yes or no questions to try to identify it.  The BBK Workshop would take that intriguing activity a step further and give students texts to read after their curiosity was piqued.

"Content area teachers must also become literacy teachers within their discipline."  I agree wholeheartedly with this quote.  Students must be encouraged to read across disciplines and there are so many rich texts that can be brought into the math and science curriculum.  Reading about mathematicians, both past and present, as well as about people like Rachel Carson and John Muir in science would send the message that reading is part of life.  Not simply a school subject.

Chapter 1- Choosing Worthy Texts

Prompt: Identify a line or concept presented in Part 1 that impacted you.

"As a teacher you have analyze the heck out of [text], look closely at the assessment and what it's asking kids to do and then make sure that your instruction draws them to that standard."

This quote from Chapter 1 gives me mixed feelings.  On one hand, it bothers me that a text I feel is quality and engaging for my students may not meet the expectations of standardized testing.  I am all about authenticity.  I want my readers to be real readers and disregarding a piece of text because it is not constructed in a way that it helps teach the test's construction is completely inauthentic.

On the other hand, I realize that our reality is that we are preparing them for the test.  I still don't know if I would go so far as to eliminate a piece of text from my text set, I would be more likely to ask students to reconstruct the text in a way that meets those requirements.  This would be a great activity for them to think on a very deep level while still getting the enjoyment of reading the text.

PLC Quick Notes 1

Why this book?
* Online curriculum!
* Offers guidance and resources to help teachers use the Common Core shifts in literacy to create more empowered and literate students.
* Provides resources that rely on powerful and worthy books, articles and primary source documents. 
* Its curriculum respects and challenges students by providing complex and interesting tasks, and it asks teachers to use their professional judgement
The shifts of the Common Core:
* Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction
* Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from literary and informational text
* Regular practice with complex text and its academic language

Common Core Seven Dispositions of Students
* They demonstrate independence.
* They build strong content knowledge.
* They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline.
* They comprehend as well as critique.
* They value evidence.
* They use technology and digital media strategically and capably.
* They come to understand other's perspectives and cultures.

Introduction- Embracing Challenge

"We have to believe that students can be successful with academic challenges the same way they are with character and physical challenges...We can't wait until they are "ready", because what happens is that students in poverty and students at risk never get to attempt that kind of work.  All students need the same access to academics that will prepare them for college and beyond."

I have always had the thought that not all students are college-bound.  Not everyone is cut out for college, nor should they be.  We need people of all vocational interests to make our society thrive.  However, the idea behind Common Core is that all students should have the CHOICE of furthering their education.  That is something that, in the past, has not happened.  People were trained completely vocationally with deep comprehension of text and finding the "why" behind mathematical concepts neglected.  

It is important, with this new way of thinking about education, that we adopt a Growth Mindset instead of a Fixed Mindset.  While I agree with this completely, students are sent contradictory messages as we try to convince them that they can "grow" their intelligence.   EOG scores, GPAs, awards ceremonies that focus on honor roll, etc. fight against this notion. 

The key to Common Core success lies in a students' ownership of their education.  It is not enough to tell a child that what they are learning is important, we have to "sell" them on it to the point that they see the importance with their own eyes.  One way to do this is to choose text purposely for them to read and analyze and pair it with text that takes the fictional narrative they love and enhances it with non-fiction.