Got Citizenship?September 12, 2013

Common Core: Close Reading

Agenda – Focus on Close Reading

Role of close reading in the CCSS Standards

Review and discuss videos and readings on close reading

Model lessons

Three shifts in CCSS for ELA and Literacy

1. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

2. Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational

3. Regular practice with complex text and its academic language

Review the ELA and history reading standards

Centrality of the text for achieving the standardsAccording to the Student Achievement Partners (achievethecore):

•More instructional time spent outside the text means less time inside the text.

•Departing from the text in classroom discussion privileges only those who already have experience with the topic.

•It is easier to talk about our experiences than to analyze the text—especially for students reluctant to engage with reading.

•The CCSS are College and Career Readiness Standards.

How have you implemented complex text in your classrooms this year?

Implications for Close Reading of Complex Text

Teacher-led, close reading of rich complex texts must be a regular part of student experience.

This means emphasizing questions that can only be determined from the text (text-dependent questions).

Students need to struggle with a variety of texts with teacher support

Students listen, speak and write about the text in order to develop deep understanding.

Smarter Balanced Assessments

Will measure a student’s ability: To analyze a text To synthesize multiple

texts To respond to a

prompt using evidence from multiple texts

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/about/

What strategies do you use to teach students “close

reading”?

Examples of close reading

Many approaches are similar to “close reading” or involve close reading. Teacher may “think aloud,” use probing questions, and guide students at beginning.

Cognitive Apprenticeship-explicit modeling of the habits of mind for reading

Socratic methodReciprocal teachingThink aloudsAnnotating the text

Text-dependent Questions

• Can only be answered with evidence from the text.

• Can be literal (checking for understanding) but must also involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation.

• Focus on word, sentence, and paragraph, as well as larger ideas, themes, or events.

• Focus on difficult portions of text in order to enhance reading proficiency.

• Can also include prompts for writing and discussion questions.

*from Achievethecore.org

Video on text-dependent questions

3-2-1 Video Activity3: Things of interest to you about this scene   2: Two things that relate to what you already know 

  1: Question that this scene raises  

Debrief

What ideas and strategies stand out from the video?

What questions do you have about the close reading and text-dependent questions does this video raise for you?

Text-dependent Questions

Typical text dependent questions ask students to perform one or more of the following tasks: Probe each argument in persuasive text, each idea in

informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole

Examine how shifts in the direction of an argument or explanation are achieved and the impact of those shifts

Question why authors choose to begin and end when they do

Consider the genre of the text and the structure of the text Note and assess patterns of writing and what they achieve Consider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated

Model lesson

FormatText-dependent questions checklist

What other questions might be useful for students to comprehend the text?

Shared practice

In mixed partner groups, read the source and develop three text-dependent questions for each discipline.

Use the text-dependent question worksheet to check your work.

Group share out:How were the development of the questions

and the questions themselves similar and different for each discipline/grade level?