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Just how complex is it? Making text accessible to all. Cindy Clark Georgia’s Department of Education’s Summer ELA/Literacy Academy, 2014.
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Just how complex is it?Making text accessible to all Cindy ClarkGeorgia’s Department of Education’s Summer ELA/Literacy Academy, 2014
The Common Core introduced us to text complexity,which in turn affected our serenity.How Do we make reading acceptably Rigorous to meet the TKES’ expectancy?Notice the teacher’s longevityat trying so hard to teach effectivelywhen students’ concern is brevity?Yet the teacher keeps attempting Diligently!While it’s true that with so much diversity, and demands that seem to come endlessly,that there are ways to thrive without therapyand perhaps watch our students grow impressively.So, relax and there’ll be no perplexity As we conquer the all powerful text complexity!
Today’s Objectives • Identify factors that affect readers’ ability and motivation • Examine theory • Look at strategies
Yes, we’ve heard it, but… No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship. • Dr. James Comer, • Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World , 2004
Setting Up For Success Agreements Rules Guidelines
Let’s Try It Out! “If we want to create a workplace that values idealism, human connection, and real, in depth learning, we will have to create it ourselves.” Peter Block “If we want to empower students to take ownership in their learning, we have to be willing to create a safe learning community.” Cindy Clark
Now, about complexity… Before we dive in, let’s review.
Qualitative evaluation of the text • levels of meaning and purpose • structure • language conventions and clarity • knowledge demands • Best measured by a human being (!)
Quantitative evaluation of the text • Words and Structure • word and sentence length • word frequency • text complexity • Typically measured by software
Reader and Task Considerations • Variables specific to the reader • knowledge • experiences • motivation • purpose What the student brings to the table
Structure vs. Reading vs. Vocabulary • “There is only one way to acquire the language of literacy, and that is through literacy itself.” -Stanford University • “It is widely accepted among researchers that the difference in students’ vocabulary levels is a key factor in disparities in academic achievement…but that vocabulary instruction has been neither frequent nor systematic in most schools. -Appendix A of Common Core State Standards for ELA
Increasing the complexity of texts used in the classroom poses two big-picture challenges for educators: measuring complexity to make sure texts assigned are appropriately complex, and putting students on target to handle more difficult reading. Grant Wiggins, coauthor of Understanding by Design, thinks the real problem for teachers won't be identifying complex texts, but rather "staying true to the demands of the standards, without over-scaffolding, and in heterogeneous classrooms where teachers may have students reading three levels below proficiency." To that end, experts advise focusing interventions on what causes students the most difficulty—vocabulary and complicated sentences.
And now for something completely different… What has worked for you? Let’s share ideas…no repeats, please!
GRAMMAR AND STRUCTURE Consider the exemplar, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.
Letter From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts) Martin Luther King, Jr. April 16, 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen, While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas … But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms. I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some 85 affiliate organizations all across the South … Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented.
Are our students ready? A quick look shows us that background knowledge, grammatical structure, and linguistics are necessary to conquer this piece.
What do you see? • Style from a past era • Sentence structure: clauses, clauses, clauses • Difficulty determining purpose • Informational density • Layered messages
Quick Close • Where is King? • Who is the “your”he refers to? • What is the author’s purpose?
http://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?v=5K5XlCSUs6khttp://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?v=5K5XlCSUs6k
Sometimes we have to bring in more… After the Letter been published, King added a kind of prologue to help explain what he described as “somewhat constricted circumstance”
This might help. “Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me.”
This one sentence • Three different clauses organized into a complex sentence • Subject of the sentence is the letter • All three clauses are written in the passive voice • Begun where? • Continued on what? • Concluded how?
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out.
According to recommendations from the major English/Language Arts professional organizations, reading instruction is most effective when intertwined with writing instruction and vice versa.
Research has found that when children read extensively they become better writers. Reading a variety of genres helps children learn text structures and language that they can then transfer to their own writing. In addition, reading provides young people with prior knowledge. Joelle Brummitt-Yale
sentence frames To help students at all language proficiency levels incorporate higher levels of academic language into their speech and writing, teachers can incorporate the use of sentence frames, sentence starters and signal words with students at a variety of proficiency levels. Erick Herrmann
Making Inferences Using clues to figure out what is really happening in the story.Reading “between the lines.” • ________are / are not ________. • ________ are / are not ________ because ________. • Based on ________, I infer that ________. • Based on _____, I infer that _____, because _____.
Argument I don’t think the evidence supports___ because____________. I don’t agree with that statement because ____. As we just saw in the experiment, _______ does ________ due to ______.
Compare and Contrast Compare = sameContrast = different 1.__________ and _____________ are ___________. 2. Both _____ and _______ have _____________. 3. ___and ___ are both similar because they both _____. 4. There are several major differences between ___ and ___. The most notable is ____________.
And now for something completely different… Let’s Make Some Strips!
Think Alouds • Making strategic knowledge explicit • Making the unknown known • Unlocking the mysteries of reading
THINKING ALOUD IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT Teachers and students want to know: What causes readers to lose track of their thinking while reading? How do readers get their thinking back on track? How can teachers help all the different levels of students in their classes? How can those "voices in the head" be used to help students do a better job of monitoring their own comprehension?
Some insights.. • Make it short. Vygostsky said learning can only occur in the ZPD, so give text that makes them work, but doesn’t defeat them! • Pick one or two strategies to spotlight at a time. This mini-lesson can catapult the students into their own practice of the strategies you’ve chosen. • State your purpose: tell students what you are doing and why. • Read slowly and tell students what you are thinking!
Model fluent and expressive reading. • Think aloud. • Model the reading process. • Review text structure. • Facilitate comprehension to struggling readers. • Provide interactions with a variety of texts. • Make connections.
And now for something completely different… Let’s try it!
More Ideas: Text in Small Doses • Use graphs, photos, and illustrations • Do a picture walk • Show a related piece of art • Ted Talks • Use picture books to build background knowledge • Use thinking map/graphic organizers • Sentence Frames
Sample Scaffolding • Use small-group direct instruction (guided reading) to help the struggling student access the whole-class novel. • Make sure that the struggling student is introduced to challenging vocabulary before he or she reads the chapter. • Create an anticipation guide for that specific chapter to help build a struggling student's background knowledge prior to reading the chapter. • Create a graphic organizer to access the information in the chapter. • Do a class or small-group reading of a short piece (poetry, nonfiction) that will help the struggling student access background knowledge needed for the chapter. • Work with note-taking strategies to help students access the content. • Create a short summary for the student to read before he or she accesses the chapter.
