Close Reading

1. Close Reading Literacy in all Content Areas

2. Objectives for Today • Understand the importance of literacy in all content areas. • Identify strategies one could use to conduct a close reading with students. • Practice using these strategies with a text. • Select text to write a unit aligned with the Common Core.

3. Why? • Students are not prepared for the rigors of college. • According to the NAEP, 70 percent of middle and high school students score below the “proficient” level of reading. • Since the 1960s, there has been a steady decline in the difficulty and sophistication of the content of texts students have been asked to read. • Advanced literacy across content areas is the best available predictor of students’ ability to succeed in introductory college courses.

4. Why? • Students are not prepared for the demands of the work place. • About 40 percent of employers indicate they are dissatisfied with high school graduates’ ability to read and understand complicated materials, think analytically and solve real-world problems. • Employers feel that more than half of recent high school graduates are weak in skills such as oral and written communications, problem solving, and critical thinking. • The twenty-five fastest growing professions have literacy demands that are far greater than average, while the fastest-declining professions have lower-than-average literacy demands.

5. Literacy Demands in Our Classrooms • Text Complexity • http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_A.pdf • Grade Level Appropriate Text • http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf • Rigorous Writing Tasks Using Details from Text • http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_C.pdf

6. Close Reading and the Common Core • The Anchor Reading Standards Focus on: • Key Ideas and Details in a text • Craft and Structure • Integration of Knowledge and Ideas • Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

7. When writing questions… • Always follow up the question with statements such as: • Point to this in the text. • Use details from the text. • How do you know? • Support your answer with the text. • What effect does/do these choices make? • ***The next few slides will show a question but not the follow up statement that directs them to use the text for support.***

8. Question 1: What does the text say? • How would you summarize or determine a shortened version of the text containing only the main points? CCR1,2 • What is the central idea? CCR2 • What is the specific textual evidence used to support the central idea? CCR1 • What are the most important ideas/events? CCR1,2 • What are the ideas in order of importance or presentation? CC1 • What ideas might the author be suggesting rather than directly stating? What can you infer from these hints or suggestions? CCR1

9. Question 2: How does the text say it? • 1. What genre does the selection represent? CCR5 • 2. How does the piece open-exposition, lead, etc.? CCR5 • 3. Whose voice did the author choose as narrator? CCR3 • 4. From what point of view was this written? CCR3 • 5. What are the sources of information and fact? Is there more than one source of information? CCR3 • 6. What role does dialogue play in the text? CCR3 • 7. How is the information organized (for example, time, topic, cause and effect, compare/contrast, persuasion)? CCR5

10. More Question 2: How does the text say it? • 8. What language is used-dialect variant spellings, archaic words etc.? CCR4 • 9. What are the style, mood and tone? CCR4 • 10. What word choice, imagery and figures of speech (for example, simile, metaphor, alliteration, irony, repetition, personification, etc.) does the author use? CCR4 • 11. What diction and sentence structure does the author use, and how do the sections of the text relate to each other-from the sentence and paragraph levels to the section and chapter levels? CCR4

11. Question 3: What does the text mean? • 1. What is the central idea/thesis/theme of the text? CCR2 • 2. How does the author support the central idea, thesis, or theme with ideas and details? CCR2 • 3. What are the purposes, ends and objectives? CCR2 • 4. What is the author’s stance/perspective towards the topic? CCR6 • 5. How does the author use language: dialect, variant spellings, archaic words, formal or informal words, etc. to shape tone and the meaning of a piece? CCR6

12. More Question 3: What does the text mean? • 6. How does the author use point of view, style, mood, tone, text features, imagery, figures of speech to achieve his/her purpose or intent? CCR6 • 7. Why does the author choose the method of presentation? CCR8 • 8. What are the concepts that make the reasoning possible, what assumptions underlie the concepts, and what implications follow from the use of the concepts? CCR8 • 9. What does the author want the reader to believe? CCR8 • 10. What is the quality of the information collected, and are the sources sufficient, relevant, credible and current? CCR8 • 11. Who or what is not represented? Why? CCR8

13. Question 4: What does the text mean to me? Apply-So what? • Text to Self CCR7 • What does the text remind me of in my life? Compare a detail from the text to your life. • What is this similar to/different from my life? • Text to Text CCR9 • How is the text similar to/different from another text? • Text to World CCR7 • How is this text similar to/different from things that happen in real world? • How did that part relate to the world around me?

14. Practice the BIG 4 • Read the passage provided and write a question in each of the BIG 4 categories. • Push to write questions that allow for critical thinking and inference supported with the text.

15. Close Reading StrategiesHow to Ask the Big Questions and Get Results • No Opt Out • Right is Right • Wait Time • Everybody Writes • *Strategies taken from Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion These are only a few techniques found in the book, there are many more.

16. No Opt Out • “One consistency among champion teachers is their vigilance in maintaining the expectation that it’s not okay not to try.” • Key Idea- NO OPT OUT- a sequence that begins with a student unable to answer a question should end with the student answering that question as often as possible. • No more, “I don’t know” to avoid answering.

17. No Opt Out Formats • 1. You provide the answer; the student repeats it. • 2. Another student (or whole class) provides the answer; the initial student repeats the answer. • 3. You provide a cue; your student uses it to find the answer. • 4. Another student provides a cue; the initial student uses it to find the answer.

18. Three types of cues for No Opt Outs • 1. The place where the answer can be found: • “Who can tell James where he could find the answer?” • 2. The step in the process that’s required at the moment. • “Who can tell James the first thing he should do is?” • 3. Another name for the term that’s a problem. • “Who can tell James what denominator means?”

19. No Opt Out • “The closer the question you asked to your lesson objective, the worthier of a slower and more cognitively rigorous no opt out it probably is.”

20. Right is Right • Many teachers respond to almost-correct answers by “rounding up” the students’ answers. • For example, student answers in a general way, and teacher repeats back the answer filled in with the details needed to make the answer complete. • Key Idea- Right is Right- We need to set high expectations and defend a high standard of correctness in the classroom.

21. Right is Right4 techniques to get complete answers • 1. Hold out for all the way- Express positively what the student has done and set your expectation that the student will now “march the last few yards” • Phrases that help: • “I like what you’ve done. Can you get us the rest of the way? • “We’re almost there. Can you find the last piece? • “I like most of that…” • “Can you develop that further?” • Or repeat students’ response back and place emphasis on missing parts. Example, “You just said that a noun is a person, place or thing, but freedom is a noun and it’s not exactly any of those three.”

22. Right is Right4 techniques to get complete answers • 2. Answer the question-”If you’re a Right is Right teacher, though, you know that the right answer to any question other than the one you asked is wrong.” • Only accept answers to the question you are asking. Students learn quickly in school that when you don’t know the right answer to a question you can usually get by if you answer a different one. Set your standard higher than that.

23. Right is Right4 techniques to get complete answers • 3. Right answer, right time- Resist answers that get ahead of your questions. • For example, “When you are teaching students the series of steps needed to solve a problem and a student you call on to provide step 3 gives the whole answer, you have a problem. Accepting the answer deprives the rest of your students of a full understanding. Consider responding with something like, ‘My question wasn’t about the solution to the problem. It was about what we do next. What do we do next?’”

24. Right is Right4 techniques to get complete answers • 4. Use technical vocabulary-Always require students to develop effective answers using precise, technical vocabulary, not just vocabulary they are already comfortable with. • Getting students to use precise vocabulary builds that comfort level with more difficult terms they will need when they compete in

25. Wait Time • Delay a few strategic seconds after you finish asking a question and before you ask a student to begin answering it. • By doing this, the length and correctness of student responses are likely to increase, poor answers decrease, students volunteering increases as well as the use of evidence. • Ways to incorporate wait time: • “I’m waiting for more hands.” • “I’d like to see at least 15 hands before we hear an answer.” • “I’m looking for someone who’s pointing to the place in the article where you can find the answer.”

26. Everybody Writes • Set your students up for rigorous engagement by giving them the opportunity to reflect first in writing before discussing. • It allows for more effective responses. • Gives students time to prepare answers for discussion. • Allows every student the chance to be part of the conversation even if not called upon. • Processing thoughts in writing refines them, a process that challenges students intellectually, engages them, and improves the quality of their ideas and their writing.

27. Close Reading Graphic Organizers • KWL • Venn • SQ3R • Clunks (Vocabulary Work)

28. Graphic Organizers: KWL

29. Graphic Organizers: KWL Charts • KWL- Great strategy for all subject areas approaching expository text. • Helps students to be active thinkers while they read. • KWL’s help activate prior knowledge and provide opportunities for students to set their own learning objectives. • Is a good formative assessment as it shows what the students know and what they have learned after reading.

30. Graphic Organizers: Venn Diagram • The use of two or more overlapping circles that are used to show the similarities and differences of a concept. • Can be applied to almost any subject. • Helps to provide a visual of information in a text. • Helps breakdown lengthy text into digestible chunks. • Prepares students to write a comparison contrast piece.

31. Venn Diagram Example

32. Graphic Organizer: SQ3R • S-Survey • Q-Question • R-Read • R-Recite • R-Review

33. SQ3R • Step One-Survey • Student takes a glance at headings in chapter/article to see major points. • This step should be brief and should highlight the central ideas to the text.

34. SQ3R: Question • Students will turn those headings into questions. • This will arouse student curiosity, increase comprehension and give purpose for reading. • These questions will make important points stand out from the explanatory detail.

35. SQ3R: Read • Students read to answer the question. • Students read actively by conducting an active search for the answer to their question.

36. SQ3R: Recite • After reading the first section, the student looks away from the text and tries to recite the answer to their question. • The student uses own words, but must also cite an example from the text. • IF the student cannot answer the question after looking away, the section must be read again.

37. SQ3R: Review • Students look at steps 2,3,4 in each heading section. • When student has completed all sections, review notes to get a birds-eye view of the points and their relationships. • Students recite major sub points under each heading.

38. Clunks • Use this strategy for difficult terms or concepts within the passage. • Students have to use a fix-up strategy to help them understand the difficult term or concept in the passage.

39. Guided Highlighted Reading • Instead of having students answer questions, have them highlight the answers to questions with a highlighter. • Ask the BIG FOUR questions and have them answer with four different color highlighters. • See example.

40. Select a Text • Look at text complexity • Look at state recommended text • Choose a text that will support learning of content area • Appendix B of ELA Common Core Standards • http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf