Common Core ELA Lesson on Text Analysis for 12th Graders

Common core will demand lots of text analysis from all disciplines covering informational and non-informational reading materials.  Schools will be preparing students for life beyond high school--university and/or the global workforce.  It is hoped that such challenging material will eliminate the need for remedial college English and math classes.

This video clip on  text analysis is set in a 12th grade classroom in California.  Note how the teacher has the students engaged from almost the very start of the lesson.  The warm up is one that provides time for students to read, reflect ,and then compose text-based questions which they would like to have addressed in the class.  With common core, the teacher will not be running the class 90% of the time.  Instead, the role of the educator will be to facilitate as students discuss and explore their chosen concerns in small groups (notice excellent classroom management--students know what they have to do and perform as per teacher expectations).  Once this small group activity is completed, students must select one question from the group which might be posed to the entire class. Notice how all the students are actively engaged in answering those student generated questions (many of which the teacher said she would have written herself, but when they come from students, the students are more interested).  The teacher then goes to symbols, but again watch how she has them identify symbols as she reads.  They then go into meaning or their interpretation of them.

Great example of a common core lesson:)

Denise

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COMMON CORE and ACADEMIC VOCABULARY

Though every one of the 46 states who adopted the common core might weave a few state related adjustments here and there into their state education plans, they will leave the bulk of common core in place.  This will hopefully lead to national standards eventually.

One common thread found in every state's version of the CCSS is the need to build academic vocabulary of their students.  Two issues surface here.  One is WHICH words does a teacher focus on in a given lesson.  Here, teachers have to differentiate between words which will be used in different content areas and which ones are words that are so content specific (ex. mitosis) that they will rarely, if ever, be found outside of that content area.  Then teachers must devise ways to activate student prior knowledge to the new word.  Once that occurs, teachers can refer back to it as needed to ensure that the student can apply this new knowledge to the reading in which the word is found.  Second, as the teacher covers such key vocabulary, s/he needs to build on that word knowledge by showing different forms of the words, bringing in antonyms/synonyms/examples/non-examples, visuals, etc.  Further, students need time to strengthen that knowledge not just with reading, but also writing.

COMMON CORE AND ACADEMIC VOCABULARY is from New York.  In this 6 minute video, NYS Commissioner of Education John King, David Coleman (contributing author to the Common Core), and Kate Gerson (a Sr. Fellow with the Regents Research Fund) discuss the shift in academic vocabulary. 

How will this change the way a teacher addresses new vocabulary choices?  Here are some areas to think about in viewing the video. 

1.  They will need to decide on how many words in a given selection must be taught.
2.  Teachers will need to select words deemed useful across disciplines. 
3.  They will need to see which words are worth the time to fully explore and reinforce with students. 
4.  They will need to create writing activities  to provide practice in using the words. 

To support teachers in making these decisions, download the PDFs at the bottom of the page under the paragraph describing the video.


You may register for updates to their plans for implementation of the new standards.  You will also have access to many more resources including videos, lesson plans, lesson plan templates, common core exemplars covering K-12, etc.  It is one of many sites teachers will want to save:)

Denise

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Powerful Reading Strategies for Common Core English Literature Classes

Sometimes in literature, students encounter very challenging material. A teacher's job is then to try to assist the students in connecting to the central theme or idea.  With the common core approach, long lectures will be replaced by students interacting with the text on many levels and in many different ways.  Students will take an active role in accessing the material individually, with partners, in whole class activities, etc.  Teachers will now be creating imaginative activities which will fully involve all students in the learning process in an exciting fashion.

One approach which energizes students about a piece of literature is the SILENT TEA PARTY.  Here the teacher has pulled out short challenging quotes from the text to have students analyze to guide them in making predictions as to the content of the new text. 

The way they do this is to match the quotes with the items in the questionnaire the teacher provides.  This is a pre-reading strategy to build a foundation for the students to approach the text with.  This anticipation guide is there to introduce the students to a very complex character before they actually start reading the novel.  Using this idea, students are building background knowledge to support them in eventually reading the text. 

Notice student movement as they circulate the room looking at other quotes and how they were matched up.  Note that this is done in silence. With this approach, students are fully focused on the reading of the quotes and their interpretation of them as they describe the character.

Another approach to assisting students in interacting with challenging text is the WALL OF SILENCE .  In the text they are reading, the female character is silenced by society.  For students to fully grasped society imposed silence, they had to silently post quotes from the text that resonated with them.  No talking was allowed.  Tableaux were used (groups of 3-4 students creating a freeze frame of a scene that was important to them).  Every student took part and each frame was of a different section of the novel.  Silence is broken by circle discussions where small groups share insights while other take notes (focus is on LISTENING carefully). 

There is much more of course, but the main focus here is that students do the work with teacher support/facilitation.  Think of it as a type of role-reversal.  Set high expectations, scaffold student attempts to reach those goals, and get ready to be amazed at what students can do.

Denise

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