Carla K. Meyer, Appalachian State University Brooke Huffman, Watauga County Schools

1. The Appalachian State Public School Partnership: Middle Grades English Language Arts PLC Carla K. Meyer, Appalachian State University Brooke Huffman, Watauga County Schools Jessica Hall, Alleghany County Schools Susan Anauo, Catawba County Schools Kellie Johnson, Ashe County Schools Sarah Chapman, Caldwell County Schools Kimberly Tufts, Avery County Schools Lois Boone, Wilkes County Schools Jodi Brown, Burke County Schools The Common Core and Discipline Literacy: Who is Responsible Anyway?

2. Rest Assured • Yes, we know you are not a reading teacher; • You are a content specialist.

3. The Literacy Needs of Young Adolescents • Adolescent readers and writers cannot be viewed as larger versions of early readers and writers. • They need instruction which will assist them in more advanced stages of literacy learning and reading at a deeper level.

4. Chall’s Stages of Reading[Literacy] • Stage 0: Getting Ready to Read [and write] • Stages 1 and 2 Learning and Practicing Beginning Reading Skills [and writing skills] • Stage 3: Reading [and writing] for Learning the New • Stage 4: Reading [and writing] Multiple Viewpoints • Stage 5: Constructing and Reconstructing Meaning [through reading and writing] • (Revisited by Jacobs, 2008)

5. Discipline Literacy • To read, write, and speak proficiently about specific content topics, students must have command of the language in each discipline. • (Jetton & Alexander, 2004).

6. Text Complexity • New standard focuses on increased ability to read complex text over course of school year • CCSS, Appendix A cites research including the ACT, Inc. 2006 report, “Reading Between the Lines,” as impetus • Finding showed that nearly 50% of high school graduates need remediation to handle reading required in college or career

7. Facts Leading to “TC” Inclusion • CoreStandards.org, Appendix A: • Workplace reading can exceed grade 12 complexity significantly (lexile measure) • College often requires independent reading of complex text, with little to no scaffolding, for which they can be held accountable • While K-12 reading texts have tended to decrease in complexity over 50 years, text complexity in periodicals and science journals has remained the same or increased • Elementary and middle school reading do not provide much exposure to expository texts; often superficial

8. Who Is Addressed? • Reading Standards for Literacy are delineated for ELA, History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects • Standard .10 for ELA (English Language Arts), RH (History/SS) and RST (Science/Tech) states that students will: • “read and comprehend____texts in the grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently” by the end of each middle school year.

9. How To Measure donnaroman.files.wordpress.com

10. Help Measuring – Reader/Task

11. Help For Measuring - Qualitative

12. Help Measuring - Quantitative Measures of Text Difficulty: Testing their Predictive Value for Grade Levels and Student Performance by J. Nelson, C. Perfetti, D. Liben and M. Liben

13. Scaffolding For New Standards bcsdedoffice.org

14. Resources for Text Complexity • Core Standards – • www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_A.pdf • Int’l Reading Association – • http://www.reading.org/Libraries/members-only/Fisher_and_Frey_-_Text_Complexity_-_January_2012.pdf • Literacy Beat – • http://literacybeat.com/2011/10/14/exploring-the-textproject-website-and-text-complexity/ • NYC Schools – • http://schools.nyc.gov/Academics/CommonCoreLibrary/CommonCoreClassroom/Literacy/default.htm • Ohio Schools Resources – • http://ohiorc.org/orc_documents/ORC/Adlit/InPerspective/2012-04/in_perspective_2012-04.pdf • Text Project – • http://textproject.org/professional-development/text-matters

15. The VocabularyDiet • Are you serving “casserole” or “dessert”? • VOCABULARY CASSEROLE • INGREDIENTS: • 10 – 20 unfamiliar words • Dictionary • Teacher with High Hopes • “Matching” Test on Friday • Mix together with students expected to copy all definitions. To add spice, have students write words in sentences. Leave alone all week. Top with student apathy. • PERISHABLE: Will spoil by the next day • Serves: No one

16. The VocabularyDiet • VOCABULARY TREAT • INGREDIENTS • 5 – 10 useable and meaningful words • 1 thesaurus • 1 word wall or chart • 1 game like jeopardy or bingo • 1 prepared teacher who’s done his/her homework • Mix words into classroom activities. Pre-teach if necessary. Have students test words for flavor and use alternatives. • Add to chart or word wall, draw pictures or act out meanings. Stir often all week by teacher committed to increasing student understanding. Top with cool game to evaluate. • May be kept “fresh” over much longer period. • Serves: Everyone

17. Strategy Smorgasbord Appetizers: Entrees: Desserts*: Word Splash Word Journals Memory Game Possible Sentences List/Group/Label Word Bingo Probable Passages *Word Chains Word Jeopardy Rate-a-Word *3 x 3 Sentences Looping Cards Sentence Frames *Concept Circles and MORE!!! Vocabulary Scramble *Word Maps Chunking/Sorting Most Important Word Tea Party Game *Trading Cards And MORE!!Expert to Expert Interactive Word Wall *Web Stretchers *Four Box Synetics *Freyer Model *Verbal/Visual *Graphic Organizers and Games meet 5 of the 6 Marzano Vocabulary Development steps!!

18. What are text features? In nonfiction, text features include: • The table of contents • Headings and subheadings • Illustrations, photos, and captions • Maps, diagrams, graphs, tables and charts • Sidebars and fact boxes • Font styles, bullet points and quotations • The glossary • The index • Time lines, fun facts, for further exploration, activities

19. What do text features do? • Text features help us gather information about what the text will teach us. • Text features answer questions or give additional information not included in the text. What am I supposed to learn?

20. Teaching text features • Model, model, model • Review text features prior to reading • A huge mistake readers make is to start reading and forget the text features, missing important information.

21. Text Feature Walk • Text Feature Walk: Students work in small groups reading each feature as it appears in the article and discussing what they think they will be learning. As students discuss the features they begin to understand the purpose of the article.

22. Tips for using a text walk • Choose articles that students have prior knowledge in. • Make sure students understand the difference between text features and the body of the article. • Have students read and discuss small chunks of the article at a time. • Model hard pronunciations of vocabulary prior to discussion. • Have students determine how the text walk aided their comprehension of the unit.

23. “Author Says/I Say”- A Graphic Organizer to Guide Text Comprehension Buehl, Doug. Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning. 3rd ed. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, Inc., 2009. Print.

24. Standards • RH/RST 6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources • RH/RST 6-8.2 Determine the central idea or conclusions of a text; provide an accurate summary of the text distinct from prior knowledge or opinion.

25. Key Ideas and Details The “Author Says/I Say” graphic organizer supports College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading. The student will: • Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and will make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing to support conclusions drawn from the text. • Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

26. Author Says Chart

27. Questions I Wonder… • Purpose: To increase interest in the text • Begin by perusing the passage, examining pictures and captions, headings, and subheadings. • Teacher models “think-aloud” process • Start to generate questions you and the class hope the author answers.

28. In Search of Answers The Author Says… • As the reading begins, answers to the questions will begin to surface. • Cite textual evidence that supports the answer to the question. (RH/RS 6-8.1)

29. Dialogue with Author I Say… • Gives opportunity to connect to the answer the author has provided • Making inferences takes place • Helps students to experience that reading is, in many ways, a conversation with the author • How has this exchange informed, enlightened, or even perhaps influenced the reader?

30. Synthesizing to Gain Central Idea And So… • Key points from generated questions to the answers are synthesized into a summarizing statement by the students • This honors Standards RH and RS 6-8.2 where determination of the central ideas or themes of a text occur. Students analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

31. Language Arts: Matthew Henson

32. Social Studies: China

33. Benefits Galore….. • Focused, engaged readers • Rich classroom dialogue • Amazing text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world connections are shared • Advanced critical thinking skills demonstrated • Higher achievement scores • Great job satisfaction for the teacher!

34. Compare/Contrast Standard RH.6-8.9- Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. Standard RST.6-8.9- Compare and Contrast the information gained from experiments, simulations, video, or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a text on the same topic. Benefits- Helps students to think critically and use higher order thinking skills (analyzing and synthesizing), as well as build comprehension. S.S.- Example- Civil Rights (Oh, Freedom, Poetic Justice, A More Perfect Union) Science Example- Pandemics (Saliva Simulation, Black Plague article, Typhoid Mary Video) The 21st Century Venn Diagram or Triple Bubble Map (for you “Thinking Mappers”)

35. Author’s Purpose and Bias • Author’s purpose can be put in one of the big three: • Persuade • Inform • Entertain Easy as Pie: Mnemonic device

36. Writing Purposes in Real Life • PERSUADE -propaganda, editorials, editorial cartoons, commercials, proposals, political speeches, blogs • INFORM – directions, maps, reports, census, teaching, blogs, wikis • ENTERTAIN – cartoons, fiction, blogs, magazines, (Facebook?)

37. Techniques for Determining Bias • Author’s purpose • Determine tone of the author • Fact/Opinion strategies • Inclusion/Exclusion of facts and data • Graphs and Charts – verify information, look for manipulation (Math) • Resources – evaluate quality and quantity of resources used • Semantics – use of negative, complimentary, or neutral vocabulary

38. Writing • “We need to find ways to reveal to students what adult, experienced writers do—to reclaim the tradition of demonstration that allows young people to apprentice themselves to grown-ups.” • (Atwell, 1998)

39. Writing • Model good writing • You are an expert in your content area. • It’s okay to use Sentence Starters at first. • Model use of correct format • Team up with ELA teachers

40. Why collaborate? • Our Expertise (Content on Content/Reading on Reading) • Language Arts teacher as a resource not an expert • http://www.ccresa.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Full-Samples.pdf

41. Final Thought • Learning to read in discipline specific ways does not interfere with learning content-instead it teaches all students to reason in the complex ways that disciplines require.

42. Resources • Our Blog • http://disciplineliteracyncmsc.wordpress.com/ • Blog Title: Discuss Discipline Literacy