AVReading

Analyzing Dynamic Texts We continue our examination of  the Common Core State Standards this year, by looking at the third anchor standard which asks students to “analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.”  Again, you will probably observe that this is certainly a different approach to reading or examining a text, at least in comparison to our former model of reading which focused more simply on understanding main idea, inference, and evaluating credibility.  For anchor standard three, students are asked to consider the text as a whole, to consider how things change over the duration of that text.     For literature, this means that readers will have to look at how a given character develops or transforms over the course of a story.  Of course, it assumes that at least one of the characters is actually dynamic, meaning they evolve or change, which is generally true of the ...

This month, we will continue with our year long goal of examining the Common Core State Standards for Reading and how we can do things within our classrooms to emphasize them.  This month we will look at the second standard, which reads as follows: “Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.” Again, I will point out that our conceptualization of reading has become much more complex.  As evidence, the second standard alone seems to cover most of what we used to consider to be reading-- which means that the other nine standards of common core are going to ask readers to do more and understand more of texts.   Standard two is basically asking the reader to demonstrate three skills:  identifying the main idea or theme, explaining how that idea is developed, and summarizing the supporting details used to develop that theme.  For our purposes here, I will focus helping students dete...

Like many other educational policies that have been legislated or mandated, the Common Core State Standards have met with considerable skepticism and resistance. There has also been a good deal of misinformation about what they are, how they were created, and how they are being used. Regardless of how one might feel about these standards and the way they have been rolled out, it is necessary to recognize the tremendous influence they have had on our schools, not only in terms of how we teach reading, and how we define literacy, comprehension and text, but how we teach and how we assess students. Because of the wide-reaching impact of Common Core, and because it plays such an important part in how our students (and by default) our schools and teachers are evaluated, my AVReading Newsletters this year will focus on these ten standards. Each month will spotlight a different standard (starting in this issue) by first, analyzing what the standards say; second, highlighting how they a...

Creating the right environment for group work takes a good deal of effort.  Teachers are sometimes hesitant to take on small group discussions for a number of reasons:  they are not always efficient, students may get off task, and the quality or depth of the discussions make it feel less productive than other methods.  Never-the-less, the benefits of collaborative discussions can be significant.  One of which, is the ability for students to collaborate over complex texts to make meaning together.   These academic discussions don’t happen naturally, however. They require a lot preparation and scaffolding early on with regular coaching over the course of time.  As Fisher and Frey (2012) write, there are four predictors of good group work:  group tasks that require students to work together, discussions that require academic language, grade level appropriate work, and the opportunity for “productive failure.”   While small group discussions can ...

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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Fault in Our Stars by John Green Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Maze Runner by James Dashner The Leading Indicators:  A Short History of the Numbers that Rule Our World by Zachary Karabell The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Jack Reacher Series by Lee Childs Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Paul Farmer by Tracy Kidder Blinded By Sight: Seeing Race through the Eyes of the Blind by Osagie Obasogie    American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Dangerous Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle,  Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by M...

--> Open Space Technology is an educational learning experience that allows groups to choose an area of interest, explore that area, and report out.  The very nature of the experience makes it very useable within the classroom environment, but it has also been used in community, corporate, and leadership settings.  It can be a completely open process, with no thematic commonality between the areas of interest, or it can be more focused.   Though it is not a literacy strategy per se, it is quite fitting for our school building push towards engagement and inquiry. So for this month’s newsletter, I will write a little about how Open Space Technology works and why it might be a unique experience for your classroom. I first came to Open Space Technology in a leadership conference.  There were about forty of us from a wide variety of fields:  architecture, public health, food sciences, politics etc.  We were told, as a -->...

--> Guidelines for Writing a Commencement Address The draft you write for consideration does not need to be a final version, but should give the panelists a clear idea of what you plan to say in your speech.  The traditional commencement address has had content which reflects back on the class's experiences and also gives advice or guidance for the future.  The tone should be one which inspires and motivates the listeners. Although the Commencement Address is directed at the graduating class, the message needs to be meaningful and appropriate for the adult audience present as well.  Content, language, or style which parents or grandparents might find offensive is not suitable for a Commencement Address. Humor can be an effective minor element of a Commencement Address.  The predominant message, and consequently the predominant writing style, should be serious, thoughtful and inspirational.  Format:  This m...

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We generally think of writing and reading as two discrete language processes, but doing so overlooks the important relationship they have to each other. Asking students to write about their reading provides at least two fundamental benefits. First, those writings become an indicator of what students have learned from the texts. And second, those writings enable students to make meaning of those texts. For starters, short writing activities (and I emphasize short, especially for those who work with struggling students), can be a good indicator of what students have understood of the text. It isn’t the only or even the best indicator. But, it is a good indicator none-the-less. It can be as simple as a “quick write” in student notebooks, or perhaps a more developed, formal essay. The writings (depending on the prompt and the essay requirements) can indicate if they are reading for “gist” or “meaning”, or whether the student is capable of inference and evaluation. With the help of ...

--> --> As teachers we ask a lot of questions.   In fact, we do so frequently without thinking about those questions.   We believe it might be a good way to check our class’s understanding of what has been covered, or a way of getting them involved in an otherwise uninvolved lesson.   However, as it has been generally documented (Rothstein & Santana, 2012), teachers generally don’t ask the right type of questions, relying heavily on low-level recall over more complex questions of synthesis and evaluation, questions that take a considerable amount of energy and time to answer. We also tend to ask questions that require students to “guess what is in my head.”   We want them to evaluate something and to ultimately come to the same conclusion that we have come to.   But the very nature of deep and meaningful questions means that we should not really know the answer to the question before we ask it.   That seems like an odd concept...