Empowering Teachers with Standards-Aligned Resources and Immersive Training

1. Complex Text and Juicy Sentences Grades P–3 ELA Winter 2018 Day 3

2. We know from experience the hard work teachers face every day as they strive to help all of their students meet the challenges set by higher standards. We are a diverse team of current and former classroom teachers, curriculum writers, school leaders, and education experts who have worked in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. We are dedicated to empowering teachers by providing free, high-quality, standards-aligned resources for the classroom, the opportunity for unbiased and immersive training through our Institutes, and the option of support through our website offerings. 2

3. From Phonics and Fluency Feedback on Feedback

4. Where You Might Be During the Week Inspired by Jennifer Abrams • Moments of Validation • Moments of Reminding • Moments of New Information Notice where you are at any given time, and support yourself and others by: Asking Questions Taking Notes Stretching Yourself

5. Objectives and Agenda Agenda: • Framing the Day • Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs • Lunch • Finish TDQs • Complex Text Through Productive Struggle • Working with Juice Sentences • Reflection on Equity Objectives: Participants will be able to: • Make instructional decisions based on an understanding of text complexity. • Develop a sequence of text-dependent questions that support student proficiency with specific standards. • Apply the Juicy Sentences protocol to enhance reading comprehension and support student writing. • Infuse equity into instructional moves and decision making. 5

6. Take responsibility for yourself as a learner Honor timeframes (start, end, activity) Be an active and hands-on learner Use technology to enhance learning Strive for equity of voice Contribute to a learning environment in which it is “safe to not know” Norms that Support Our Learning

7. Equity is engaging in practices that meet students where they are and advances their learning by giving them what they need. It’s about fairness, not sameness. Equity ensures that all children – regardless of circumstances – are receiving high-quality and standards-aligned instruction with access to high-quality materials and resources. We want to ensure that standards-aligned instruction is a pathway to the equitable practices needed to close the gaps caused by systemic and systematic racism, bias, and poverty. All week, we will explore our learning through an equity lens, and we will capture those moments visibly here in our room. Revisiting Equity

8. Equity, Language, and Learners 1) Students need well-structured opportunities to practice language to learn it. Amplify, do not simplify, language. 2) Content and language develop inseparably and in integrated ways; language development occurs over time and in a nonlinear manner. 3) Scaffold students toward independence with complex tasks; do not scaffold by simplifying text language and task complexity. 4) We are the gatekeepers of language in the classroom as teachers and leaders. 5) Acquiring the language for the masterful use of standard English in writing and speaking benefits all students. 6) All students bring valuable knowledge and culture to the classroom.

9. Setting Up the DayCreate a Student Profile • Using the handout on page 2, create a student profile. • Share your profile with at least three people not seated at your table: • Clarify as needed • Gather feedback • Update your profile with any additional thoughts.

10. ReflectionQuestions for Reflection • Does my pre-work for teaching a text involve text complexity analysis? If so, do I plan specific activities that amplify and scaffold instruction around the areas where the text complexity may present the biggest challenge? If I don’t, how would doing this benefit or challenge my students? • Do the scaffolds I use in my classroom simplify texts and tasks or support access to complex texts and tasks? • How am I a gatekeeper of language in my classroom? • How often do I provide opportunities in class for all students to orally process texts and tasks?

11. Why Do Students Need More Practice with Complex Texts? • The gap between complexity of college and high school texts • ACT (2006) shows text complexity is a strong predictor of college success • Too many students not reading proficiently • <50% of graduates can read sufficiently complex texts • 37% of the nation’s 12th graders met the NAEP proficient level (2013)

12. Text Complexity Diagram: Where to Focus Instruction and Support Text features Genre Organization Layers of meaning Purpose Concept complexity Meaning Structure Language Knowledge Vocabulary Sentence length Sentence structure Figurative language Regional/archaic dialects Background Prior curriculum and instruction

13. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Text Complexity Factors Text features Genre Organization Layers of meaning Purpose Concept complexity Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story From Afghanistan By Jeanette Winter • Reread the text, and annotate the factors that make this text complex. Meaning Structure (Lexile 630) Language Knowledge Vocabulary Sentence length Sentence structure Figurative language Regional/archaic dialects Background Prior curriculum and instruction

14. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Text Complexity Evaluation

15. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Text Complexity Calibration and Consensus Meaning Structure Language Knowledge Overall Extremely Very Moderately Slightly

16. Masterful Reading/Reading Aloud Building fluency and confidence through modeling Accessing the text with confidence Understanding the text at a basic level Text Complexity Impacts Instructional Decisions about Reading Rereading Going back into the text for different purposes Increased cognitive capacity for going deeper into the text Building fluency Accessing the text with confidence Close Reading Analytic reading Collaborative reading Examining the ideas, structures, and layers of meaning, creating a common and solid understanding Independent Reading Surface reading / review / gist Building fluency Projecting automaticity Accessing core understanding

17. Why Read-Alouds in Grades K–3? Comprehension Age

18. When Students Struggle to Read: Close Analytic Reading Requires: • Prompting students • Selecting a focus for each reading of a text • Choosing a book worthy of text-dependent questions • Crafting questions that build understanding Traditional goal: Students leave the lesson knowing the details of the narrative. CCSS goal: Students leave the lesson having read, analyzed, and understood what they have READ. 18

19. Text-Dependent QuestionsNasreen’s Secret School NOT Text Dependent Soldiers came and changed everything. Describe a time you experienced something terrible in your life. Nasreen’s grandmother discusses her desire for Nasreen to attend this secret school. Why is education important ? In the end, Nasreen’s grandmother states, “As for me, my mind is at ease.” Discuss a time when you felt at ease after a difficult situation. Text Dependent • What does the author mean when she writes, ”dark clouds hang over the city?” • According to the story, what windows are opened for Nasreen in that little schoolroom? • Based on the outcome, how might the grandmother’s feeling about Nasreen change from the beginning of the book to the end?

21. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Setting Students Up for Success Text features Genre Organization Layers of meaning Purpose Concept complexity QUESTION: Why was it a risk to enroll Nasreen in the secret school for girls? Meaning Structure What information do students need to have to answer this question? Who Nasreen’s champion was Context for the time before and after the Taliban arrived What “secret school” means for girls only What knowledge provides How do we turn this information into questions students can answer using evidence from the text? Language Knowledge Vocabulary Sentence length Sentence structure Figurative language Regional/archaic dialects Background Prior curriculum and instruction

22. Creating Text-Dependent Questions • Think about ... • Create ... • Integrate … • Develop ...   • Build ... • Find ... Think About: • Equity is engaging in practices that meet students where they are and advances their learning by giving them what they need. It’s about fairness, not sameness. • Equity ensures that all children—regardless of circumstances—are receiving high-quality and standards-aligned instruction with access to high-quality materials and resources. • Scaffold students toward independence with complex tasks; do not scaffold by simplifying text language and task complexity.

23. A Closer Look at Scaffolding

24. Making Foundational Decisions Standards Texts

25. Design the summative assessment Various Entry Points to the Next Steps Following a deep and thoughtful reading of the text and after ensuring it is worthy of the standards-aligned work you’re going to ask them to do with it: Look for the small and critical to understand sections of text Think about structure and its impact Identify high-value words/phrases to “work”

26. Designing a Sequence of Questions Text features Genre Organization Layers of meaning Purpose Concept complexity Meaning Structure Language Knowledge Vocabulary Sentence length Sentence structure Figurative language Regional/archaic dialects Background Prior curriculum and instruction

27. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Now you try as groups • Select a rich and complex passage from Nasreen’s Secret School,and identify what makes that passage complex. • Identify the standard that you want to address with this except. • Using “Creating Questions for Close Analytic Reading Exemplars: A Brief Guide,” craft a central TDQ that engages the entirety of the standard. • Identify additional knowledge points students need in order to answer the question. • Develop a set of scaffolded questions to set students up for success in addressing your central question. • Post on chart paper. Post Passage Standard Evaluated: TDQ that addresses the entire standard Supporting questions that scaffold students toward being able to answer that main question • q 1 • q 2 • q 3

28. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Part 7: Feedback and Review Think About: We are the gatekeepers of language in the classroom as teachers and leaders. Students need well-structured opportunities to practice language to learn it. Amplify, do not simplify, language.

29. Morning Take-Aways

30. Lunch

31. Objectives and Agenda Agenda: • Framing the Day • Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs • Lunch • Finish TDQs • Complex Text Through Productive Struggle • Working with Juice Sentences • Reflection on Equity Objectives: Participants will be able to: • Make instructional decisions based on an understanding of text complexity. • Develop a sequence of text-dependent questions that support student proficiency with specific standards. • Apply the Juicy Sentences protocol to enhance reading comprehension and support student writing. • Infuse equity into instructional moves and decision making.

32. Developing a Series of Standards-Based TDQs Part 7: Feedback and Review Think About: We are the gatekeepers of language in the classroom as teachers and leaders. Students need well-structured opportunities to practice language to learn it. Amplify, do not simplify, language.

33. Feedback on the Process • This activity included Moments of Validation because... • This activity included Moments of Reminding when... • This activity included Moments of New Information such as... CCSS goal: Students leave the lesson having read, analyzed, and understood what they have READ. Traditional goal: Students leave the lesson knowing the details of the narrative.

34. Productive Struggle Students engaged in productive struggle are: • Expending effort to make sense of content • Working to figure out something that is not immediately apparent • Grappling with problems on the path to solving them Students NOT engaged in productive struggle are: • Working on unattainable challenges • Needlessly frustrated • Simply being presented with information to be memorized • Being asked to practice only what has been demonstrated

35. Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa

36. Knowing What You Are Seeing • What standards are at center of this lesson? • Is a majority of the lesson is spent listening to, reading, writing, or speaking about text(s)? Identify evidence. • Are the text(s) above the complexity level expected for the grade and time in the school year? • Do the text(s) exhibit exceptional craft and thought and/or provide useful information? Where appropriate, are the texts richly illustrated? • Do the questions and tasks address the text by attending to its particular structure, concepts, ideas, events, and details? Provide evidence.

37. Whip Around Your Table • Select a timekeeper. • Beginning with question 1, each person has 15 seconds to share his or her findings with no feedback, and this moves around the table. • Repeat process with questions 2–5.

38. Write First: Focus on Equity • Equity is engaging in practices that meet students where they are and advances their learning by giving them what they need. It’s about fairness, not sameness. • Equity ensures that all children—regardless of circumstances—are receiving high-quality and standards-aligned instruction with access to high-quality materials and resources. • We want to ensure that standards-aligned instruction is a pathway to the equitable practices needed to close the gaps caused by systemic and systematic racism, bias, and poverty.

39. Stronger Every Turn Each time you talk to a partner, you build from and borrow the ideas and language of previous partners. Try to make your answer stronger each time with better and better evidence, examples, and explanations.

40. What Makes a Text Complex?

41. Quantitative Measures • Word Difficulty (frequency length) • Sentence Length and Syntax • Text   

42. Text Complexity Diagram: Qualitative Measures Where to Focus Instruction and Support Text features Genre Organization Layers of meaning Purpose Concept complexity Meaning Structure Language Knowledge Vocabulary Sentence length Sentence structure Figurative language Regional/archaic dialects Background Prior curriculum and instruction

43. Text Complexity & Equity Any and all of these features may be present: • Meaning • Text Structure • Language Features • Knowledge Demands Too often, less proficient students are given texts at their level, where they do not see these features, and the demands of vocabulary and sentence structure are lowered. 43

44. A Propensity for Density The language used in complex texts differs enough from the English familiar to most students in that it constitutes a barrier to understanding when they first encounter it in the texts they read in school. This becomes critical in the fourth grade and beyond when the texts children read take on a different pedagogical function… ...To communicate complex ideas and information calls for the lexical and grammatical resources of mature discourse—students must master these if they are to succeed in school and career. From “Understanding Language: What does text complexity mean for English Language Learners and Language Minority Students” Lily Wong Filmore, Charles Filmore 44

45. Juicy Sentences Digging Deeper into Comprehension and Complexity What happens when students struggle with making sense of sentences that are critical to reaching an overall comprehension? • Fluent reading is basically reading at a sensible rate so you can making meaning from the words as you read. • Fluent reading does not ensure comprehension. • Lack of fluent reading ensures lack of comprehension.

46. Grammatical and Rhetorical Features of Complex Text A subjective pronoun example: she, he, they, it • Information density • Dependent clauses • Phrases within sentences • The use of subjective pronouns • Passive voice • A combination of complex and simple sentences • The use of adverbial clauses and phrases to situate events • Ellipses • The use of abstract nouns • The use of devices for backgrounding and foregrounding information Adverbial Clause: Group of words which plays the role of an adverb (as in all clauses, an adverbial clause contains a subject and a verb. For example: • Keep hitting the gong hourly. (normal adverb) • Keep hitting the gong until I tell you to stop. (adverbial clause) An abstract noun is a word which names something that you cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste. For example: • consideration • parenthood • belief

47. How’s Your Grammar?The Link between Reading and Writing • Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs • Regular and irregular plural nouns and verbs • Abstract nouns • Comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs • Coordinating and subordinating conjunctions • Simple, compound, and complex sentences • Relative pronouns and relative adjectives • Prepositional phrases • Prepositions, interjections • Correlative conjunctions

49. Juicy Sentences Syntax Read the definition of syntax. Craft your own definition of syntax based on what you read.

50. Linking Factors Fluency Implementing curriculum that considers these linking factors involves exposing students to grade-level text, with appropriate support. • Fluency allows the brain to focus on comprehension. • Breadth of vocabulary increases comprehension. • Background knowledge increases fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Background Knowledge Vocabulary