AVReading November

With a better understanding of what Academic Language is and why it is important to develop (see September and October issues), the next step is to examine how we can foster environments where academic language can be developed.  As a brief reminder, academic language is more than just the words we use to talk in classes. They also include the way we formulate our ideas and even how we formulate them.   

Modeling

    Modeling academic language is an important starting point.  Teachers who demonstrate how to state and express their thoughts in academic language, in addition to showing students how to decode and interpret that language is important.  However, merely using academic language is not enough.  Simply using the jargon and language of your content field without pointing it out or showing how you use it, may only frustrate the problem.  Instead, Modeling it might mean using the language, but then having those keywords or phrases posted on the board so that students can feel more comfortable lifting that language as well.  I remember how important this was for me in statistics class, where the wording of how I expressed my findings mattered a great deal.  I specifically remember writing down the sentence template that I would need to use to state the confidence levels of a given study. 

Think Alouds

    Think alouds can also be very beneficial.  Basically, a teacher will take a piece of academic text, and read it aloud to class as he or she would if they read it on their own as a specialist in the field.  This would involve reading a sentence or two of the text, and then stopping to make an observation, to question, or to elaborate on something.  Note, that a think aloud doesn’t mean that you tell people exactly what the text means line-by-line.  The purpose is to make visible the invisible workings of a specialist reading a text.  Show them your thinking.  

Gestures and Hand Movements

    Sometimes, we can help grow the academic language of students by focusing on specific words that are valuable to academic talk.  In this case, you would identify these words and then show how they are used.  But as an additional way for students to conceptualize the word or phrase, use hand gestures to bring it to life.  

    “I understand your argument about (gesture to the left with your right hand). . . . However, (gesture to the right with your left hand)  I think you might also consider. . .”  On the back of this newsletter is a chart of potential academic words / phrases you can use along with potential hand gestures that will enable your students to experience these words in more tangible ways. The chart was produced by Jeffrey Zwier in his book Building Academic Language.   

Read the full newsletter here. 

AVReading Newsletter October

-->Making the Invisible, Visible One of the mystifying aspects of school for some students is the “unwritten” and largely “unspoken” code of education.  For many of us, we assume that students know the language or protocol of school.  It comes out in a myriad of small choices throughout the day.  Knowing when blurting out is okay versus formally raising your hand.  Knowing how-- or when-- to just think aloud and free associate thoughts.  Knowing how-- or when-- to re-state a teacher’s ideas or how to expand and develop ideas.  This code is largely socialized into some students, but we can’t assume that everyone has had that same experience. 

Building academic language is a way of making some of those unwritten codes more visible.  Let’s start with a good definition of academic language. As Jeffrey Zwier writes,  academic language is “the set of words, grammar, and discourse strategies used to describe complex ideas, higher-order thinking processes, and abstract concepts.”  It’s important to note that academic language is more than just words (or vocabulary). It also includes the way we say things within a classroom-- from the structure of our sentences, to the organization of our ideas.  It also has to deal with how we think and analyze abstract and complex ideas.  One common mistake of teachers from the dominant culture is that students without academic language also lack the ability to think or solve complex problems or ideas.  However, this is dangerous for a few reasons. First, teachers in this position tend to water down and simplify the curriculum, believing that students are incapable of higher order thinking, when their true struggle is communicating those ideas in conventional school language.  Consequently, students do not get adequately challenged and are relegated to low-skill, drain and train lessons.  
--> The first step to all of this is becoming more aware.  Question the assumptions that you make about students, their performance in class, and why they might be struggling.  Question what assumptions you make every time you introduce an assignment or hold a discussion or develop an activity.  Even question the phrases you use.  Do you tend to speak in metaphor or cliche?  Do you tell them to “jot down” some ideas versus “write out” some ideas?  Do I use synonyms to describe the same term, and thus create some confusion over what I am actually talking about.  For example, I might interchange the term “narrative” for “story” in a sentence, and thereby confuse students.  Do I overuse unclear pronouns like “this” and “that”, when I should be more explicit what “this” or “that” actually means?  

These are the types of questions we should be asking of ourselves and how we communicate with students.  In addition to this, we have a responsibility to help students build their toolbox of academic language. 
-->  In the end, building academic language requires some study of the systems we have in place with the hope that we can acknowledge how we might be unintentionally excluding groups of students with the way we communicate and teach.


-->In the end, building academic language requires some study of the systems we have in place with the hope that we can acknowledge how we might be unintentionally excluding groups of students with the way we communicate and teach.  
Get October's Full Newsletter Here.   

AVReading June

The last common core anchor standard is perhaps the most controversial of the anchors. It reads as follows:
Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
On the surface, it doesn’t seem too inflammatory, but the debate / discussion has centered around the qualifier “complex”. Literacy and English teachers voiced a few concerns about this standard: what is considered complex and second how do you ensure that everyone is reading in their level of productive struggle?
First, many have expressed concerns over the actual definition of complex. Some feared that teachers would apply an overly simplistic definition and rely solely on reading formulas (like Lexile scores) to determine what would be considered as sufficiently difficult. They argue that some texts -- like Hemingway for example-- are quite rigorous in form and content, but measure really low in readability (since he is known for short, declarative sentences with a low frequency of unique or rare words). By the formula, his work might indicate a seventh grade reading level, but in content, he requires a substantial amount of cultural, historical, and even literary background. So in general, educators worried that this standard might be unnecessarily confining in what teachers assign for their readings.
Another concern is how to differentiate assignments. Putting “complex” texts into the hands of students assumes that teachers will be able to identify what might be “complex” for each student, since students within a class will be a different reading levels. This is quite difficult to do. It requires both extensive planning and a willingness to let go of traditional notions of assessment. It requires extensive planning because instead of one universal text for the entire class, teachers will need to find multiple texts, all dealing with the same topic but written at varied levels. It requires letting go of traditional notions of assessments, since it would be really difficult to create a standard multiple choice quiz or objective test for each leveled text. Therefore, teachers have to learn to assess comprehension and understanding of texts through other -- typically less conventional -- means.
Setting aside these critiques, it is generally good to put students into texts that will be challenging, but not frustrating, for them to read. Logistically, it is difficult, but there are a few things teachers can do.
- Offer choice: While this requires a lot of extra work, the payoff can be substantial. Some English classes have started to do this, offering more “seminar” novel options.
- Alternative texts: In some cases, students can be given access to the same text but in at a lower reading level. There are shortened or abbreviated texts for many classics. The biology textbook has a resource book that has condensed the concepts into easier reading. And websites like NEWSELA offer articles that are written at three different reading levels (8th, 6th, 5th).
- Scaffolding: In some cases, it isn’t about finding different texts, it’s about scaffolding the assignment for those who need more guidance. In this case, everyone reads the same text. However, (depending on the student), they might get additional tools to help them get through the text. Scaffolded activities include more pre-reading activities, more explicit help finding key / important ideas, sentence starters, or even graphic organizers.
- Recorded Editions: In some cases, students might be able to access difficult texts through recorded books / text. In this case, students can free up the cognitive load usually employed to decode the text by listening to the text.
Reading complex texts requires much more concentration and focus. It also requires much more endurance, motivation and resilience. Yet doing so comes with a host of benefits. Students can build their toolbox for critical reading, which is good preparation for college. They are exposed to new vocabulary (within natural contexts), they learn about new and exciting concepts and are introduced to people and ideas that they wouldn’t otherwise experience. Ultimately, they gain a sense of confidence and agency, meaning that they feel as though they can face complex texts in the future and be able to survive that experience.

View the complete newsletter here.

AVReading May

"Comparing Texts"

Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Common Core Reading Standard #9 is another indicator of how our standards for reading have become more complex. Whereas traditional reading has emphasized the comprehension of a single text as a “stand alone,” today’s standards are asking students to read “across” texts to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate ideas. The good news is that this practice challenges students to think more deeply about their readings. The bad news is that it requires a considerably more complex cognitive task-- namely that readers will have to hold two ideas in their heads at one time: the text they are currently reading and the text of the other reading. For the struggling reader, this will be pretty difficult, and teachers will have to help them navigate between the two texts. So the question is how can we do this?

For starters, readers need to be accustomed to marking up a text. This would include highlighting or underlining, as well as making notations in the margins. Again, for the struggling reader this will be difficult. However, when reading across multiple texts, this is especially important, since it will take some pressure off the cognitive load. In other words, the student would not need to “memorize” all the details of the text, if they do a good job of annotating it (highlighting / underlining and making notes or marginalia). For low ability readers, you will need to help them with the process of annotation, but here are some general words of advice to them.
- Underline / highlight ideas, facts, statistics or lines that are important.
- Underline / highlight at least three to five items per page for short texts, two to four things for longer texts.
- For everything underlined / highlighted readers should annotate or make a note. Here are some things they could be writing in the margins: a prediction, a question, a connection, a brief label or summary, an opinion.
Once the student finishes the first document, they repeat the process on the second document. The only slight difference is that as they read the second, in addition to the types of notations they made the first time, they will take note of the following.
- Ideas, facts, statistics they share in common.
- Ideas, facts, statistics that differ.

Being explicit with the process of working through multiple texts is necessary to these students. While the lesson will help those who struggle with executive functioning, it will also benefit those who are just not accustomed to this type of reading.

As you develop lessons that require students to read across texts, here are some things to consider. First, text selection matters. The easiest application is to provide a point / counter point combination of articles (a pro and a con). However, do not limit yourself. Sometimes, you might find two short informative or technical texts about the same topic, only they present the information in unique ways. Sometimes, you might criss-cross genres, providing a poem with a companion piece in non-fiction, or a primary source document with a secondary source. Additionally, don’t limit yourself to just print text. Showing a video short followed by an article is also a meaningful way to read across texts.

Second, the questions you ask are important. While it is easiest to simply ask students to compare and contrast, you might consider narrowing your concentration a bit more. You could include questions like, what information does the second text include that the first does not? How is the tone of the first article different from the first? Which of these two texts does a better job with. . . ? Compare and contrast the genres of the two texts. What is the genre of each? And how do those genres change the tone or credibility of the information they offer?

Read the full newsletter here.

AVReading April

"Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence."

This month, our focus will be on Common Core Standard #8 (above), which asks readers to not only identify the argument made within a text, but also the specific claims (or supporting details) used to defend that position. Additionally, students are asked to assess the validity of that reasoning. In other words, they need to explain the strengths or weaknesses of this reasoning, regardless of their own personal beliefs on the issue.
You might think that this pertains to only persuasive writing, those usually associated with editorials or political blogs. However, as some have pointed out, all texts are to some degree arguments. Even those that pretend to be informative or descriptive in nature are posing the argument that this text is worthy of the viewer’s or reader’s time and attention.
So our mission is to help our readers complete three tasks: first, identify the argument and where it appears in the text; second, identify the claims or supporting details; and third, assess the logic or quality of that argument and supporting details. In other words, does the evidence provided support for the argument being made?

Identifying the Argument
As mentioned earlier, most texts don’t explicitly state their argument, especially if they seem to be more descriptive or informative in nature. We don’t normally think of a biology text as presenting an argument, but essentially, it does. For each chapter, it makes the claim that RNA, for example, is an important biological term that requires further investigation. Here is why it is important, and here is what you need to know about it. There are two general ways to ascertain the argument of a text.
First, look for it explicitly stated in the text. “We need immigration reform.” “The U.S. is falling behind in the way it educates students.” In most cases where the argument is explicitly stated, readers can find it in the title or in the opening paragraphs of the text. Surprisingly, students still struggle with finding this, and it may be necessary to teach them how to do so.
Second, have students read the text, then step back and determine the argument based on the gist or general idea of the passage. Sometimes, just letting students know that it is implied versus stated, allows them to think of the text more broadly.

Identifying the Claims
Once the argument is determined, it is important for readers to then go back into the text to provide evidence of how that argument was constructed. Students will need to learn about different types of evidence: facts, statistics, anecdotes / stories, expert testimony, analogy. In addition to identifying the claims and evidence, students should be aware of how much evidence for each claim is provided.

Evaluating Arguments
In the end, readers must assess the quality of the arguments in light of the evidence given. While it is necessary to explain why something might be persuasive, it is also important that students evaluate the logic of the text. They should consider the type of evidence provided, the amount of evidence provided, and the organization of those pieces in addition to the credibility of the author and the sources she uses. Evaluating arguments takes practice because there is not a neat template that can be applied. It requires the consideration of multiple variables.

Find the full newsletter here.

AVReading March

Reading Across Texts

Common Core Anchor Standard Number Seven is perhaps the most non-descript of all the common core standards. Here is what it says. “Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.” It doesn’t really indicate much direction in terms of how to integrate and evaluate content, or explain what types of diverse media are most important, so it can be interpreted rather broadly. Here is my take-away. Challenge student understanding of text by asking them to read across texts (preferably from different mediums, like print and video or print and visual etc).

English
The classic example would be to read a scene from Romeo and Juliet, and then to show them a staged version of that same scene. Students then should discuss the differing interpretations of that text, as well as how the visual representations use specific elements (ie. lighting, camera shots, sound, music, make-up, pacing) to develop a feeling or mood.
While it is good to utilize other mediums, it is also important to get students to read across different forms of printed text. The MCA Reading test has items that specifically address this. For example, they have an article about the history of the Eiffel Tower followed by a fictional excerpt from a diary written by a worker who worked on the Tower.

Social Studies
Social studies offers many opportunities for teachers to challenge students to read across texts. In fact, it is part of the tradition, as students are consistently asked to read sections of a history text, complemented by primary source documents that enrich their understandings. This is also done whenever students are asked to “read” video, and synthesize it with concepts or material they are getting from their textbooks. But it will also involve explicit lessons in map reading, where students need to be taught how to identify important features of maps and how they are used to reflect a wide variety of concepts.

Science
Again, by the nature of the curriculum, students are often asked to read across multiple texts (print, still image, charts, video etc), in order to better understand important ideas. Reading different mediums of texts will require that teachers spend some time explicitly guiding students on how to read charts, graphs, and diagrams. One rather innovative use of visual elements is to offer students a graph, chart or diagram, without the accompanying textbook analysis, and then ask them to discern the main idea. What observations can they make about that visual? Activities like this encourage students to approach these other mediums with the same set of processes they might approach print text: preview the visual, make some predictions, read it, fix comprehension when it breaks down, and finally, put it all together in a final summary and observation.

Math
The “multi-modal” nature of math, again, allows for daily opportunities to help students read “across” texts. Lessons in math might emphasize how to approach the page of a math text. Do you start with the print? Do you jump to the images first and try to make sense of the problem and then, if need be, back up and read the printed word? What do you do when the mental image that you constructed within the print text doesn’t seem to match the diagram of the book? When possible, helping students to navigate these multiple forms of text will ultimately provide them with a path forward.

View this month's entire newsletter here.

AVReading February

As it is written, Common Core Standard #6 is perhaps the most difficult for students to grasp, and for teachers to teach.  The standard asks students to “Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.”  Again, this is a fairly significant shift from the old way of teaching reading.  At most, we might ask students to determine the point of view or purpose of a text and provide evidence of that.  In this era, readers are expected to not only identify the point of view or purpose of a text, but to explain how that point of view or purpose has shaped the text.  Like Standard #5, it asks readers to consider an author’s choices.  The difference is that for this standard, students have to explain an author’s choices in relationship to their purpose, which is much more specific than just their general choices.

For many texts, this will be difficult, largely because either the purpose or point of view are difficult to determine or simply bland.  I mean, I hate to offend the science folk, but the text in the biology book does not lend itself well to this type of analysis because its purpose is generally transparent, and its voice is relatively non-descript.   

So assuming that the text has a strong voice and or a nuanced purpose, the next step would be to help students to first, identify the point of view / purpose; and second, contemplate how that point of view / purpose impacted the author’s choice for content and style.

There are a number of things that teachers can do to help students determine the point of view or purpose of a text: consider the title, consider the main idea of the text, look for the argument(s), consider what details have not been included, look for word choices that might indicate bias, and in some cases, look into the history of the author to determine if she / he has taken a position on the subject in the past.  

Once the point of view / purpose is determined, then students can start to consider how that might have driven specific choices of the author-- in both what they chose to include in their text, and the words they chose to use.  Students could be prompted with questions like, “If the author’s purpose is to X, then how does she / he structure the text to achieve that purpose?”  Have students consider the types of information the author uses, the organization of the text, and even the word choices.

One possible way to get at this question is to work backward.  Ask students to consider an author choice for a moment.  “Why do you think the author did X?”  And then, help them connect the dots to the purpose of the text.  

Analyzing author’s choices is generally tricky.  At best, we can only guess at their reasoning for any given choice (unless they explicitly state their thinking).

            This can make the discussion of their motives messy and kind of fun, as long as students bring back their choices to textual evidence.  Getting students to think beyond the text in this way will challenge them to look more deeply at the writing and how the author’s choices reflect the purpose they had for writing it.  

Read the full newsletter here. 

AVReading January

-->

Looking at this month’s Spotlight Common Core Standard #5, you begin to see the complexity of our new notion of reading.  As mentioned before, our new conceptualization of reading moves beyond just “what the text says” and “what the text suggests” to “how the text is constructed” and “how the construction of the text affects the meaning.”  This requires a great deal of analysis and thought.  It first implies that students understanding the literal and inferential meaning of a text, and now must examine it for how the author put it together.  

The fifth standard reads, “Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.”

For the most part, I believe this standard will belong to the realms of English and Language Arts classes, where the close reading of texts is more of the predominant focus.  That’s not to say that it can’t be taught in other disciplines, it just acknowledges that doing so in Math class would be a little more difficult and perhaps a little less relevant when the predominant focus there should be other aspects of reading:  finding important details, reading for purpose etc.

For those of you still interested, here are some ways to address the fifth standard in your reading activities.    First, you can ask students to consider how authors organize their texts to express their ideas.  The most common forms of organization include Chronological Order, Order of Importance or Size, Cause / Effect, Problem / Solution, Comparison / Contrast, and Spatial (organized by space or geography).  I generally tell students that knowing the organization gives us insight not only into how the text is constructed, but allows us to remember and make meaning of texts a little better.  

Second, you can ask student to think about the “author’s moves”.  This is the new buzz phrase that literacy teachers use to get readers to think about how a writer makes choices to express ideas.  These choices are “moves”.  So in other words, an author’s move might be their choice to include a vivid or personal example to support an argument.  Or perhaps, the author’s move was to describe something in rich detail, in order to get readers to mentally visualize something. What are the “moves” an author makes in constructing the text?

Third, you can ask students to instead think about the impact of certain choices.  In other words, what is the impact of including a particular detail or idea on the reader?  What might a reader think or feel because the author included  this sentence, section, or concept?  Essentially, it is the same question as before, only you (the teacher) come at it from a different angle-- that of the reader versus that of the writer.

 Find the entire newsletter here.