talking points: welcome back to the “content literacy in ... · understanding through dialogue,...

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Optional Handout“Common Core Exemplar for English Language Arts and Social Studies: Why We Need Rules and Laws – Grade 1”

Facilitator Notes:While the module was developed based on the Exemplar, it does not follow exactly. The handout is optional and could be handout out at the beginning or after the completion of the unit.

Talking Points:Welcome back to the “Content Literacy in History/Social Studies K-5” module.

Unit 2 presents example instructional activities excerpted and adapted from “Common Core Exemplar for English Language Arts and Social Studies: Why We Need Rules and Laws – Grade 1” developed by the Los Angeles County Office of Education. For examples activity for upper elementary, see Unit 3.

The instructional activities were developed from models provided by Student Achievement Partners at http://achievethecore.org and California State University, San Diego professors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp in Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Readingthat emphasize close reading activities.

Let’s get started!

Talking Points:

The goal of this unit is to demonstrate how early elementary students can apply the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language skills to understand a history/social studies textbook selection in an early elementary classroom. The activities demonstrate techniques for helping students closely read and reread the text to answer text‐dependent questions, develop comprehension, and demonstrate understanding through dialogue, writing, and presentations.

[Review the objectives on the slide]

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Talking Points:When developing lessons in the content areas, it is important to focus the lesson on addressing the relevant history‐social science content standards while using the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy to develop students’ literacy skills through that content.

The example lesson for this unit focuses on history‐social science standards for grade 1: 1.1 and 1.1.2

To effectively meet these content standards—and to access and master increasingly complex history/social studies texts including the textbook—teachers must also focus on developing students’ literacy skills using close reading activities, critical thinking, effective speaking, and expository writing activities.

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Handouts“Close Reading in Elementary School” (Fisher and Frey, 2012).

Facilitator Notes: Return teachers’ attention to the Fisher and Frey article examined in Unit 1. Ask them to read the sections related to frontloading. Confirm that teachers understand the term from the reading and lead a discussion around the question on the slide. After the discussion, refer to the talking points if needed.

Talking Points:In “Close Reading in Elementary School,” Fisher and Frey emphasize that it is important to determine what makes the text complex for the students and then make strategic decisions about how much information should be frontloaded (taught before reading). In the study, the elementary school teachers agreed “that frontloading [should] not remove the need to read the text, and that frontloading [should] not take readers away from the text too soon” (Fisher and Frey, 2012).

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Facilitator Notes:Watch the 2:50 minute video located:http://www.myboe.org/auth/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=507082&sciI

d=14785Following the video, discuss what the teachers noticed related to what they looked for. On the next

slide review which standards the activity addressed.

Talking Points:Watch the video – Grade 1 teacher Tammy Kaiser from Lake Marie Elementary School in the South Whittier School District introduces a lesson. • Pay attention to the ways Mrs. Kaiser establishes the purpose, reviews instructional

academic vocabulary, and supports student discussion. Also notice the ways the students respond to the sentence frame.

• Consider which of the CCSS for ELA/Literacy standards were addressed in this activity.

[following the video]• Also, Mrs. Kaiser explicitly reinforces two general academic terms that students will use

repeatedly, objectives and identify. She also helps students activate prior knowledge for the upcoming reading by having partners discuss the importance of rules, using a sentence frame, “We need rules because _____________.” to support their discussion.

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Talking Points:Take five minutes to talk to your neighbor about which of the shown CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy were addressed in the video. As you make your selection think of specific examples from the video that demonstrate the standards. Following your pair discussion, we’ll discuss these as a group.

[Ask the pairs] Which of these standards did you see addressed and how?

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HandoutPeople Need Laws


d=14786Provide the handout of the student textbook for reference during the video.

Following the video, discuss what the teachers noticed related to what they looked for. Sample discussion: Mrs. Kaiser asks the students to read the text the first time independently while the students use a pencil to interact with the text. They are circling and underlining words that they do not understand. This probably took some pre‐teaching that we did not see to help students know what to underline and circle.

On the next slide review which standards the activity addressed.

Talking Points:After setting the purpose and providing some basic frontloading of essential academic vocabulary, the students independently read an excerpt from their history/social studies textbook titled, “People Need Laws.” As you watch, pay close attention to:• How Mrs. Kaiser introduces the reading and provides a close reading strategies for

students to follow

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• How the previous student discussion helped activate students’ prior knowledge without giving away the information in the text

• The strategies students are employing to aid in their comprehension• The addressed CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy

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Talking Points:Take five minutes to talk to your neighbor about which of the shown CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy were addressed in the video. As you make your selection think of specific examples from the video that demonstrate the standards. Following your pair discussion, we’ll discuss these as a group.

[Ask the pairs] Which of these standards did you see addressed and how?

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d=14593Read talking points before showing video, then give teachers a chance to reflect upon and discuss the

questions.

Talking Points:• One of the key emphases of the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy is for students to base their

answers, whether in writing or in speaking, on evidence from text that they read.• Text‐dependent questions can help guide students to extract information directly from

the text to help them understand important concepts. For young students, sentence frames help students answer text‐dependent questions.

• In the video watch how Mrs. Kaiser refers back to the text the students read independently.

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Facilitator Notes:Watch the 2:09 minute video located:Show video from the following URL: http://www.myboe.org/auth/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=507082&sciId=14596

Review the talking points before showing the video. Then discuss participant reactions.

Talking Points:Close reading practices suggest that students re‐read the text several times to gain deep understanding of the material. Paraphrasing and summarizing texts help students demonstrate comprehension of the text by taking the concepts and restating them in their own words. The strategies help students monitor and increase their comprehension and integrate the information into their prior knowledge (Kletzien, 2009).

Paraphrasing and summarizing help students address the following Grade 1 Reading Standard:CA.CCSS.ELA‐Literacy.RI1.2: Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

Additionally by grade 4, that standard specifically includes summarization:CA.CCSS.ELA‐Literacy.RI4.2: Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.

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Facilitator Notes:Source: UDL Editions from CASThttp://udleditions.cast.org/strategy_visualize.html

Talking Points:In the Visualizing Strategy for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) from CAST, students take the text that they read and turn it into a storyboard or comic strip in their minds. This helps students engage their imaginations and more of their senses than just reading. Students gain insight into the experiences of the people they read about; placing themselves in someone else's perspective helps students empathize with his or her emotions. Also, visualizing important moments in the text helps students remember them later.

In the Visualize Strategy, teachers stop at key points while reading and invite students to create a picture, movie, or sound clip in their minds about what they just read. The students could visualize one moment in time or a sequence of events as if they were there. They might take the perspective of a character in a story or an historical figure in a nonfiction text. They could imagine the same scene from more than one perspective. Whichever perspective they choose, students should close their eyes and imagine the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings. The more vivid they make their visualizations, the more real it will feel, and the better they will remember the text they just read.

For students with disabilities, UDL is discussed further in the Aligning Individualized Education Programs to the Common Core State Standards professional learning module.

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Talking Points:• The authors of Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading have

found that reading and writing are inherently connected (Graham and Herbert, 2010). Used together, they generate ideas, are logically organized, and call upon students to think critically to visit and revisit text to make meaning. Done well, they are both active processes that help students to interact with text to comprehend, remember, and apply learning.

• Practice in either reading or writing supports and strengthens the other. The National Writing Project has published several articles to address these recommendations in Writing to Read.

• Informative/explanatory writing is addressed in Writing Standard 2.

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Talking Points:Mrs. Kaiser’s students practiced this type of informative/explanatory writing by responding to the prompt: Why are laws important? This question prompted students to draw evidence from their classroom reading, discussions, and other activities to support their answers.

However, because students, even in primary grade classrooms, represent a broad spectrum of English language and literacy proficiency levels, they need different levels of support to be able to produce writing based on their reading. One way to differentiate within a grade‐level is to vary the difficulty in sentence frames and writing prompts such as those shown here.

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Talking PointsFor students with disabilities, UDL calls for instruction that allows for multiple means of action and expression (National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2013). Having students dramatize their reading is one way to offer students a different way to express their learning. Students demonstrate understanding in a skit format to be acted out or by forming a tableau and describing how the scene illustrates the importance of rules and laws. Tableaux are silent, motionless depictions of scenes created by people often from a picture.

For example, you could “give students a concept or vocabulary word and tell them they must use their bodies to create still shapes that present that idea. Ask students to experiment with using different levels with their bodies to make the image more interesting…” (Donavan and Pascale, 2012).

It is important for students to determine how to dramatize their understanding themselves. The use of UDL strategies often benefits general education students and English learners as well.

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Talking Points:The CA CCSS Speaking and Listening Standards expect students to participate in collaborative conversations. Teaching and practicing civil discourse in this way offers opportunities for literacy development with history/social studies content, thereby modeling the importance of deliberate conversations in a democratic society and allows students opportunities to acquire this vital civic skill.

Take a few minutes to generate two questions to guide early elementary students in collaborative discussions about rules and laws.

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Talking Points:• Here are some sample questions that can be used to lead students in collaborative

conversations about rules and laws after they have had a chance to read a text on the topic.

• It is important to use questions that take the students back to the text to provide evidence and clarify meaning as they are discussing the following topics.

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HandoutP21 Framework Definitions

Facilitator Notes:Distribute and have participants read about the Learning and Innovation Skills: the 4Cs on pp. 3‐4 of the handout.

Talking Points:Activities which may support real‐world application of student knowledge can benefit from Learning and Innovation Skills: 4Cs as outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Take a few minutes to read about the 4Cs on pages 3‐4 of the handout. Based on the reading, how would you define each of the 4Cs?

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Facilitator Notes:Watch the 1:52 minute Examine Signs at School video located:Show video: http://www.myboe.org/auth/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=507082&sciId=15521

Watch the 1:44 minute Create School Rules video located:Show video: http://www.myboe.org/auth/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=507082&sciId=15521

Talking Points:

Having students conduct research in their school community about the importance of rules and laws helps students apply their knowledge in relevant, real‐world scenarios while addressing the CCSS at the same time. For example, students can create a set of rules for their classroom or school, interview school leaders about their importance, or prepare and make a presentation about the rules in their school for community members. These activities should be designed to align to the 4Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation).

Watch how the teacher leads the students on a trip around the school to take pictures of

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signs around the school using current technology. Students will then use the images in a presentation about school rules and laws. This helps students address:CA.CCSS.ELA‐Literacy.SL1.5: Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Then watch how students apply their learning by creating school rules in the second video.

Now let’s take a few minutes to consider how these activities helped foster the 4Cs.

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Facilitator Notes:Watch the 1:33 minute video located:Show video: http://www.myboe.org/auth/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=507082&sciId=14795

Talking Points:Watch the students make presentations about what they learned about rules and laws. Consider which CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy the students are addressing in this video and how they are demonstrating their skills.

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Facilitator Notes:Lead a discussion with the teachers on their big understandings or take aways from this unit before addressing the unit summary on the next page.

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Talking Points:In this unit, you observed instructional activities from a grade 1 classroom in which the students learned to read a history/social science textbook passage closely, discuss and write about the text, illustrate their writing to add meaning, conduct research, and apply their knowledge. Review the summary of key concepts from the unit on the slide.

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talking points: welcome back to the “content literacy in ... · understanding through dialogue,...

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