Common-Core Mythbusters: Clearing Up the Biggest Misconceptions About the ELA Standards

For more on our series of Professional Development webinars go to www.edweek.org/go/pdwebinars

Gerald Herbert/AP

Liana Heitin Associate editor of Education Week Teacher

www.edweek.org/tm www.teachersourcebook.org

Featured Guests

Cheryl Dobbertin is the director of curriculum and professional development innovation for New York State at Expeditionary Learning, a national school-reform network. She previously taught high school English/language arts, served as a literacy specialist, and was the director of professional development at Monroe 2 BOCES outside of Rochester, N.Y. In addition to her work with Expeditionary Learning, Dobbertin currently teaches differentiated instruction at Nazareth College of Rochester. Andrew Hossack is a middle school English/language arts teacher at Tapestry Charter School, an Expeditionary Learning school in Buffalo, N.Y. He has been deeply involved in writing common-core-aligned ELA curriculum for grades 3-5 as part of a statewide curriculum project in New York. Hossack previously taught elementary school in New York City for eight years.

An on-demand archive of this webinar is going to be available at www.edweek.org/go/PDarchives

in less than 24hrs.

As a participant of this webinar, you have earned a certificate of completion from Education Week PD Webinars. To claim your certificate, please send an email to webinars@epe.org with the names and titles of those who attended, and the mailing address to which you would like the certificates sent.

Common-Core Mythbusters: Clearing up the Biggest Misconceptions about the ELA Standards

Cheryl Dobbertin, Director of NYS Common Core Curriculum and PD,

Expeditionary Learning and

Andrew Hossack, Grades 5-6 ELA Teacher, Tapestry School

About Us

7

• Expeditionary Learning is a non-profit organization that partners with schools, districts, and states to improve education for all students.

• Cheryl co-leads a project for New York State to develop grades 3-5 Common Core-aligned ELA curriculum.

• Andrew teaches grades 5-6 ELA at Tapestry School in Buffalo, an Expeditionary Learning school. Andrew developed many lessons for the curriculum project.

A Learning Journey

8

• Expert educators at Student Achievement Partners and the New York State Department of Education have given us deep and thoughtful guidance.

• We’ve confronted our own misconceptions and myths.

• As we’ve helped teachers across the country understand the Common Core Standards and the shifts, we’ve discovered trends.

Our Goal Today

9

A great conversation about the most common myths that stand in the way of teachers and kids tapping the power of

the Common Core standards.

The Common Myths

1. Mapping is the method.

2. Asking is assessing.

3. Modeling is a mistake.

4. Differentiation is dead.

5. Content is crowded.

Myth #1: Mapping is the Method.

“Merely trying to retrofit the Standards to typical teacher and testing practices will undermine the effort.” — Wiggins and McTighe, “From Common Core Standards to Curriculum: Five Big Ideas,” 2012

The Shifts in ELA

1. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction and informational texts

The standards address reading and writing across-the-curriculum that complement the content standards in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects, thus offering new grounding in informational text and placing a premium on students building knowledge from that reading. In K-5, fulfilling the standards requires a 50-50 balance between informational and literary reading. The K-5 standards also strongly recommend that students build coherent general knowledge both within each year and across years. In 6-12, ELA classes place much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary nonfiction—than has been traditional. Part of the motivation behind the interdisciplinary approach to literacy in the standards is the established need that most required reading in college and workforce training programs is informational in structure and challenging in content.

2. Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text

Shifting away from today’s emphasis on narrative writing (in response to de-contextualized prompts), the standards place a premium on students writing to sources, i.e., using evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information. Rather than asking students questions they can answer from their prior knowledge or experience, the standards expect students to answer questions that depend on their having actually read the text. Likewise, the reading standards focus on students’ ability to read closely and grasp information, arguments, ideas and details based on text evidence. Students should be able to answer a range of text-dependent questions, questions in which the answers require no information from outside the text, but instead require inferences based on careful attention to the text.

3. Regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary

Rather than focusing solely on the skills of reading and writing, the standards highlight the growing complexity of the texts students must read to be ready for the demands of college and careers. The standards build a staircase of text complexity so that all students are ready for the demands of college- and career-level reading no later than the end of high school. Closely related to text complexity—and inextricably connected to reading comprehension—is a focus on academic vocabulary: words that appear in a variety of content areas (such as ignite and commit).

The Shifts Live at the Lesson Level

15

…notice how the target/objective is focused on the literacy skill

students are learning. We are teaching reading through content.

In this lesson, after reading ABOUT

the Iroquois Constitution, the students read the Iroquois

Constitution.

This is the lesson level detail that leads to change.

For kids like Spencer, it’s about what’s going on at the lesson level…

Recap: Alignment to the Common Core is about…

• The shifts • The design of your lessons

– What are your texts? – What are your objectives? Are they merely “about” the text or

do they represent the text itself ? – How much time do students spend “in text?”

• The way students engage.

Myth #2: Asking is Assessing

18

“Good text [dependent] questions will often linger over specific phrases and sentences to ensure careful comprehension of the text—they help students see something worthwhile that they would not have seen on a more cursory reading.” — Student Acheivement Partners, “Guide to Creating Text-Dependent

and Specific Questions.” Available: http://engageny.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Text-Dependent-Questions-SAP.pdf

1. What is the right discussed in this article?

2. Compulsory means “required by law or rule.” In this article, what is the difference between “compulsory” and “generally available”?

3. Why would the authors of the UDHR make the distinction between “compulsory” and “generally available”? Use specific details from the entire document to support your thinking.

TEACHING through Questions • Ask questions that help students investigate how meaning can be altered by changing key words and why an author may have chosen one word over another. • Ask questions that build students’ capacity to examine how shifts in the direction of an argument or explanation are achieved and the impact of those shifts • Ask questions that build students’ knowledge of syntax. • Ask questions that help students consider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated–

-- Student Acheivement Partners, “Guide to Creating Text-Dependent and Specific Questions.” Available: http://engageny.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Text-Dependent-Questions-SAP.pdf

Recap: Text-dependent questions can “lift students to text” when…

• They start small, so students can have early success. • They are designed to help kids dive deeply into things they might skip, skim, or ignore (vs. to check their understanding or see if they “got it.”) • When they are used as “prompts” -- as ways to help students think about complex text. • When teachers carefully read texts themselves and think about the teaching opportunities each text offers.

Myth #3:

25

Myth #3: Modeling is a Mistake

Modeling isn’t a mistake, but always modeling FIRST is.

• This pushes hard on “the workshop model.” • Instead of “catch and release” think of “release and catch.” • Use modeling to “mop up” after students have a crack at thinking on their own.

27

Let the students take the lead..they will surprise you!

Recap: Modeling

• Let your students surprise you. • This approach develops persistent, committed readers. They are empowered. • When students take the lead, their points of struggle serve as formative assessment. • Students can, and do, articulate the ways in which a complex text is difficult for them. • Modeling becomes more tailored to the needs of our readers.

Myth #4: Differentiation is Dead.

31

“The CCSS require equal outcomes for all students, but they do not require equal inputs. Vary the amounts and types of instruction provided to students to ensure high rates of success.”

— International Reading Association, “Literacy Implementation Guidance for the ELA Common Core State Standards,” available:

http://www.reading.org/Libraries/association-documents/ira_ccss_guidelines.pdf

From the Expert: Carol Ann Tomlinson

“For effective implementation [of the Common Core], teachers must: • Believe that every student is worthy of complex

curriculum. • Believe that every student is capable of complex

thought. • Have a growth mindset. • Believe in their ability to help students.”

-- Common Core State Standards: Where Does Differentiation Fit?

ASCD, June, 2012

“Tier” the task.

Recap: Differentiation • All students deserve access to complex text. • Some students also need text at their instructional level, but this should be in addition to regular practice with complex text. • If you’re not differentiating text, try these scaffolds:

– Tier the task (i.e. the graphic organizer) you are asking students to complete.

– Try different entry points (words I know, the gist of what I do understand).

– Continue to read aloud for small groups or certain students. – Provide a section of the text, or excerpts from the text. – Pre-highlight the text (important ideas) so reading on their own

is more focused on takes less time.

Myth #5: Content is Crowded

38

There are 4 modules per grade in a year

Each module is aligned to the CCLS and addresses the 6 instructional shifts

Meeting the Standards is Building Content Knowledge

39

Shift #5: Writing From Sources

40

Content Focused Literacy Instruction = Student Achievement

41

15

18

14

9

1

13

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

Black Hispanic FRL SPED ELL Total School

perc

enta

ge p

oint

s

EL Mentor Schools Compared to Local District on Reading/English-Language Arts State Assessments (2010-11)

In the elementary grades, the average percentage point difference between an Expeditionary Learning mentor school and its local district was 16 percentage points in Reading/ELA.

We can’t wait to hear your questions!

To See the Curriculum

The Common Core-aligned ELA curriculum that Expeditionary Learning designed in partnership with New York State is available online at: http://engageny.org/resource/network-team-institute-materials-grades-3-5-ela-curriculum-august-13-17-2012/

For more information about Expeditionary Learning:

Please visit our website at www.elschools.org or email NYScurriculum@elschools.org

44

Helping You Step Up To Common Core

Partnering with You Every Step of the Way

Partnering with You Every Step of the Way

Partnering with You Every Step of the Way

Partnering with You Every Step of the Way

Partnering with You Every Step of the Way

Supporting Shifts In Learning And Instruction

Increasing Levels of Academic Rigor

Personalizing Learning to Remove Barriers

Managing Data and Accountability

One Goal, One Partner You Can Count On

Learn more at PearsonSchool.com/DigitalCommonCore

www.edweek.org/go/pdwebinars

Gerald Herbert/AP

Making the Common Standards Work in the Classroom

Transitioning to the Common Core: What Elementary Teachers Need to Know

Two experienced instructional leaders at the elementary level—one in language arts and one in math—will take educators inside the common standards and offer strategies for adapting instruction to new content-coverage and conceptual-learning goals. The session will include practical tips on planning lessons, adjusting instructional practice, and overcoming common obstacles.

Now available on demand

Common Core: Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum

Literacy experts Donna Ogle and Laura Lang will provide an overview of the expectations under the common-core standards for cross-curricular literacy development. The presenters will offer specific examples of how content-area teachers can collaborate to incorporate reading and writing activities into their classrooms.

Nov. 14 @ 4:30 p.m. ET