Adol Literacy Program...

Great site: http://www.adlit.org/strategy_library/

Notes are from the Educatioal Leadership March 2012 Magazine on reading (works cited at the bottom) AND essentials work with Brandon (middle school conversations) AND call with JENN.  

5 elements of reading: (Article) - The reading dimensions, assembled by my colleague Nancy Place, are drawn from a report of the National Reading Panel and research on culturally responsive instruction:  Word identification, Comprehension, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Ownership.  

Adolescent Literacy:

• A middle school literacy program must address the 3 basic challenges students face in making the transition from basic literacy to higher-level literacy.
  1. Adolescent readers must master increasingly COMPLEX TEXTS.
     • "Without explicit instruction in how to cope with the evolving complexity of these texts, too many adolescents fall behind in their reading development, and their ability to learn from text suffers (Biancarosa, 24)."
     • Pace and Rereading:
     • "Reading long, complicated sentences is a challenge for everyone, but particularly for students in the habit of skimming and scanning Facebook updates. Teachers need to help students slow the pace of their reading for literature and develop the habit of rereading when a sentence doesn't seem to make sense.  Rereading difficult passages doesn't have a cool acronym or fancy graphic organizer, but it is the technique experienced readers employ most often."   
     • Rereading allows for emerging observations - we don't just reread when it's wrong, we reread when it's complex. (Article about Sentences in NYTimes.com, Sentence as a Miniature Narrative in NYTimes.com)
     • We can't do the work for students, they must do it for themselves.  Idea: Select important sentences for pairs of students to translate into everyday language; it can be effective for helping students develop confidence with complex syntax. By doing it for them, you communicate that reading is beyond them.
     • Quote - why Reread? "You see things to which you were previously blind; you uncover a play on words, assonance, alliteration, analogies. It is for this reason, I believe, that the great Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov declared that there’s actually no such thing as reading — there’s only re-reading. (“Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader,” Nabokov wrote in his Lectures on Literature.)  
       The same holds for TV shows and movies: you see so much more on a second, third and fourth viewing. You don’t truly see anything the first time you watch it. And, in my experience, this applies no less to music: hearing something for the first time is more akin to hearing it not at all than to truly hearing it. The work is too new, too unknown, to us; we can’t make heads or tails of it because we suffer from sensory overload. Quite simply, there’s too much going on for us to get anything but a glimpse of the work’s essence.  I
       t’s only with multiple readings, viewings and hearings, then, that we actually begin to understand, see and hear. We’re deaf and blind in our first encounters with things.
     • What makes Complex Text challenging?  
       • Vocabulary:  all Tiers (1, 2, 3)
       • Sentence Structure/Syntax - Students need to be able to understand the construction of sentences using prhasing, word order, punctuation, and language.
         • Why harder sentences? Why do author's use complex sentences/syntax? (Students should understand/brainstorm)  Typically, the author wants reader to slow down.  A complicated sentence slows the reader down and allow the author to ...
           • express of complex ideas,
           • communicate complicated/complex information 
           • explore nuances, 
           • explore the architecture of thoughts and feelings being expressed,
           • convey emotional complexity - layered phrases in sentences express complicated emotions connected with events,
           • share cognitive power, 
           • create aesthetic splendor, 
           • capture the elusive nature of the topic. (Article about Sentences in NYTime.com)
       • Coherence:  how words, ideas, and sentences in text connect with one another.  Students should understand thatpronouns, synonyms, ellipses, and other tools connect the ideas across text
       • Organization - Text structures :  "Students who are aware of the patterns authors use to communicate complex information have an advantage in making sense of text (Shanahan, 60)."  Most Common Text Structures (Thinking Like a Historian Categories):
         • Compare-Contrast  (Change and Continuity)
         • Sequence (Turning Points)
         • Description (Through their Eyes)
         • Cause and Effect (Cause and Effect)
         • Problem - Solution (Using the Past)
         • Question - Answer
       • Background Knowledge - including developmental, experiential, and cognitive factors influence their ability to understand the explicit and inferential qualities of a text.  Students must know how to recognize missing background knowledge and ask questions to build it themselves.
     • Skills needed:
       • Reread - how to... (more on rereading below!)
       • Fluency - maintaining understanding (key distinction - it is no longer about just being able to read fast and decode, it is the ability to do that AND understand.) across a text
       • Vocabulary instruction - Tier 1-3 words and phrases, independent structures are in place.
       • Establish a purpose for reading - "Without knowing what kind of text is being read (C: ml template) or what is going to be done with tinformation, we had no idea what to attend to (Shanahan, 61)."
       • Motivation and Persistence:  "Teachers may be tempted to try to make it easier for students by avoiding difficult text.  The problem is, easier work is less likely to make readers stronger. ... Students experience success in the company of their teacher, who combines complex texts with effective instruction (Shanahan, 62)."
         • check out Duckworth talking about grit in a TED presentation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaeFnxSfSC4) 
  2. Adolescent readers must understand the diverse literacy demands of the different content areas ~ Discipline Specific Literacy Learning.  (See very bottom with Disciplinary Literacy)
     • "Lacking instruction, many students struggle to navigate the escalating discipline-specific diversity of texts (Biancarosa, 24)."
     • Struggling readers often miss content classes - this puts them at a disadvantage.  "All students must have opportunities to learn specialized reading habits (Biancarosa, 27)."
     • Goal:  Teach students to use reading and thinking strategies as tools to acquire knowledge in history, science and other subject areas.  As P. David Pearson and colleagues assert, 'Without systematic attention to reading and writing in subject like science and history, students will leave schools with an impoverished sense of what it means to use the tools of literacy for learning or even to reason within various disciplines...' (Goudvis, 53)."
     • "It's important to teach students the difference between information and knowledge.  For information to become knowledge, students need to think about it.... As David Perkins (1992) notes, 'Learning is a consequence of thinking...Far from thinking coming after knowledge, knowledge comes on the coattails of thinking...Knowledge does not just sit there; it functions richly in people's lives so they can understand and deal with the world...' (Goudvis, 53)."  Students should think for themselves.  "Reading shapes and changes thinking.  Eleanor Roosevelt's words, 'Every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds.  For one things is sure, if they don't make up their own minds, someone will do it for them (Goudvis, 57)."
     • Using thinking strategies to learn about history/science:
       • Monitor Understanding - learn new information by annotating texts and leaving tracks that show their thinking.
       • Activate PK - connect the new to the known; use PK to inform reading; PK + NK = BK
       • Ask Questions to...
         • Acquire information
         • Research and investigate
         • Interpret and analyze information and ideas
         • Explore essential questions
       • Draw inferences and conclusions - infer ideas, themes, and issues on the basis of text evidence; Analyze and interpret different perspectives and points of view
       • Determine Importance - sort and sift important information from interesting but inumportant details; evaluate the information and ideas in a text to determine what's important to remember
       • Summarize and Synthesize - analyze, compare, and contrast information across different sources to build content knowledge and understanding
     • 4 Generative Practices:  
       1. Interact with multiple texts to build knowledge. 
       2. Ask questions for different purposes.  (Student questions provide a window into their PK and thinking.)
          • Information seeking questions (fill in gaps in our information, clarify information, address misconceptions)
          • Explanation-Seeking Questions (Why? How? Use information to focus on big ideas and issues; Address lingering questions and essential questions...)
          • Questions of empathy (Build awareness of other perspecitves and viewpoints; Encourage interest and engagement)
          • Questions that encourage imaginative thinking and supposition (EX:  how might things have turned out differently if...?  Encourage interpretation and thinking outside the box)
          • Questions that prompt historical investigation or challenge information (I wonder if this is true? What other sources would give us more information?  - Analyze and interpret sources citing evidence; Evaluate conclusions on the basis of text evidence; synthesize information and corroborate evidence across sources)
       3. Evaluate author's purposes and perspectives. (Bias)
       4. Use picture books to infer important ideas.  (They can be used to immerse students in the stories of the past.  They are short so students can read many of them and engage in critical thinking about different points of view.)
     • See Nonfiction below.
  3. Adolescent readers must navigate Digital/Media Literacy.
     • Digital/Media lit increases the amount of text available.  However, "...before students can engage with the new participatory culture, they must be able to read and write (Valenza, 75)."
     • “No (tree) blood for (narrative) oil.” and "
     • You can’t read an e-book in the tub. You can’t fling one across the room, aiming, as Mark Twain liked to do, at a cat. And e-books will not furnish a room.
       Writing in The Times in 1991, Anna Quindlen declared, “I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”
       I am so down with that. But it’s the mental furniture that matters." (by Dwight Garner - From NYTime.com - "The Way We Read Now") 
     • At the heart of media literacy is the principle of inquiry - www.frankwbaker.com/media_messages.htm - 
     • Key Media Literacy Questions (Thier and Daviss 2002):
     • Who created this message?  Why are they sending it?
     • What techniques are used to attract my attention?
     • What kinds of words are being used?  Is the writer using words to stir emotion?
     • What lifestyles, points of view, and values are represented in the message?
     • How might different people understand this message differently than me?
     • What is implied?  Read between the lines.
     • CRITIC - acronym with a step-by-step format that encourages students to use the lens of "amiable skepticism" and critical thinking when experiencing media:
     • C - Claim (Spell out the claim)
     • R - Role of the claimant (Who is making the claim and what's in it for them?)
     • I - Information backing the claim (What evidence is there to support the claim?)
     • T - Test (Can we design an adequate test?)
     • I -  Independent Agreement (Has an unbiased source carried out an independent test that agreed with the claim?)
     • C - Cause proposed (What is described as a causal explanation for the claim? Is it consistent with current scientific understanding?)
     • What is omitted from the message?
     • 
       
     • 
       
     • Heightens the need for critical thinking while reading.
       • Evaluating Information found online:  Who is weighing in?  Who's setting the record straight? What do other sources say? (Goal:  3 different sources at least)  Who's behind the chart? Determine motivation... 
       • Wikipedia:  look for length (longer = better), look for text revisions (WikiTrust tab), look for editorial ratings (bronze star at upper right-hand side), Look at patterns of editing (Abilock, 74).  Idea:  use Wikipedia as first stop.  Evaluate it's credibility again next research.
     • Skill Needed:  "...introduces nonlinear options for proceeding through texts.  This nonlinearity can be a boon or a barrier to struggling readers (Biancarosa, 26)."
     • Research shows there is a loss of reading efficiency when reading digitally.  Students should know this and know how to handle it.
     • The future of publishing video by DK Books (www.dk.co.us/static/us/11/about/future.html) FanfictionNet (www.fanfiction.net) Guys' Lit (http://guyslitwire.blogspot.com) James Kennedy's 90-Second Newbery (http://jameskennedy.com/90-second-newbery), www.Readersgirlz.com , www.readingrants.org , Skype-an-Author: http://skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com, Teresa Schauer's Book Trailers for all (http://booktrailersforall.com) 

Adolescent Literacy program must include:

• Instruction/Students must be able to...:
  1. Instruction organized around skills/concepts/strategies.  Students must be able to flexibly use the skill/concept/strategy across texts and genres.
  2. Stop telling students that reading is fun.  It can be, but it's hard work that has a huge pay off.
     1. "The United States needs a reading renaissance.  Students need to stretch beyond what's comfortable to tackle challenging texts.  They need to spend time reading material that requires focus and concentration, material that they might not attempt on their own.  And, they need the support and encouragement of teachers who help them open the literary window onto this new world (Jugo, 43)."
     2. Students must get information efficiently from text
     3. ***Develop a LOVE of Reading for the right reasons: Students need encouragement and practice to develop the habits of wild readers. Every day, I ask myself, “What did I teach my students about reading that they can use with other texts? What did I show my students about reading that they can use outside of school?” We must never lose sight of our true goal—fostering a lifelong love of reading, which lasts long after school ends. (Link to article)
  3. Tap students' prior knowledge.  Students must organize and apply their background knowledge as a context for their reading
  4. Address academic vocabulary, difficult vocabulary, complex syntax, and figurative language.  Teach cognitively powerful words.  Teach LONGbooks.
  5. Teach students to negotiate complex syntax:  REREAD.  Students must monitor and adjust their reading as needed.
  6. Hold students accountable for their reading - 
     1. Broaden the audience - share reading with more than just the teacher, use technology
     2. Highlight and reflect on PURPOSE for reading.
     3. Idea:  print chapter summary from SparkNotes and have students add 3 things that occurred in the chapter that doesn't appear in the summary.
     4. "Students need to develop the self-discipline and stamina necessary to read for extended periods of time on their own.  How else will they be ready for college (Jago, 43)?"
     5. Bryan Goodwin noted in Educational Leadership (March 2012), "A student in the 90th percentile of reading volume (who reads 21.1 minutes per day) encounters 1.8 million words a year, whereas a student in the 10th percentile (who reads less than one minute per day) sees only 8,000 words a year.  Put another way, the first student sees more words in two days than the second reads all year (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2001)."
     6. In reading, like love, fidelity matters. (From "What We Are Reading Now")
  7. Students must read, write, talk, and listen EVERY day.  (Lit Loop)
  8. Students must use Self-reflection to monitor whether they have been successful or unsuccessful at a learning task - and why.

1. 6 Elements for effective reading/literacy instruction:

1. Every child reads something s/he chooses:  "The research base on student-selected reading is robust and conclusive:  students read more, understand more, and are more likely to continue reading when they have the opportunity to choose what they read (p 11)."  This is not ONLY what they read, but as some point every day, they should be able to choose what they read.  The experience of choosing in and of itself boosts motivation.
   1. Allyn recommends that we don't just the reader by what s/he reads.  "Avid readers, and some budding readers, wil read anything:  cereal boxes, magazines, posters, video game instructions, graphic novels... It's essential that teachers acknowledge these forms of reading as 'real' and not simply validate and praise award-winning chapter books. ...Today's readers use different forms of media - email, texts, blog posts, and so on - to communicate.  Name these communications as reading, too, and celebrate any minutes a child spends absorbing print (Allyn, 19)."  
   2. Allyn also recommends rereading, "Rereading builds comprehension; a person is reading differently every time he or she comes to the text (21)."  (Idea:  same story told in different guises - Beauty and the Beast and Beasty for example.)  Rereading or reading further on a topic enjoyed builds stamina. 
   3. Allyn recommends students keep a record of the material they read - from writing book lists to keeping a computerized database to using a wiki or blog etc...
2. Every child reads accurately:  (Just Right Book)  "When students read accurately, they solidify their word-rcognition, decoding, and word-analysis skills.  Perhaps more important, they are likely to understand what they read - and, as a result, to enjoy reading (Allington, 12)."  
3. Every child reads something s/he understands:  "Research shows that remediation (reading instruction) that emphasizes comprehension can change the structure of struggling students' brains (Allington, 13)."
4. Every child writes about something personally meaningful:   "(Students should) compose - construct something unique - when (they) write.... Writing provides a different modality within which to practice the skills and strategies of reading for an authentic purpose (Allington, 13)."  When students write about something they care about, they use the 6 traits in a meaningful way...they use them as tools.  Especially for struggling students, their writing provides comprehensible text for them to read and reread! (Article about sentences, NY TIme.com)
5. Every child talks with peers about reading and writing:  These conversations should ask students to analyze, comment, and compare - not recall or retell!  "(Research) found better outcomes when kids simply talked with a peer about what they read than when they spent the same amount of class time highlighting important information after reading... (and) even small amounts of (literate) conversations (10 minutes a day) improved standardized test scores, regardless of students' family background or reading level. ... The task of switching between writing, speaking, reading, and listening helps students make connections between, and thus solidify, the skills they use in each (Allington, 14)."  Allyn warns, "Often reluctant readers are given less time than fluent readers to be social and interactive about reading because they're thought to need more practice time.  The absense of this vital dialogue only contributes to struggling readers' feeling of isolation and rarely inspires them to pursue more challenging texts.  Dialogue is a window into another person's reading experience and is an effective way to get people excited about reading (19)."  All students - but especially struggling students - need ways to discuss books "deeply with dignity":
   1. What are you wondering about?
   2. What are you hoping for the character?
   3. What surprised you?
   4. What moved or inspired you?
   5. Recognize sophisticated approaches to language even in seemingly simpler texts.
   6. Use twitter or texts to share ideas.. (Read also Times.com:  Your Brain On Fiction)
6. Every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud at ALL levels of text:  "Listening to an adult model fluent reading increases students' own fluency and comprehension skills, as well as expanding their vocabulary, background knowledge, sense of story, awareness of genre and text structure, and comprehension of the texts read (Allington, 14)."

Expository/Non-fiction:

1. Adol Literay Programs are moving toward these texts (and away from narrative) should be a feature of high school and college reading. (Clear message of CCSS - 50% of time spent with nonfiction)
   1. Louise Rosenblatt:  Informational reading is "efferent" and functional, a carrying away, in this case, of information.  We build our store of knowledge with it.
   2. OR Newkirk:  Informational reading is an experience of being iwth the author as he led me on a journey about a topic. "I retain these narrative contours - and the information I retain adheres to them. ...The deatils quickly become a blur, and I recall only basic themes and the feeling the book created for me. (32)."
2. Is it Narrative VS Expository - really? (Read also NYTimes.com - Your Brain On Fiction)
   • We must teach students to deal with sentences that are not "literature" in nature.  "We innately prefer sentences that tell a small story:  An agent is acting, having an effect on something.  We have a craving for narrative (Newkirk, 29)."
   • Without narrative, text is difficult to comprehend.  Mark Turner, a cognitive psychologist and literary critic, "Narrative imagining - story - is the fundamental instrument of thought.  Rational capacities depend on it.  It is our chief means of looking into the future, or predicting, of planning, of explaining."  We never read for "raw" information.... So-called informational texts work only when the writer has been able toe stablish a set of expectations to drive the reading.  MORE than thesis - "I mean a human problem or sitation that needs examination, something that matters, that calls for writing (Newkirk, 29). 
3. What students should attend to as they read:
   1. Looking for Trouble - what is the social problem? irreconcilable position? new evidence? REASON or PURPOSE to read? 
   2. Identify the Players - "I begin to read each writer with the questions, Whom is the writer responding to? Whom is he or she arguing with? What provoked this writing? (Newkirk, 31)."
   3. Attending to Patterns of Thought - "Reading, as I am describing it, is not a treasure hunt for the main idea; it is a journey we take with a writer (Newkirk, 31)."
      1. Idea - make a flowchart of the moves the writer makes
   4. Engage with a Teller - "We don't get information raw (Newkirk 31)."  Seek to know the writer - understand his/her bias.  When this is hidden, text is called "inconsiderate".  
4. Remember: Textbooks are not non-fiction!  
   • They are "inconsiderate text" that seek to create pure objectivity by hiding the traits of the author. 
   • "The writing itself seems geared for presenting terminology rather than for engaging the reader (Newkirk, 31)." 
   • Glorified phonebooks
   • When we read them, "We simply plug the information into pre-existing schema and we don't change."
   • Great nonfiction asks us to be "present as a first-rate mind explains the science and human drama of (a topic). ...I suspect this fellow-traveling is the great lasting benefit we get from sustained reading of good nonfiction (Newkirk, 32)."
   • Goals when using textbooks:
     • Instead of chunking it up, "Research suggest that students gain most of their knowledge of ... through extended reading.  Such extended reading requires dedication - time, effort, and persistence (Guthrie, 65)."  Use textbook AND other texts to create more reading over a period of time, allowing them to read extensively and deeply about topics.
     • Build Self-Efficacy - Students need repeated experiences of successfully LEARNING from their textbooks and other informational texts to build their overall self-efficacy as readers and learners (Guthrie, 66).  Ease them into the more difficult text by starting with easier text, but get them into the more difficult text!
     • Show students the text's value - when they believe the text is important, they read it.
     • Use Social Motivation - collaboration to support students' social motivation for reading informational text. - Use independent reading punctuated by partner talk.  All work should be accountable, interactive, and text-based.
     • Give Choice...whenever you can (Guthrie, 69).

Teaching Genre with Purpose (Duke, 34) ~ Different Genres, Different Purposes:

• Three principles for all genres:
  1. Engage students with reading and writing for real-world reasons(recognize the purpose of the genre, what function does the text serve?) - students learn to read and write genres best when they use the genres and their features for the same reasons the genres and features arose in the first place (Duke, 34). By asking these two questions, I can make sure I'm doing this.
  • Do I engage students in reading or writing a type of text that people read and write outside of school?
  • Do students read or write this text for the same purposes for which people read and write this genre outside school - not just because I told them too, I'm grading it, or I want them to practice?
  • Take an inquiry stance and choose the genre that fits with what you are trying to find out.  What do I want to know?  What am I interested in?  What is my PK about this topic? How could each genre serve my purpose? 
  1. Teach genre features and their functions
  2. Teach genres-specific strategies

Types of genres:

1. Narrative - share and interpret experiences (Read also NYTimes.com - Your Brain on Fiction)
   • adventure, historical fiction, mysteries, myths, sci fi, realistic fiction, allegories, parodies, satire, graphic novels
   • Strategies:  Visualize the setting, characters, and events; Evaluate the significance of reading; Predict what will happen next, Infer character motives...
   • Idea ~ Theme Scheme:  Introduce the theme through talk/writing, Read the story, Conduct a post-reading discussion, Conclude the lesson
2. Dramatic Genres - have characters come alive through conflicts and interactions  (mentioned in CCSS most often)
   • one-act and multi-act plays, written and on film
   • Poetry - narrative poems, lyrical poems, free-verse, sonnets, odes, ballads, epics
   • Strategies:  Infer character appearance and personality; Imagine the staging of the scene...
   • Use Poetry Pairings from NYTimes.com to read expository and poetry about the same topic.
3. Persuasive genres - influence the target audiences ideas or behaviors
   1. Strategy:  Identify each author or speaker and describe his/her argument, Compare details and look for conflicting views, Make careful notes on each source
4. Informational genres - convey information about the natural or social word to people who want or need that information
   1. Strategy - "Collaborative Strategy":  Preview text, Click (clear) and Clunk (unclear), Get the gist, Wrap Up
5. Procedural genres - teach people how to do soemthing they don't know how to do.
   1. Strategy: gather materials/ingredients, read steps in order-from beginning to end, pause frequently...
6.  All Literary Nonfiction and historical, scientific, and technical texts:  exposition, argument, functional text in the form of personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or lit, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts written for a broad audience.
   1. Strategies:  identify the audience; weigh the quality of the evidence; skim/scan; predict (what the author will tell you next, bias); ... 

INDEPENDENT READING RATIONALE:

An effective program of independent reading isn't a study hall where we all Drop Everything And Read. The teacher's main roles are to talk with individual kids--quiet conversations about what they're reading, how they're reading it, what they're understanding and noticing, whether they're happy, and what they might read next--and with the whole class about books, authors, genres, and literary elements. In minilessons, my students discuss character development, theme, setting, plot structure, description, reflection, dialogue, form, voice, diction, tone, style, leads, and conclusions. We also conduct booktalks: hundreds of sales pitches about titles we loved and think others will love, too. The classroom is alive with the language of literary criticism, spoken by students who see themselves as insiders, as members of what Frank Smith calls the literacy club (1988), because they read good writing and have learned to identify what makes it work...... This is what great stories do for kids--for all of us. They tap humans' built-in interest in the human condition, in all its varieties.

• 10,000 hours?
• c-t-l.org - kids recommend
• Goal:  53 books / 12 genres

Articles - Work Cited:

Author. "Title of Article." Title of Magazine or Newspaper. Date: Pages.

Abilock, Debbie. "True - Or Not? ~ How can stuents know whether the information they find online is true or not?"  Educational Leadership:  Reading ~ The Core Skill.  March 2012:  70 - 74.

Allington, Richard and Rachael Gabriel. "Every Child, Every Day - The 6 elements of effective reading instruction don't require much time or money - just educators' decisions to put them in place." Educational Leadership: Reading ~The Core Skill. March 2012: 11-15.

Allyn, Pam. "Taming the Wild Text - A top-10 list of strategies to help the struggling reader become fierce, unafraid, and strong." Educational Leadership: Reading ~The Core Skill. March 2012: 16-21.

Biancarosa, Gina.  "Adolescent Literacy:  More than Remediation." Educational Leadership: Reading ~The Core Skill. March 2012: 22-27. 

Duke, Nell K., Samantha Caughlan, Mary M. Juzwik, and Nicole M. Martin. "Teaching Genre with Purpose." Educational Leadership: Reading ~The Core Skill. March 2012: 34-39. 

Goudvis, Anne and Stephanie Harvey.  "Teaching for Historical Literacy - When teachers mesh content-rich curriculum with good literacy practices, history lessons become meaningful."  Educational Leadership:  Reading ~ The Core Skill.  March 2012:  52 - 57.

Guthrie, John T. and Susan Lutz Klauda.  "Making Textbook Reading Meaningful."  Educational Leadership:  Reading ~ The Core Skill.  March 2012:  64 - 68.

Jago, Carol.  "Opening the Literature Window - With help from the teacher, students can read books they wouldn't tackle on their own." Educational Leadership:  Reading ~ The Core Skill.  March 2012:  40 - 43.

Newkirk, Thomas.  "How Do We Really Comprehend Nonfiction." Educational Leadership: Reading ~The Core Skill. March 2012: 28-32. 

Shanahan, Timothy and Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey. "The Challenge of Challenging Text."  Educational Leadership: Reading ~The Core Skill. March 2012: 58-62. 


Online:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html


http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/my-lifes-sentences/?emc=eta1



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How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas?

by Rebecca Alber

You are busy this summer planning and reworking lessons -- adding, adjusting, and tweaking. Here's something to think about, fast forward to fall: We know students do plenty of listening in our classes, but what about the other three communication skills they should be engaging in and practicing daily?

I'm talking about reading, writing, and speaking.

Let's define literacy. It was once known simply as the ability to read and write. Today it's about being able to make sense of and engage in advanced (academic and casual) reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

Someone who has reached advanced literacy in a new language, for example, is able to engage in these four skills with their new language in any setting -- academically or casually.

Literacy is an Every-Century Skill

If you are a math, history, science, or art teacher, where does literacy fit into your classroom instruction? It's common to believe that literacy instruction is solely the charge of language arts teachers, but, frankly, this just is not so. Naysayers, please take a moment to think about this quote:

"Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives." -- Richard Vaca, author of Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum

With content standards looming, it's easy to only focus on the content we teach, and covering material. We have so much to tell students and share with them. However, are we affording students enough time daily to practice crucial communication skills?

Here's one way to look at it: Content is what we teach, but there is also the how, and this is where literacy instruction comes in. There are an endless number of engaging, effective strategies to get students to think about, write about, read about, and talk about the content you teach. The ultimate goal of literacy instruction is to build a student's comprehension, writing skills, and overall skills in communication.

Ask yourself, how do I mostly convey the information and knowledge to my students? Do I turn primarily to straight lecture, or teacher talk? Or, do I allow multiple opportunities for students to discover information on their own?

Speaking

Students having academic or high-level conversations in small and large group settings does not happen overnight. It takes time -- and scaffolding -- to create a Socratic Seminar setting in your classroom.

In order for our students to engage in academic conversation, or accountable talk, they need plenty of practice with informal conversation in pairs and triads. Use the following strategies frequently for building students' oral skills: think-pair-share, elbow partner, shoulder share, andchunk and chew. Kids need to be talking and not sitting passively in their seats. Remember,Vygotsky believed learning to be a very social act!

For every 5-8 minutes you talk, give them 1-2 minutes to talk to each other. You can walk around and listen, informally assessing and checking for understanding.(C:  Dr. Howell)

Conversation helps immensely when processing new content and concepts. Students also will surely have more fruitful answers to share (be sure to always provide think time when asking questions of students).

Writing

When was the last time your students had sore hands from writing in your class? Just like conversation, writing helps us make sense of what we are learning and helps us make connections to our own lives or others' ideas.

You can't avoid thinking when you write.

Students need to be writing every day, in every classroom. How about adding to your instruction more informal and fun writing activities like quick writes, stop and jots, one-minute essays, graffiti conversations? Not all writing assignments need be formal ones.

If you haven't heard of the National Writing Project (NWP), it's the largest-scale and longest-standing teacher development program in U.S. history. Workshops are offered nationwide (usually through a local university) where teachers of all content areas learn new and exciting strategies to encourage, support, and grow the young writers in their classrooms.

Two tenets of the NWP that I think produce wide gains in student writing: teachers writing side-by-side with students, and creating time on a regular basis in your classroom for writer's workshop that follows a type of writing process that puts the writer in charge (of content, voice, and structure).

Reading

The days of believing that we could hand informational text or a novel to a student and assume he or she makes full meaning of it on their own is a teaching mode of the past. Whether we like it or not, regardless of the content we teach, we are all reading instructors.

Scaffolding the reading by using effective strategies for pre-, during, and after reading, such as: previewing text, reading for a purpose, making predictions and connections, think alouds, and using graphic organizers will support all our students, and not just struggling readers and English learners.

Another onus not only on English teachers, but all teachers as reading instructors? We need to inspire both a love for reading, and build reading stamina in our students (this means eyes and mind on the page for more than a minute!)

But, how do we do this? A high-interest classroom library is a great place to start. If you are a Title I school, there should be funds set aside for classroom libraries. If not, advocate for all classrooms at your school site to have a library, even if it's just a handful of books to get you going.

You can make the investment yourself, or have a book-raiser party. Email all your friends a wish list for books that students have requested and those easy sells (Twilight, Guinness Book of World Records...). Ask them to bring one or two of the books to your cocktail/appetizer party. (Read this Edutopia post for ideas on how to set up and manage your classroom library).

If you are a physics teacher, do all your books need to be about science? Absolutely not! But you might want to focus primarily on informational, non-fiction books. In fact, with the new national standards for English emphasizing more non-fiction text and quite a bit less literature, I say all K-12 teachers need to enhance their libraries with more non-fiction (this can include newspaper and magazine subscriptions as well).

(I'm not going to go into listening as a communication skill, since I think our students do plenty of that already, but here's a great Web site with characteristics of an effective listener you can share with your students and they can practice with each other.)

TRaining with Brandon - 8/2012:
.  RA - IRA - SR - GR - IR

• Every kid needs everything.  What is needed now?
• RA - Read Aloud
  • TEacher: models reading and thinking
  • Students:  reflect on what they notice, try on skills, differing results
• IRA - Interactive Read Aloud
  • Teacher:  does the reading work and shares ALL thinking work, holistic approach to text focused on comprehension and meaning making
  • Students:  listen and share in thinking work, reflect on what they notice and try on skills, seek connections
• SR - Shared Reading
  • Teacher:  does the reading work,  focusing thinking work on skill/strategy being introduced, assesses that thinking work to detemine next steps
  • Students:  participate in the thinking work, apply this thinking to IR 
• GR - Guided Reading
  • Teacher:  forms groups based on need, plans specific lessons to move group forward, shares the reading and thinking work
  • Students:  read and think together, try on learning with IR
• IR - Independent Reading

2.  We have to teacher students how to be INTERESTED in something (new).  Interest is a minimum and limiting entry point.  This is the point of school - learn new things.  If we spend all of our time finding books about what they come to us interested in as opposed to creating interest in new ideas/topics, it is a exercise in insanity.

• What social norms are acting as barriers?
• Will vs Skill
• What does it mean to enjoy a book?  Reframe... (laugh, cry, think, have to talk to someone, learn...)

3.  The purpose of reading is to learn how the world works.

4.  Litereacy works best when 

• students read a veariety of texts in a variety of structures for a variety of purposes.
  • Goal:  fleible use of skills and strategies to make meaning - this cannot happen if you only use one genre or are only practicing in one text (novel)
  • Flexible use of skills and strategies across a variety of circumstances - use short stories, exerpts, poetry, nonfiction, poetry, picture books, etc...
  • Teach stamina, comprehension across a text - use short stories, NOVELS, IR time
• reading and writing ar elayered.  

5.  Basic Assessment questions to ask:

• After they have chosen a book:  Why are you choosing that book? Why are you reading it?
• To assess their ability to follow a plot:  Why are you reading this?  (Goal:  to find out what happens to...)
• 1/2 way through:  Why are you still reading?
• Finished:  What did you learn about yourself? the world? the author?

6.  Will VS Skill:

• Use LOW WILL as an indicator that skills are missing
• Assess skills and teach skills/strategies
• Monitor WILL as evidence that skills/strategies are learned.
• "You have to build skill to build will."
• Detemining reading issues is as much a cultural conversation as it is an academic one.

6.  Purpose:  Change from strategies to what is happening in their minds.

• Instead of we are going to activate our prior knolwedge, to we are going to think about what we already know about ____ and watch how that helps us to make sense of this text.
• 
  

7.  Inappropriate Text for age level (ie., Speak at 4th grade).  Consider this rule of thumb:

• Fiction at grade/age level
• Nonfiction, Historical Fiction, Poetry for the push

8.  Why PD on determining Text Demand:

• We should do it for every piece of text we put before students.  We should get fast and effiecient.
• Doing it with a group allows us to see other strategies and skills we might have missed.  We learn from each other.  What did I notice? What did she notice?  Why didn't I notice that?  

9.  Remember:  students do not reside in or move through A-B-C... levels.  They recide in a range and grow in leaps and bounds.  Use text with students within a similar range.

10.  Nonfiction - huge umbrella of different types of nonfiction - read each differently (strategies employed differently depending upon the sub-genre:  functional -->informational-->persuasive --> journalistic.)

• purpose
• strategy
• structure/features
• how to navigate
• what does the text demand (instruction)

11.  Classroom Library

• How do you organize? who organizes? what's the purpose?
• Shopping for books
• Media center is the real world expereince of shopping for books (classroom library is the controlled, instructional setting.)
• Media center is the EVIDENCE or ASSESSMENT of classroom library work.