Shift Happens

1. ShiftHappens

2. Six Instructional ELA Shifts

3. Shift #1 PK-5: Balancing Informational and Literary Texts Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts. Elementary school classrooms, are therefore, places where students access the world- science, social studies, the arts and literature- through text.

4. Shift #2: 6-12 Knowledge in the Disciplines • Content area teachers outside of the ELA classroom emphasize literacy experiences in their planning and instruction. • Students learn through domain-specific texts. They are expected to learn from what they read.

5. Shift #2 - 6-12 Knowledge in the Disciplines Implementation Example: GDDT Subcommittees developing action plan to address Writing across grade levels and disciplines

6. Shift #3: Staircase of Complexity In order to prepare students for the complexity of college and career ready texts, each grade level requires a “step” of growth on the “staircase”. Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered. Teachers are patient, create more time and space in the curriculum for this close and careful reading, and provide appropriate and necessary scaffolding and supports so that is possible for students reading below grade level. Part 1 of this workshop presented at August Leadership Institute; Part 2 to come…

7. Shift #4: Text Based Answers Students have rich and rigorous conversations, which are dependent on a common text. Teachers insist that classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text on the page and that students develop habits for making evidentiary arguments both in conversation, as well as in writing to assess comprehension of a text.

8. Shift #4: Text Based Answers A great amount of work in this area. Teachers have been expecting the students from Kindergarten through Grade 12 to provide evidence from the text when they answer questions. Moving forward in this area, staff can refer to the GPS CCSS wiki- “ELA Shift 4 and 5” as a resource. There is a seven-step process for teachers to follow to create effective, text-dependent questions.

9. Shift #5: Writing from Sources Writing needs to emphasize use of evidence to inform or make an argument rather than the personal narrative and other forms of decontextualized prompts. While the narrative still has an important role, students develop skills through written arguments that respond to the ideas, events, facts, and arguments presented in the texts they read.

10. Shift #5: Writing from Sources Pre-CCSS Writing Expectations

11. POST CCSS Implementation Grades 6-8 Sample Performance Tasks Shift #5 - Writing from Sources

12. Shift #6: Academic Vocabulary Students constantly build the vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. By focusing strategically on comprehension of pivotal and commonly found words (such as “discourse”, “generation”, “theory”, and “principled”) and less on esoteric literary terms (such as “onomatopoeia” or “homonym”), teachers constantly build students’ ability to access more complex texts across the content areas.

13. Shift 6 Academic Vocabulary Robust Vocabulary Instruction involves directly and explicitly explaining meanings of words along with thought-provoking, interactive follow-up. • Contextualize (C) • Explain meaning (M) • Provide examples (E) • Provide guided meaning interactions (I) Word: Stalking • In the story, the pack of wolves weave like shadows, stalking a deer. (C) • Another way of saying the wolf pack was stalking a deer is they were tracking the deer. (M) • When you track someone or something, it means you are following them or stalking them (E) • Have you ever stalked someone or something? Tell your partner. (I)

14. Shift #6: Academic Vocabulary “A pack of wolves wandered through the valley.”