day 2 participant (2013_06_24 21_52_52 utc) - partner in education

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Presentation by Dr. Dea Conrad-Curry

Partner in Education

HOW WILL PAIRING TEXTS

IMPACT CLASSROOM PRACTICE

AND ASSESSMENT?

1

7-Paired Passage Types

1. Compare literary elements including theme

2. Compare central ideas, topics in two or more

informational texts

3. Compare or analyze different versions of the same

text

4. Analyze how ideas are transformed from one text

to another (literature or informational)

5. Integrate information for a purpose

6. Compare structures of a text (informational)

7. Analyze supplemental elements

Slide Copyright 2013 Partner in Education

2

SPEAKING & LISTENING STANDARD 1b

GRADES K-12 [SL.3-12.1b]

K-2: Build on one another’s talk; take turns; link comments to others’ remarks

Follow rules; learn how to gain the floor respectfully; carry out assigned roles

6-8: Follow rules; set goals; define roles

9-12: Set rules for discussion & consensus making; establish roles and goals

© 2013 Partner in Education


Jot notes for discussion to follow

1.What standards is the teacher directly

teaching to?

2.How does she push towards that

goal?

3.What other standard strands did the

teacher draw on for the lesson?

4.How are students being engaged?

Using Graphic Organizers to

Teach Comparison and Contrast Thing

Aspect Video 1 Video 2

Reading

Writing

Speaking &

Listening


Backward Design


6

Determine what we want students to know and do.

Where does that come from?

Use knowledge of standards to select texts that are

appropriate for teaching to the selected.

How can knowledge about grade level standards be

gained?

Where will these texts come from?

Write interim assessments that will provide evidence of

what students have learned what we set as our goals.

Where are the guides for writing those assessments?

Write unit plans to outline the overall instructional plan.

What does that form look like?

Write daily lesson plans

Reminder about Paired Text


Online Resources


Common Core State Standards Initiative

http://www.corestandards.org/

PARCC Model Content Frameworks (pdf)

http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/PARCCMCFELALiteracyAugus

t2012_FINAL.pdf

Achievethecore.org

http://www.achievethecore.org/steal-these-tools/close-reading-exemplars

ReadWorks.org Grades K-6

Basal Alignment Project (grades 3-5)

http://www.edmodo.com/home#/

Register, opening your home page, go to left column and join a group

Enter this code for the Basal Alignment Project group: ETUYRM

Odell Education (grades 6-12) http://odelleducation.com/curriculum-assessment-design

Common Core Curriculum Maps (all grades)

http://commoncore.org/maps/

http://odelleducation.com/curriculum-assessment-design






Tri-State Quality Lesson Review © 2013 Partner in Education

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Tri-state Aligned Lesson Planner © 2013 Partner in Education

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11

The Mysteries of Mass by Gordon Kane

Published in Scientific American, 2005

Close Reading and Science 12


Text Dependent Questions


Begin by developing questions that address language;

how can words be defined by using context clues

Move into key ideas and details; examine how details

build in text to help readers make meaning.

Analyze paragraphs on a sentence by sentence basis;

sentences on a word by word basis. Purpose: 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

13

More on Text Dependent Questions


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

achieve

Consider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated

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15

Close Reading


Teacher/students number paragraphs (or lines)

Teacher chunks the text for reading By section (introduction, sections, conclusion)

By concept

By organizational structure

Students read the text cold chunk by chunk Underline academic language (Tier 3)

Circle unknown words (Tier 2)

Teacher reads the text aloud Thinks through the first paragraph & word meanings

Works through inferential meanings

Directly important words lacking definitional context

Teacher provides text dependent questions

Students reread text annotating text with evidence (in response to questions)

16

The Mysteries of Mass Most people think they know what mass is, but they understand only part of the story. For

instance, an elephant is clearly bulkier and weighs more than an ant. Even in the absence of

gravity, the elephant would have greater mass--it would be harder to push and set in motion.

Obviously the elephant is more massive because it is made of many more atoms than the ant

is, but what determines the masses of the individual atoms? What about the elementary

particles that make up the atoms--what determines their masses? Indeed, why do they even

have mass?

We see that the problem of mass has two independent aspects. First, we need to learn how

mass arises at all. It turns out mass results from at least three different mechanisms, which I

will describe below. A key player in physicists' tentative theories about mass is a new kind of

field that permeates all of reality, called the Higgs field. Elementary particle masses are thought

to come about from the interaction with the Higgs field. If the Higgs field exists, theory demands

that it have an associated particle, the Higgs boson. Using particle accelerators, scientists are

now hunting for the Higgs.

The second aspect is that scientists want to know why different species of elementary

particles have their specific quantities of mass. Their intrinsic masses span at least 11 orders of

magnitude, but we do not yet know why that should be so. For comparison, an elephant and

the smallest of ants differ by about 11 orders of magnitude of mass.

Kane, Gordon. (2005). The mysteries of mass. Scientific American.

http://www.lexile.com/

17



What is the topic of this article? How do you know?

In the first paragraph, why does the author offer the comparison between the elephant and the ant? How do you know?

What makes up or constitutes mass?

How do you know?

What are the problems of mass? Although the author says there are two, are there really only two problems? How do you know?

What does the word elementary mean when used in the context of paragraph two? How do you know?

What key ideas will be explored in this article?

How do you know?

Why does the author conclude the introduction with a reference back to the elephant and the ant?

18

What Is Mass?

Isaac newton presented the earliest scientific definition of mass in 1687 in his

landmark Principia: "The quantity of matter is the measure of the same, arising from

its density and bulk conjointly." That very basic definition was good enough for

Newton and other scientists for more than 200 years. They understood that science

should proceed first by describing how things work and later by understanding why. In

recent years, however, the why of mass has become a research topic in physics.

Understanding the meaning and origins of mass will complete and extend the

Standard Model of particle physics, the well-established theory that describes the

known elementary particles and their interactions. It will also resolve mysteries such

as dark matter, which makes up about 25 percent of the universe.

The foundation of our modern understanding of mass is far more intricate than

Newton's definition and is based on the Standard Model. At the heart of the Standard

Model is a mathematical function called a Lagrangian, which represents how the

various particles interact. From that function, by following rules known as relativistic

quantum theory, physicists can calculate the behavior of the elementary particles,

including how they come together to form compound particles, such as protons. For

both the elementary particles and the compound ones, we can then calculate how

they will respond to forces, and for a force F, we can write Newton's equation F = ma,

which relates the force, the mass and the resulting acceleration. The Lagrangian tells

us what to use for m here, and that is what is meant by the mass of the particle.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/topic.cfm?id=how-things-work

http://www.scientificamerican.com/topic.cfm?id=dark-matter

Close Reading


Insert a video

or audio post

here on close

reading for

informational

texts

Is an outcome of high quality reading & comprehension

Is usually not achieved on the first reading of a text

Looks for underlying or implied subtle meanings in a text

Makes connections within or between texts: ideas, images, themes, cause & effect, etc.

Is used to solve problems or inform action as text information is applied to new situations

19

Annotate the Text:

No ONE Right Way

Teacher prepares

questions regarding

the text OR

statements

interpreting the text.

Students annotate

the text as they

discover information

that answers the

questions OR

evidence that

supports or

contradicts the

statements.

In the left-hand

margin, write down

the topic of each

paragraph.

In the right-hand

margin, write down

the gist of the

paragraph.

These notes allow

you to follow the

logic/ organization of

the text.

• Teachers chunks the

text

• Teacher asks

students to pause at

each section and

highlight key words,

then do one of the

following related to

their highlight:

Predict

Question

Clarify

Paraphrase

Comment

Connect


20

RST.Standard Seven: Multi-media

GRADE 9-10

Translate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text into visual form (e.g., a table or chart) and translate information expressed visually or mathematically (e.g., in an equation) into words.

GRADE 11-12

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and

media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.*


24

Floca, Brian. Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11. New York: Atheneum, 2009. (2009)

High above there is the Moon, cold and quiet, no air, no life, but glowing

in the sky.

Here below there are three men who close themselves in special clothes,

who—click—lock hands in heavy gloves, who—click—lock heads in

large round helmets.

It is summer here in Florida, hot, and near the sea. But now these men

are dressed for colder, stranger places. They walk with stiff and

awkward steps in suits not made for Earth.

They have studied and practiced and trained, and said good-bye to

family and friends. If all goes well, they will be gone for one week,

gone where no one has been.

Their two small spaceships are Columbia and Eagle. They sit atop the

rocket that will raise them into space, a monster of a machine: It

stands thirty stories, it weighs six million pounds, a tower full of fuel

and fire and valves and pipes and engines, too big to believe, but built

to fly—the mighty, massive Saturn V.



The astronauts squeeze in to Columbia’s sideways seats, lying on their

backs, facing toward the sky—Neil Armstrong on the left, Michael

Collins in the right, Buzz Aldrin in the middle.

Click and they fasten straps.

Click and the hatch is sealed.

There they wait, while the Saturn hums beneath them.

Near the rocket, in Launch Control, and far away in Houston, in Mission

Control, there are numbers, screens, and charts, ways of watching and

checking every piece of the rocket and ships, the fuel, the valves, the

pipes, the engines, the beats of the astronauts’ hearts.

As the countdown closes, each man watching is asked the question:

GO/NO GO?

And each man answers back: “GO.” “GO.” “GO.”

Apollo 11 is GO for launch.

Reprinted in Common Core State Standards (2010), Appendix B with the permission of Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Children’s Publishing Division from MOONSHOT: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca. Copyright © 2009 by Brian Floca.

26

NASA Official Transcript Apollo 11 mission


27

Actual audio stream:

http://archive.org/details/Ap

ollo11Audio

Transcript available:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/his

tory/mission_trans/AS11_C

M.PDF

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS11_CM.PDF

http://archive.org/details/Apollo11Audio






STANDARD SEVEN EVOLVES FROM

CONSUMER TO PRODUCER

Grades K-5 students use multimedia to improve comprehension

Grades 6-12 students analyze, integrate, and evaluate

multimedia resources

Within the disciplines, student integrate multi-media to convey

knowledge & increase understanding of receiver

Rather than provide charts and graphs for students, have them

generate their own using the words from the science text

Rather than provide print text explanations of graphic

representations, allow students to take visual representations of

content and transpose to verbal representations/print text.

Pose problems to students that require them to search for

multimedia formats that explore or develop high levels of

scientific understanding or knowledge.

28


Find an infographic

related to your content

have students write

the explanation that as

it would probably

appear alongside the

image if published in a

scientific journal.

Source: When Sharks Attack. Visual.ly. http://visual.ly/when-

sharks-attack

29


Have students

create an

infographic to

show a problem

and/or visual

interpretation of

an issue

http://www.youtube.com/v/I16_8l0

yS-g&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Source: Inforgraphic Megashark. http://staubman.com/blog/?p=67

30


Insert Transcontinental Railroad and the Fish Bowl Video

Also look at Morton Social Studies materials

Close Reading and Social

Studies/History/Arts 31


Most Important Word

There are those who would say that the problem is too big and we can't solve it. There are many people who go from denial to despair without pausing on the intermediate step of actually solving the problem. To those who say it's too big for us, I say that we have accepted and successfully met such challenges in the past. We declared our liberty, and then won it. We designed a country that respected and safeguarded the freedom of individuals. We freed the slaves. We gave women the right to vote. We took on Jim Crow and segregation. We cured great diseases, we have landed on the moon, we have won two wars in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously. We brought down communism,


32

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we brought down apartheid, we have even solved a global

environmental crisis before - the hole in the stratospheric

ozone layer - because we had leadership and because we

had vision and because people who exercise moral

authority in their local communities empowered our

nation's government "of the people by the people and for

the people" to take ethical actions even thought they were

difficult. This is another such time. This is your moment.

This is the time for those who see and understand and

care and are willing to work to say, "This time the warnings

will not be ignored. This time we will prepare. This time we

will rise to the occasion. And we will prevail."

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QAR: Question Answer Relationships


In the

book

In my

head Right

There

Think &

Search

On My

Own

Author

& Me

Name ___________________ Text _________________________ Pages _____

Performance Task RH.6–8.6 Students evaluate

Jim Murphy’s The Great Fire to identify which

aspects of the text (e.g., loaded language and the

inclusion of particular facts) reveal his purpose;

presenting Chicago as a city that was “ready to

burn.” (Common Core State Standards, Appendix

B. p. 100.)

PERFORMANCE TASK: RH.6–8.1 & 6

RH.6-8.6.Identify aspects of a text that reveal an

author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded

language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

35

36

Chicago in 1871 was a city ready to burn. The city boasted having 59,500 buildings,

many of them—such as the Courthouse and the Tribune Building—large and ornately

decorated. The trouble was that about two-thirds of all these structures were made

entirely of wood. Many of the remaining buildings (even the ones proclaimed to be

“fireproof”) looked solid, but were actually jerrybuilt affairs; the stone or brick exteriors

hid wooden frames and floors, all topped with highly flammable tar or shingle roofs. It

was also a common practice to disguise wood as another kind of building material.

The fancy exterior decorations on just about every building were carved from wood,

then painted to look like stone or marble. Most churches had steeples that appeared

to be solid from the street, but a closer inspection would reveal a wooden framework

covered with cleverly painted copper or tin.

The situation was worst in the middle-class and poorer districts. Lot sizes were small,

and owners usually filled them up with cottages, barns, sheds, and outhouses—all

made of fast-burning wood, naturally. Because both Patrick and Catherine O’Leary

worked, they were able to put a large addition on their cottage despite a lot size of just

25 by 100 feet. Interspersed in these residential areas were a variety of businesses—

paint factories, lumberyards, distilleries, gasworks, mills, furniture manufacturers,

warehouses, and coal distributors.

Wealthier districts were by no means free of fire hazards. Stately stone and brick

homes had wood interiors, and stood side by side with smaller wood-frame houses.

Wooden stables and other storage buildings were common, and trees lined the

streets and filled the yards.

Source: Murphy, Jim. The Great Fire. New York: Scholastic, 1995. (1995) From Chapter 1: “A City Ready to Burn.” Reprinted in :

Common Core Standards, Appendix B. (2010). National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State

School Officers. p. 94.

Performance Task RI.7.6

RH.6–8.6 Students evaluate an excerpt from

The Diary of Samuel Pepys to identify which

aspects of the text (e.g., loaded language and

the inclusion of particular facts) reveal his

purpose; presenting London as city oblivious

to the danger they were facing.

REGENERATING PERFORMANCE TASKS

37

RH.6-8.6.Identify aspects of a text that reveal an

author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded

language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

38

Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast today, Jane called up about

three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose, and slipped on my night-gown

and went to her window, and thought it to be on the back side of Mark Lane at the farthest; but, being unused

to such fires as followed, I thought it far enough off, and so went to bed again, and to sleep. . . . By and by

Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down tonight by the fire

we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street, by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently,

and walked to the Tower; and there got up upon one of the high places, . . .and there I did see the houses at

the end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side . . . of the bridge. . . .

So down [I went], with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it began this

morning in the King's baker's house in Pudding Lane, and that it hath burned St. Magnus's Church and most

part of Fish Street already. So I rode down to the waterside, . . . and there saw a lamentable fire. . . .

Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that

lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into

boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to another. And among other things, the poor

pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies, till they

some of them burned their wings and fell down.

Having stayed, and in an hour's time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody to my sight endeavouring to

quench it, . . . I [went next] to Whitehall (with a gentleman with me, who desired to go off from the Tower to

see the fire in my boat); and there up to the King's closet in the Chapel, where people came about me, and I

did give them an account [that]dismayed them all, and the word was carried into the King. so I was called for,

and did tell the King and Duke of York what I saw; and that unless His Majesty did command houses to be

pulled down, nothing could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me to go to

my Lord Mayor from him, and command him to spare no houses. .

…At last [I] met my Lord Mayor in Cannon Street, like a man spent, with a [handkerchief] about his neck. To

the King's message he cried, like a fainting woman, 'Lord, what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey

me. I have been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.' . . . So he left me,

and I him, and walked home; seeing people all distracted, and no manner of means used to quench the fire.

The houses, too, so very thick thereabouts, and full of matter for burning, as pitch and tar, in Thames Street;

and warehouses of oil and wines and brandy and other things…. .

Source: Pepys, S. (17th Century). The Diary of Samuel Pepys. http://www.pepysdiary.com/

Students compare the similarities and differences in

point of view in works by Dee Brown and Evan Connell

regarding the Battle of Little Bighorn, analyzing how the

authors treat the same event and which details they

include and emphasize in their respective accounts.

Performance Task RH.9-10.6

RH.9-10.6. Compare the point of view of two or

more authors for how they treat the same or similar

topics, including which details they include and

emphasize in their respective accounts.

39

40

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

The decade following establishment of the “permanent Indian frontier” was a bad time for the eastern

tribes. The great Cherokee nation had survived more than a hundred years of the white man’s wars,

diseases, and whiskey, but now it was to be blotted out. Because the Cherokees numbered several

thousands, their removal to the West was planned to be in gradual stages, but the discovery of

Appalachian gold within their territory brought on a clamor for their immediate wholesale exodus. During

the autumn of 1838, General Winfield Scott’s soldiers rounded them up and concentrated them into

camps. (A few hundred escaped to the Smoky Mountains and many years later where given a small

reservation in North Carolina.) From the prison camps they were started westward to Indian Territory. On

the long winter trek, one of every four Cherokees died from the cold, hunger, or disease. They called the

march their “trail of tears.” The Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles also gave up their

homelands in the South. In the North, surviving remnants of the Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Hurons,

Delawares, and many other once mighty tribes walked or traveled by horseback and wagon beyond the

Mississippi, carrying their shabby goods, their rusty farming tools, and bags of seed corn. All of them

arrived as refugees, poor relations, in the country of the proud and free Plains Indians.

Scarcely were the refugees settled behind the security of the “permanent Indian frontier” when soldiers

began marching westward through Indian country. The white men of the United States—who talked so

much of peace but rarely seemed to practice it—were marching to war with the white men who had

conquered the Indians of Mexico. When the war with Mexico ended in 1847, the United States took

possession of a vast expanse of territory reaching from Texas to California. All of it was west of the

“permanent Indian frontier.”

Source: Common Core State Standards, Appendix B. (2010). p. 130. Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of

the American West. New York: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1970. (1970) From Chapter 1: “Their Manners Are Decorous and Praiseworthy”

41

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn

Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull.

In English this name sounds a little absurd, and to whites of the nineteenth century is was

still more so; they alluded to him as Slightly Recumbent Gentleman Cow.

Exact Translation from the Sioux is impossible, but his name may be better understood if one

realizes how plains Indians respected and honored the bull buffalo. Whites considered this

animal to be exceptionally stupid. Col. Dodge states without equivocation that the buffalo is

the dullest creature of which he has any knowledge. A herd of buffalo would graze

complacently while every member was shot down. He himself shot two cows and thirteen

calves while the survivors grazed and watched. He and others in his party had to shout and

wave their hats to drive the herd away so the dead animals could be butchered.

Indians, however, regarded buffalo as the wisest and most powerful of creatures, nearest to

the omnipresent Spirit. Furthermore if one says in English that somebody is sitting it means

he is seated, balanced on the haunches; but the Sioux expression has an additional sense,

not equivalent to but approximating the English words situate and locate and reside.

Thus from an Indian point of view, the name Sitting Bull signified a wise and powerful being

who had taken up residence among them.

As a boy, he was called Slow, Hunkesni, because of his deliberate manner, and it has been

alleged that his parents thought him ordinary, perhaps even a bit slow in the head. Most

biographies state that he was known also as Jumping Badger; but Stanley Vestal, after

talking to many Indians who knew his, said that none of them nor any member of Sitting

Bull’s family could remember his being called Jumping Badger. In any event, Slow he was

called, and Slow would suffice until he distinguished himself.

Source: Common Core State Standards, Appendix B. (2010). p. 130 Connell, Evan S. Son of the Morning Star: Custer

and the Little Bighorn. New York: Harper Perennial, 1985. (1984)

Using Graphic Organizers to Teach

Comparison and Contrast


42

Thing

Aspect

Point by

Point

Block Comparison

Close Reading Literature 43


Anchor Standard 2: Determining Theme 44

Beginning in Grade 4, students are to

determine theme. As they progress

through school, they are to analyze

how theme is developed.

Starting with Poetry


45

Confront that which is challenging

Follow some of the same details of literature we come know from stories

Who are the characters? In poetry, special attention to pronouns

What is the setting?

What is conflicts or surprises or contradictions do we read? What seems a little weird?

Question Answer Relationship

Two Sources


46

In the text

Right There

Think and Search

In my head

Author and Me

On my Own

Adapted from Raphael, Taffy &

Highfield, Kathy & Au, Kathryn H.

(2006). QAR Now. NY: Scholastic.

Labels by Sara Holbrook


47

1. People get tagged with these labels,

2. like African-American,

3. Native-American,

4. White.

5. Asian, Hispanic,

6. or Euro-Caucasian --

7. I just ask that you get my name right.

8. I'm part Willie,

9. part Ethel,

10. part Suzi and Scott.

11. Part assembly-line worker,

12. part barber, a lot of dancer

13. and salesman. Part grocer and

mailman.

14. Part rural, part city, part cook

15. and part caveman.

16. I'm a chunk-style vegetable soup

17. of cultural little bits,

18. my recipe's unique

19. and no one label fits.

20. Grouping folks together

21. is an individual waste.

22. You can't know me by just a look,

23. you have to take a taste.

48

020406080

100120140160

Mysteries ScienceFiction

Novels NonfictionTradeBooks

60

100

143

82

Nu

mb

er

of

Stu

den

ts

Question/answer relationship

Leveling Questions Level I: Right There Level II: Search and Find Level III: Author and Me Level IV: On My Own

• How many students read mysteries?

• What are the four types of books measured

by the survey?

• How many more students read novels than

nonfiction?

• Why do students prefer novels to

mysteries?

Adapted from Raphael, Taffy & Highfield, Kathy & Au,

Kathryn H. (2006). QAR Now. NY: Scholastic. © 2013 Partner in Education

49

QAR: Question Answer Relationships

In the

book

In my

head

Right

There

Think &

Search

On My

Own

Author

& Me

Name ___________________ Text _________________________ Pages _____


50 50

Cisneros, Sandra. “Eleven.” Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. New York:

Random House, 1991. (1991)

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven,

you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.

And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open

your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel

like you’re still ten. And you are — underneath the year that makes you eleven.

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe

some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you

that’s five.

And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s

okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three.

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little

wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years

old is.

You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before

you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart eleven, not until you’re almost twelve.

That’s the way it is.

Only today I wish I didn't have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box.

Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I'd

have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would've known how to tell

her it wasn't mine instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my

mouth.

"Whose is this?" Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all the class to see.

"Whose? It's been sitting in the coatroom for a month.“

Source: Common Core State Standards, Appendix B. (2010). Text Exemplars Grades 6-8. p. 81.

51 51

"Not mine," says everybody, "Not me."

"It has to belong to somebody," Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It's an ugly

sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a

jump rope. It's maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn't say so.

Maybe because I'm skinny, maybe because she doesn't like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, "I

think it belongs to Rachel." An ugly sweater like that all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her.

Mrs. Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes

out.

"That's not, I don't, you're not . . . Not mine." I finally say in a little voice that was maybe me when I

was four.

"Of course it's yours," Mrs. Price says. "I remember you wearing it once." Because she's older and the

teacher, she's right and I'm not.

Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and math problem

number four. I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside, like the part of me that's three

wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and

try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when Papa

comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.

But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater's still sitting there like a big

red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my desk with my ruler. I move my pencil and

books and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not

mine, not mine.

In my head I'm thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and throw it

over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and

toss it in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody,

"Now, Rachel, that's enough," because she sees I've shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of

my desk and it's hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I don't care.

52 52

"Rachel," Mrs. Price says. She says it like she's getting mad. "You put that sweater on right now and

no more nonsense."

"But it's not—"

"Now!" Mrs. Price says.

This is when I wish I wasn't eleven because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one

sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and

stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that

aren't even mine.

That's when everything I've been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater

on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I'm crying in front of everybody. I wish I was invisible

but I'm not. I'm eleven and it's my birthday today and I'm crying like I'm three in front of everybody. I

put my head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and

spit coming out of my mouth because I can't stop the little animal noises from coming out of me until

there aren't any more tears left in my eyes, and it's just my body shaking like when you have the

hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.

But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who is even

dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is hers! I take it off right away and

give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything's okay.

Today I'm eleven. There's a cake Mama's making for tonight and when Papa comes home from work

we'll eat it. There'll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to

you, Rachel, only it's too late. I'm eleven today.

I'm eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and

two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a

runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.


What is the setting for the story? Why is that important?

There are four speaking characters in the story, but who are the two main characters?

How do you know they are the main characters?

What do you think is the importance of their roles to the story?

Compare and contrast the two main characters.

Where in the story does Cisneros build on the figure of speech about onion (para.4)?

What other figures of speech does Cisneros use? How do they affect the story?

How does the order of events in the story build tension?

Explain how this sentence from the next-to-last paragraph seems to be contradictory.

“There'll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it's too late.”

How can that contradiction be a clue about the story’s theme?

What is the theme of this story? How do you know?


53

Suggested Summer Reading

Contrasts & Contradictions

Character or element contrasts with expectations

Aha Moment

Character makes a realization

Tough Questions

Character asks questions of self revealing inner struggle

Words of the Wiser

Insight of older more experienced character are shared

Again and Again

Events, images, words recur (motifs)

Memory Moment

Recollection that interrupts the forward progression of the story


Generating Performance Tasks

Locate performance tasks within Appendix B

Use existing performance tasks as a framework

for content relevant tasks

PT.RL.6.6. Students explain how Sandra Cisneros

choice of words develops the point of view of the

young speaker in her story “Eleven.” (Appendix B, p.

89)

RI.6.6. Explain how an author develops the point of

view of the narrator or speaker in a text. (CCSS, p.36)

55


56

Exit Slip

A Moment of Reflection --

Choose 1 to answer

individually.

Share responses within

your team.

Team selects one idea

to share with group.

One approach I could use

to accommodate teaching

and learning about main

ideas would be _________

I could adapt the

_________ strategy when

I teach _________.

This information makes

me look at how I teach

differently because

_________________ .

© 2012-2013 Partner in Education

57 © 2013 Partner in Education

BIBLIOGRAPHY Common Core State Standards for English, Language Arts, Appendix A (Additional Information). (2012). NGA

and CCSSO.

Common Core Standards. (2010). National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of

Chief State School Officers.

Crisis at the Core. (2007). Preparing all students for college and work. Iowa City: ACT, Inc.

http://www.act.org/path/policy/pdf/crisis_report.pdf.

Blackwell, A. J. & McLaughlin, T.F. (2005). Using guided notes, choral responding, and response cards to

increase student performance. The International Journal of Special Education, 20 (2).

Graves, M. (2006).. The Vocabulary Book: Learning & Instruction. New York: NCTE

Harvey, G. (1999). Adapted from The Academic Essay: A Brief Anatomy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/Counterarg.html

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies that Work. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse.

Jenkins, J.E., Johnson, E., & Hileman, J. (2004). When is reading also writing: Sources of individual difference

on the new reading performance assessments. Scientific Studies of Reading 8(2), 125-151.

Marzano, R., Pickering, D. & Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom Instruction that Works. New Jersey: Pearson.

Nagy, W. (1988). Teaching Vocabulary to Improve Reading Comprehension. NCTE.

ACT, Inc. (2006). Reading between the lines: What ACT reveals about college readiness and reading.

Robb, L. (2000). Teaching Reading in the Middle School. New York: Scholastic.

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