MARY NEWTONCAMILLE HOUSE

Common Core for English Language Arts

During Today’s ELA Session, We Will:

Briefly review how ELA standards build across grade levels

Discuss and examine three key shifts in ELA and the various roles of responsibility

Analyze what Text-Based Questions with Text-Based Evidence are

Identify the differences between the three tiers of vocabulary

Apply our new knowledge through a lesson-based scavenger hunt

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Vertical Alignment: ELA K-12

Shifting Gears

With Common Core, the ELA classroom should look and feel different from before. As teachers begin to shift gears, we need to redefine roles.

What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…

Builds content knowledge through text Finds evidence Gains exposure to the world through reading Handles primary source documents

Balances informational & literary text Scaffolds for informational texts Teaches “through” and “with” informational

texts by allowing students to read the text instead of summarizing

Principal’s Role:

Purchases and provides equal amounts of informational and literary texts for each classroom and supports teachers’ transition to this balance

Provides PD and co-planning opportunities for teachers to become more familiar with informational texts and how to use them side by side with literary texts

Supports the role of all teachers (all disciplines) in advancing students’ literacy

ELA/Literacy Shift 1:Building Knowledge through Content-Rich Nonfiction and Informational Text

What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does… Finds evidence to support their argument and writes

using evidence Forms own judgments and creates informational

texts Reads texts closely Engages with the author and his/her choices Compares multiple sources

Facilitates evidence based conversations and presents opportunities to write about multiple texts

Keeps students in the text and gives them opportunities to analyze, synthesize ideas

Identifies questions that are text-dependent, worth asking/exploring, delivers richly

Develops students’ voice so that they can argue a point and articulate their own conclusions using evidence

Spends much more time preparing for instruction by reading deeply

Principal’s Role: Provides planning time for teachers to engage with the text to prepare and identify appropriate text-dependent

questions Supports teachers as they spend more time with students writing about the texts they read ― building strong

arguments using evidence from the text Encourage teachers to foster evidence based conversations about texts with and amongst students

ELA/Literacy Shift 2:Reading and Writing Grounded in Evidence from the Text

What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…

Rereads Tolerates frustration when engaged with challenging

text Uses high utility words across content areas Builds “language of power” database

Spends more time on more complex texts at every grade level

Gives students less to read, lets them reread Provides scaffolding & strategies Develops students’ ability to use and access words Is strategic about the new vocabulary words Teaches fewer words more deeply

Principal’s Role:

Supports teachers as they work through and experience their students’ frustration with complex texts and learn to chunk and scaffold that text

Ensures that texts are appropriately complex at every grade and that complexity of text builds from grade to grade

Supports teachers as they scaffold so that students can move to more complex texts Provides training to teachers on the shift for teaching vocabulary in a more meaningful, effective manner

ELA/Literacy Shift 3:Regular Practice with Complex Text and its Academic Vocabulary

Levels of Responsibility

What did you notice about the levels of responsibility over the Three Shifts?

Let’s revise it for mastery and success on all levels!

Text Dependent Questions Ask Students to:

Analyze paragraphs on a sentence by sentence basis and sentences on a word by word basis to determine the role played by individual paragraphs, sentences, phrases, or words

Investigate how meaning can be altered by changing key words and why an author may have chosen one word over another

Probe each argument in persuasive text, each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole

Examine how shifts in the direction of an argument or explanation are achieved and the impact of those shifts

Question why authors choose to begin and end when they do

Note and assess patterns of writing and what they achieveConsider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated

Which Are Text-Dependent Questions?

Thumbs Up = Yes Thumbs Down = NoHow is the word liberty used differently

throughout the excerpt?When was Federalist No. 10 written by James

Madison?How does the analogy contribute to the

reader’s understanding?Have you ever felt strongly about something

like Madison that was not popularly accepted?Based on the text, how might Madison answer

the essential question?

Text-Based Questions = Text-Based Answers

The overall Reading Anchor Standard for grades K-12 states: “Read closely to determine what the text says

explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.”

The strand changes per grade level; however, by grade 3 students “refer explicitly to the text,” by grade 5 students “quote accurately,” and from there the level of “citing” evidence intensifies

Resources

On DPI’s ACRE webpage, there are Instructional Resources teachers can access and use.

Synthesis Example: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/acre/standards/common-core-tools/#goela

Common Core’s Vocabulary Organization Based on Isabel Beck’s 3 Tier

Distinctions

Tier 1 (sight words): Basic vocabulary children often come to school knowing – exception: ELL students and students of low socio-economic status

4000 word gap between Kindergarteners of low and high socio-economic status and 6000 word gap for ELLsExamples: river, on, because, before, after

Tier 3 (domain specific): Content specific words which need to be explicitly taught (taught by content specific teachers)Examples: isosceles, democracy, protagonist

Tier 2 Academic Vocabulary

Tier 2 (academic): More commonly found in writing rather than speech Not commonly used in young children’s speech Not usually learned by simply reading the words in

context. Words that are used in a variety of situations and used

frequently (we often assume students know these, but many times they need to be taught)

Must be taught across the curriculumExamples: compare/contrast, detail, analyze, sequence (could be technical terms, informational terms, or literary terms)

Isabel Beck’s Criteria for Teaching Tier 2 Words:

Students are likely to see the word often in other texts and across domains.

The word will be useful in students’ writing.The word relates to other words or ideas that

the students know or have been learning.Word choice has significance in the text.The context does not provide enough

information for students to infer the meaning.

ACADEMIC VOCABULARY RUBRIC

Resource for Teachers

Scavenger Hunt!

Use the Rubric and Sample Lesson to practice Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy: Apply what you have learned today to a real-world

lesson plan sample Analyze the lesson plan for the CC elements

according to the Guide Synthesize and Evaluate the level of proficiency

demonstrated through this lesson

Repair or Start Fresh?

Coming Soon

http://engageny.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Tri-State-ELA-Rubric-V2-04-12-2012.pdf