Making It Real: Teaching Informational Texts in 21st

Century Classrooms

Dr. Barbara Mossbmoss@mail.sdsu.edu

California Reading Association

Vacaville, CANovember 4, 2011 1

To Think About…

With your partner, make a list of every- thing you have read

during the past 24 hour period.

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What is Informational Text?

NewspapersMagazinesEncyclopediasDigital informationInformation trade

booksAlmanacsTextbooks

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Why Use Informational Texts?

By sixth grade, 80% of school reading tasks are expository (Venezky, 2007)

80% of adult/workplace reading is informational

Standardized tests are 85% expository (Daniels, 2007)

Need to close the “knowledge gap” (Hirsch, 2006)

Can motivate reading

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“Students’ success or failure in school (and out of school!) is closely tied to their ability to comprehend

expository text” (Kamil, 2003).

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Why does it matter more than ever?

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Six Shifts in the Common Core (CCSS) ELA Standards

Greater focus on academic vocabulary(Tier 2 words); less on literary terms

Writing focused on argument, not personal narratives

50% informational text in K-5 to build background knowledge across levels

Grades 6-12- broad base of content literacy

Increased text complexity

Focus on text-dependent questions 8

CCSS: Informational Text

We in America in K-5 focus 80% of our time on stories…that is what is tested on exams and in our textbooks..yet in K-5, the general knowledge you develop plays a crucial role in your performance in other disciplines and your ability to read more complex texts. So the CCSS demand that 50% of the texts students read in K-5 is informational, primarily about science and history, the arts…the texts through which students learn about the world.

David Coleman, CCSS 9

Teaching Content is Teaching Reading…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiP-ijdxqEc

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CCSS Anchor Standards K-5 Key ideas and details details and inference relationships between events

Craft and structure vocabulary text features macrostructure/comparing

Integration of knowledge and ideas visuals reason and evidence integrate information multiple sources

Text complexity 11

Three Informational Text Gaps….

The Achievement Gap

The Exposure Gap

The Instruction Gap

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The Achievement Gap: Test Scores

4th Grade slump (Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, 1990)

Scores on 2009 NAEP informational text for English learners far lower than for native speakers (190 vs. 219) (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009). 13

The Exposure Gap

First graders spent 3.6 minutes a day with informational texts (Duke, 2000)

Students need exposure to a range of informational texts, not just biography (Dreher & Voelker, 2004)

Many California students get little or no social studies or science instruction (Wineburg, 2006)

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Thinking about genres…

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CCSS Informational Text Categories

Literary Nonfiction

Exposition

Argument/Persuasion

Procedural

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Literary Nonfiction

Combines factual elements with information

Uses literary devices as well as informational text structures

Focus on text structures

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Exposition

Straightforward information

Academic vocabulary is crucial to meaning

Textbook like

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Argument/Persuasion

Texts that use arguments and evidence to convince the reader of their position

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Procedural Texts/Documents

Step by step texts that describe how to complete a task

Technical documents

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Distribution of Text Types on NAEP/Common Core Standards

Grade Literary Information

4 50% 50%

8 45% 55%

12 30% 70%

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Basal Informational Selections by Type (Moss, 2008)

Genre Series Pri Int

Lit NF HM 31% 23%SRA 29% 61%

Expos HM 52% 63%SRA 63% 37%

Arg/Pers. HM 0% 4%SRA 0% 3%

Proc/Doc HM 17% 11%SRA 8% 0%

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CCSS Emphasis on Complex Texts Non-required exemplar texts are

challenging (see Appendix B)

Recommend a staircase of increasing text complexity year by year

Texts need to be more complex for students to be college and career ready

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Research continues to confirm lack of comprehension instruction of any type in K-6; especially informational text (Durkin, 1979; Taylor, Pearson, Clark & Walpole, 2000)

The Instruction Gap

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CCSS: Text-Based InstructionNeed close reading, not just

skimming and scanning for facts

Too much time building background, not enough close reading

Emphasis on argument/evidence

Read, reread more difficult shorter texts 29

How Should Instruction Change? Make time for

informational texts

Content integrated thematic units

Tiered texts of increased complexity

Deeper teaching of comprehension

More attention to text macrostructures

Get beyond just teaching text features and one genre of informational text (biographies!!!)

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Gradual Release of Responsibility

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CCSS: Sample Tasks Describe the overall structure

of events ideas, concepts or information in a text.

Recount key details in a text.

Compare and contrast a firsthand account of a topic with a secondhand account, attending to the focus of each account and the information provided by each.

Students evaluate an argument and challenge it using evidence.

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Table of Contents PredictionPresent a book cover

Students predict table of contents by chapter

Gets students thinking about text macrostructure, sequence of presentation of information

Promotes reflection on big ideas of text 33

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Table of Contents• A Deadly Storm• The Hurricane Begins to Develop• Preparing for the Hurricane• Waiting for the Storm• Mitch Hits?• Swept Away!• Recovery• Glossary• Index

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Expository Retellings-Recounting Details• Retellings are familiar to teacher through DRA• Should be used with exposition, not just

narrative• Help kids internalize text structures• Requires them to “read, reread, and read

again” or listen intently• Develop oral language abilities• Show teachers how students organize

information

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Teach Text Structures: Webs or Charts

Help children segment text

Keep track of information

See how text is organized (description, cause effect, comparison contrast, problem solution)

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Appearance Enemies

SpidersTheir bodies

How they reproduce

Spiderlings

Types of spiders

Types of webs

browngray blackwasps toads frogs

widowtrapdoor

tarantula

water

triangle

funnel

sheet

tangled

orb

BallooningCare for selves

Lay eggs in a silk sac

unlike insects

Head- chest

abdomen

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Strategy Framed Writing: Winterizing a Car

First get everything you need. You will need oil, antifreeze, oil filter, and hoses. Second, lift up the hood and screw off

the oil filter. Put in new oil and the new oil filter. Thirdly check the antifreeze adding antifreeze to the radiator if it needs filled. Next, put water in the

battery. Close the hood. Finally, check the gas to make sure you have enough

before taking off.

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The Great Depression in CaliforniaThe '30s produced both shantytowns full of displaced Okies and the soaring beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge. Charles Dickens had it right: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.The '30s really began in 1929 with a crash and ended in 1941 with a war. Oct. 29, 1929, was the day the stock market crashed -- but it was more than just a Wall Street problem. The bottom dropped out of the economy almost at once. The unemployment rate, only 3 percent in 1925, was 25 percent in 1933. Some 9,000 banks failed across the United States, farm prices dropped by half, and the stock market lost 80 percent of its value between 1930 and 1933. Thousands of people lost their homes to the banks. Millions of people were out of work, and some were near starvation. Franklin Roosevelt created a variety of programs, including the California Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration to give people jobs.

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Victorville, CAJanuary 17, 1933

Dear Grace Bless your heart how did you know how bad we needed the ten dollars. So bad we didn’t have a cent. We have lost everything we have. Our little home will be sold the first of April and we have moved up in the mountains 116 miles from Lynwood. I could not bear to stay there and see our life savings taken from us. We would have been all right if the boys could have work. We are living on a ranch. We don’t have to pay any rent and have plenty of water from the mountain just back of the shack we live in. We have no gas or water bills to pay but we have electric so we have the radio to listen to. We have enough to eat so far. The Red Cross gives us flour and we have chickens. Hope you can come visit us. Aunt Jane.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrxmpihCjqw

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Now…evaluate yourself!!Where are you as a teacher of

informational texts???

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