Session 4 K-2 English Language Arts

Common Core State Standards Session 4 K-2 English Language Arts

Day 1 – Session2:45-4:45 OUTCOMES Participants will increase their knowledge of: • the structure of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS); • the implications of the CCSS Anchor Standards; • the new Course Descriptions; • text complexity.

Anchor Standards

Key Ideas and Details • Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. 2. Determine central idea or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas. 3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. Evidence Standard Main Idea Standard Interaction Standard

Craft and Structure 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone. 5. 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. Interpretation Standard Structure Standard

Craft and Structure 6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text. Point of View/Purpose Standard

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. 8. 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. 9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take. Multimedia Standard Argument Standard Multi-text standard

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity • Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently. Complexity Standard

Cognitive Demand and Rigor

Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and Bloom’s Taxonomy The CCSS standards incorporate Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and Bloom’s Taxonomy. The cognitive demand of the standards rises across the grades.

The “Demands” of the Standards The cognitive demand of the standards incorporates Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. How is this accomplished? The standards “ramp up” the demands made on student thinking.

How is the demand of this standard rising across the grades?

Break 3:30-3:45

Text complexity

One hot summer's day a famished fox was strolling through an orchard until he came to clusters of grapes just ripening on a trellised vine. "Just the thing to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. His mouth was watering and he could feel gnawing hunger pains. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give up. Once a fox walked through the woods. He came upon a grape orchard. There he found beautiful grapes hanging from a high branch. “Boy those sure would be tasty,” he thought to himself. He backed up and took a running start and jumped. He did not get high enough. Simple Complex

One hot summer's day a famished fox was strolling through an orchard until he came to clusters of grapes just ripening on a trellised vine. "Just the thing to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. His mouth was watering and he could feel gnawing hunger pains. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give up. Once a fox walked through the woods. He came upon a grape orchard. There he found beautiful grapes hanging from a high branch. “Boy those sure would be tasty,” he thought to himself. He backed up and took a running start and jumped. He did not get high enough.

What is right with “simplified” text? • Provides for scaffolding for ELL students, students with disabilities. • They can become a foundation for understanding complex text as long as students have the opportunity to read complex texts as well. • Gradated Text Collection – a collection of texts on a topic that advance in degrees of complexity. Some students may read simpler texts first, then move on to complex text (a form of instructional support).

What’s wrong with the simplifiedtext approach? • Simplified usually means limited, restricted, and thin in meaning. • Academic vocabulary can only be learned from complex texts––by noticing how it works in texts, engaging with, thinking about, and discussing their more complex meanings with others. • Mature language skills needed for success in school and life can only be gained by working with demanding materials. • No evidence that struggling readers—especially at middle and high school--catch up by gradually increasing the complexity of simpler texts.

Gradated Texts Article: Breathing and Its True Role in Our Life, Health and Longevity A collection of texts that increase in difficulty from simple to moderate to complex, around a common topic.

Why Text complexityMatters

Text Complexity - ACT Study • Purpose: Determine what distinguished the reading performance of students likely to succeed in college and not. • Process: • Set benchmark score on the reading test shown to be predictive of success in college (“21” on ACT composite score). • Looked at results from a half million students.

Performance on the ACT Reading Test by Comprehension Level

Performance on the ACT Reading Test by Textual Element (Averaged across Seven Forms)

Text Complexity Matters Texts used in the ACT Reading Test reflect three degrees of complexity: uncomplicated, more challenging, and complex.

Performance on the ACT Reading Test by Degree of Text Complexity (Averaged across Seven Forms) In this figure, performance on questions associated with uncomplicated and more challenging texts both above and below the ACT College Readiness Benchmark for Reading follows a pattern similar to those in the previous analyses. Improvement on each of the two kinds of questions is gradual and fairly uniform. 28

Overview of Text Complexity • Text complexity is defined by: Qualitative measures – levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands often best measured by an attentive human reader. Quantitative measures – readability and other scores of text complexity often best measured by computer software. Quantitative Qualitative Reader and Task considerations – background knowledge of reader, motivation, interests, and complexity generated by tasks assigned often best made by educators employing their professional judgment. Reader and Task

Recap of ACT Findings Question type and level (main idea, word meanings, details) is NOT the chief differentiator between student scoring above and below the benchmark. The degree of text complexity in the passages acted as the “sorters” within ACT. The findings held true for both males and females, all racial groups and was steady regardless of family income level. What students could read, in terms of its complexity--rather than what they could do with what they read—is greatest predictor of success. FCAT has complex passages and highly cognitive demanding questions.

Guiding Questions What do the Common Core Learning Standards mean by text complexity? What is a text complexity band? How do we ensure the texts our students are reading are in the appropriate text complexity band?

The Common Core Standards' three equally important components of text complexity. Quantitative measures – readability and other scores of text complexity often best measured by computer software. Qualitative measures – levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands often best measured by an attentive human reader. Reader and Task considerations – background knowledge of reader, motivation, interests, and complexity generated by tasks assigned often best made by educators employing their professional judgment.

Where do we find texts in the appropriate text complexity band? We could…. Choose an excerpt of text from Appendix B as a starting place: Use available resources to determine the text complexity of other materials on our own. or…

Determining Text Complexity A Four-step Process: Determine the quantitative measures of the text. Quantitative Qualitative Analyze the qualitative measures of the text. Reader and Task Reflect upon the reader and task considerations. Recommend placement in the appropriate text complexity band.

Step 1: Quantitative Measures Quantitative Measures • Measures such as: • Word length • Word frequency • Word difficulty • Sentence length • Text length • Text cohesion

Access to Text Analyzer Tools • ATOS analyzer: Renaissance Learning. http://www.renlearn.com/ar/overview/atos/ • Coh-MetrixEasability Tool. University of Memphis.Beta site available at: http://141.225.42.101/cohmetrixgates/Home.aspx?Login=1 • DRP – Questarwww.questarai.com Contact Quester with requests for text • Lexiles – Metrametrics www.lexile.com/analyzer/ • Pearson Reading Maturity – Pearson Knowledge Technologies Beta site www.readingmaturity.com • REAP – Carnegie Mellon University www.reap.cs.cmu.edu/ • Source Rater Educators Testing Service Beta site available at: http://naeptba.ets.org/SourceRater3/

Step 2: Qualitative Measures • Measures such as: • Structure • Language Demands and Conventions • Knowledge Demands • Levels of Meaning/Purpose

Common Core StandardsQualitative Features of Text ComplexityStructure • Simple  Complex • Explicit  Implicit • Conventional Unconventional • Events related in chronological order  Events related out of chronological order (chiefly literary texts) • Traits of a common genre or subgenre  Traits specific to a particular discipline (chiefly informational texts) • Simple graphics  Sophisticated graphics • Graphics unnecessary or merely supplemental to understanding the text  Graphics essential to understanding the text and may provide information not elsewhere provided

Common Core StandardsQualitative Features of Text ComplexityLanguage Demands: Conventionality and Clarity • Literal  Figurative or ironic • Clear  Ambiguous or purposefully misleading • Contemporary, familiar  Archaic or otherwise unfamiliar • Conversational  General Academic and domain specific • Light vocabulary load: few unfamiliar or academic words Many words unfamiliar and high academic vocabulary present • Sentence structure straightforward Complex and varied sentence structures • Though vocabulary can be measured by quantifiable means, it is still a feature for careful consideration when selecting texts • Though sentence length is measured by quantifiable means, sentence complexity is still a feature for careful consideration when selecting texts

Common Core StandardsQualitative Features of Text ComplexityKnowledge Demands: Life Experience • Simple theme  Complex or sophisticated themes • Single theme  Multiple themes • Common everyday experiences or clearly fantastical situations  Experiences distinctly different from one’s own • Single perspective  Multiple perspectives • Perspective(s) like one’s own  Perspective(s) unlike or in opposition to one’s own • Everyday knowledge  Cultural and literary knowledge • Few allusions to other texts  Many allusions to other texts • Low intertextuality (few or no references to other texts)  High intertextuality (many references or citations to other texts)

Common Core StandardsQualitative Features of Text ComplexityLevels of Meaning (chiefly literary texts) orpurpose (chiefly informational texts) • Single level of meaning Multiple levels of meaning • Explicitly stated purpose  Implicit purpose, may be hidden or obscure

Common Core StandardsQualitative Features of Text ComplexityStructure • Simple  Complex • Explicit  Implicit • Conventional Unconventional • Events related in chronological order  Events related out of chronological order (chiefly literary texts) • Traits of a common genre or subgenre  Traits specific to a particular discipline (chiefly informational texts) • Simple graphics  Sophisticated graphics • Graphics unnecessary or merely supplemental to understanding the text  Graphics essential to understanding the text and may provide information not elsewhere provided

Step 2: Qualitative Measures Because the factors for literary texts are different from information texts, these two rubrics contain different content. However, the formatting of each document is exactly the same. And because these factors represent continua rather than discrete stages or levels, numeric values are not associated with these rubric. Instead, six points along each continuum is identified: not suited to the band, early-mid grade level, mid-end grade level, early-mid grade level, mid-end grade level, not suited to band.

Step 3: Reader and Task • Considerations such as: • Motivation • Knowledge and experience • Purpose for reading • Complexity of task assigned regarding text • Complexity of questions asked regarding text

Vocabulary and Syntax The educational implications of the measures of text difficulty include: • Single biggest predictor of student achievement is vocabulary and syntax. • Need to be addressed throughout schooling (kindergarten through 12th grade). Schools and districts should plan a coherent, intensive and systematic program for vocabulary and syntax. • Syntax is one of the most powerful predictors of difficulty. • Some features of text are more important than others—syntax and vocabulary are an example of two essential text features to pay particular attention to during instruction.

What Complex Text Demands of Readers • A Willingness to Pause and Probe • Students must be patient as they read complex texts and be willing to devote time to contemplation of the text. • The Capacity for Uninterrupted Thinking • Time devoted to the text and thinking about the text exclusively - single-tasking rather than multi-tasking. • A Receptivity to Deep Thinking • Contemplation of the meaning of the text and not a quick response voicing an opinion based on a shallow interpretation. • (Mark Bauerlein, 2011)

Step3: Reader and TaskTen Guiding Principles Make close reading and rereading of texts central to lessons. Provide scaffolding that does not preempt or replace text. Ask text dependent questions from a range of question types. Emphasize students supporting answers based upon evidence from the text. Provide extensive research and writing opportunities (claims and evidence).

Step 3: Reader and TaskTen Guiding Principles Offer regular opportunities for students to share ideas, evidence and research. Offer systematic instruction in vocabulary. Ensure wide reading from complex text that varies in length. 9. Provide explicit instruction in applied grammar and conventions. 10. Cultivate students’ independence.

Shorter, Challenging Texts • The study of short texts is useful to enable students at a wide range of reading levels to participate in the close analysis of more demanding text. • Place a high priority on the close, sustained reading of complex text. Such reading emphasizes the particular over the general and strives to focus on what lies within the four corners of the text. • Close reading often requires compact, short, self-contained texts that students can read and re-read deliberately and slowly to probe and ponder the meanings of individual words, the order in which sentences unfold, and the development of ideas over the course of the text.

Session 4 K-2 English Language Arts