All-Learner Curriculum for Reading Documents

1. All-Learner Curriculum for Reading Documents Mark Newman, Xiuwen Wu, Costas Spirou, National-Louis University All-Learner Curriculum Meeting the needs of all learners is a growing concern in education. While many strategies exist, most highlight the use of visuals as learning resources. While the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) project focuses on using primary sources as texts to improve student content mastery and skills, it stresses visual images. It also emphasizes employing graphic organizers as instructional aids. The TPS All-Learner curriculum combines ideas from primary-source-based instruction, visual literacy, and universal design for learning. The goal is provide teachers with easy to implement strategies that will help improve the document reading skills of all students, including second language learners and those with special needs. The curriculum focuses on reading a document and has three stages as shown in the chart to the right. While the chart divides identifying important information and making inferences into two distinct steps, the activity and graphic organizer combine these two stages. Teachers have the option of dividing or combining. Either way, students can improve content learning while building important literacy skills. Identifying Important Information Guided by questions, students identify and highlight important information in the document and on a graphic organizer Making Inferences Guided by questions and information identified in the document, students make inferences Summarizing Learning Guided by questions as well as information and inferences identified in the document, students summarize what was learned from the document relating that learning to the topic of study The All-Learner curriculum has been created as a PowerPoint file so that teachers can customize the materials to meet the individual needs of their students. We recommended that teachers model and scaffold learning based on student proficiency. For more information, contact: Mark Newman mnewman@nl.edu Xiuwen Wu xwu@nl.edu Costas Spirou cspirou@nl.edu

2. Reading a Document: Identifying important information Introduction: The first step in using a primary source document to increase content knowledge and literacy skills involves reading to identify pertinent information. This exercises focuses on having identify pertinent context and content information in the text of a document and demark that information by various means on the document itself. An important note is that this process focuses solely on identifying information. It does include general reading strategies and has been developed for use with those strategies as needed. Generally documents have two type of information students need to identify: 1. Context: title, creator, place of creation, date of creation. In some instances, the context information will be incomplete. The teacher can decide whether the missing information is needed or not, providing it to students or having them conduct research to find it. Often, missing information is just that, missing and cannot be found. 2. Content: important items relevant to the topic of study. Reading to identify content information requires guidance so students know what to look for in the document. Having students answers pertinent questions about the document and the topic of study facilitates the identification process. Typically, the questions cover the relevant four “W”s and 1 “H”: who, what, when, where, and how. In some cases, not all these questions are asked. For some exercises, the “why” is also asked, but that question is not included here and can be added by the teacher as needed. To help all students in their reading, a series of “icons” are provided that students can use to demark information that answers the questions as follows: Who: What: When: Where: [ ] How: * * While the “Ws” and “H” are standard interrogatives, the rest of the question stems must relate to the particular document and task. The questions used here are examples not dictates. Determined by student expertise, the following progressive sequence of learning is recommended: 1. Whole class modeling with the teacher role receding as students gain proficiency. 2. Independent group work. 3. Independent individual student work. Setting up the reading for information process Either the teacher or students (if they have gained proficiency in this skill), pose questions to focus attention on what information in the document students should be identifying. Depending on what data is available in the document and student proficiency, the teacher can reinforce the need to identify the relevant context and content information through the reading process. A sample inquiry model information sheet and a sample document with demarked information are provided on the following pages.

3. Reading a Document: Identifying important information Introduction: Using the questions below, identify how the song on the accompanying page describes the first Battle of Bull Run. For the context questions, write your answers on the spaces provide. For the content questions, use the “icons”provided to highlight your answers on the song sheet itself. Context: What is the name of the song?The Retreat of the Grand Army from Bull Run 2. Who is the composer? Ernest Clifton 3. Where was it published?Baltimore, Maryland Content: On the song sheet, highlight all the information that answers each of the following question, using the “icons” provided. In some cases, the information is in more than one place on the song sheet. 1. Who was involved? Identify all the people involved by drawing a circle around their names on the song sheet. If their names appear more than once, just circle the name the first time it appears. 2. What happened? Identify what the people involved were trying to do at the battle and what happened at the battle, by drawing a rectangle around the appropriate lines of the song. ____ 3. When did it happen? Identify when the battle occurred by drawing a line under the line in the song that identifies the time of the battle. [ ] 4. Where did it happen? Identify the location of the battle by placing brackets around the places on the song sheet mentioned as sites of the battle. * * 5. How did the outcome affect those involved? Identify the effect of the battle’s outcome on the people involved by placing stars around the appropriate lines in the song.

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5. Reading a Document: Organizing information Old Lincoln’s Grand Army Abe Lincoln McDowell The Bull They all ran away The Retreat of the Grand Army from Bull Run Ernest Clifton Baltimore, Maryland Unknown Manassas, Virginia Sunday Lincoln blamed McDowell, Lincoln superseded McDowell McClellan new leader Grand army in bad state

6. Reading a Document: Organizing important information and making inferences Introduction: Depending upon student ability, it is possible to connect the organization of information and the making of inferences tasks. Making Inferences is an important step in reading a document. An inference is a conclusion that students reach based on information obtained from the document and their own reasoning. The task involves students using the information they identified and organized from the document as well prior knowledge to state what they think about the document’s content. The organizer on the following page has students perform several tasks: They organize the context of the document including the title, creator, date of creation, and place of creation. They organize the information identified from reading the document by writing their answers to teach question in the appropriate place. They make an inference about the answer to that question. Setting up the making inference exercise Make sure the students know what an inference is and how the process of making one works. The teacher might stress the need to base an inference on information form the document, prior knowledge, and their own thoughts. An inference is not just opinion, but informed opinion. Instructions: These instructions refer to students completing the “Organizing important information and making inferences” graphic organizer on the following page: 1. On the lines below “What does the document say?,” copy the information highlighted on the document to answer each question. 3. On the lines below “What do you think?,” make an inference regarding who was involved, what happened, and the effect of the outcome on those involved.

7. Reading a Document: Organizing important information and making inferences

8. Reading a Document: Summarizing what was learned Instructions: Referring to the “Organizing important information and making inferences” graphic organizer, write a summary of what you learned from the document about the topic you are studying.

9. Organizing important information and making inferences graphic organizer template Where did it happen? When did it happen? What does the document say? Who was involved? What do you think? What does the document say? What happened? What do you think? How did the outcome affect those involved? What does the document say? What do you think?