Informational Reading and Writing and Connections to the Common Core, K-12 Nell K. Duke Michigan State University Literacy Achievement Research Center

Informational Reading and Writing and Connections to the Common Core, K-12

Nell K. DukeMichigan State University

Literacy Achievement Research Center

Presentation at Literacy Partnership Statewide MeetingApril 27, 2011, Marlboro, MA

Plan for the Presentation• Informational text in the Common Core Standards

and the National Assessment of Educational Progress

• Select Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for• Language

• Reading

• Writing

And specific instructional strategies that would put students on the road to meeting them.

• One important thing largely missing from the Common Core Standards

Common Core Standards - Reading“To build a foundation for college and

career readiness, students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts.”

Common Core Standards - Reading

Two of the ten College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards address informational text broadly defined:

1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Common Core Standards - Writing

National Assessment of Educational Progress - Reading

• Distribution of Literary and Informational Passages by Grade in the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework

National Assessment Governing Board. (2008). Reading framework for the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Grade Literary Informational

4 50% 50%

8 45% 55%

12 30% 70%

National Assessment of Educational Progress - Writing

• Distribution of Communicative Purposes by Grade in the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework

National Assessment Governing Board. (2007). Writing framework for the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, pre-publication edition. Iowa City, IA: ACT, Inc.

Grade

To Persuade To Explain To Convey Experience

4 30% 35% 35%

8 35% 35% 30%

12 40% 40% 20%

NAEP 2009 Framework

• The NAEP 2009 Framework uses the term “Informational Text” broadly to include– “exposition [which is like what call “informational

text”].

– argumentation and persuasive text.

– procedural text and documents.”

NAEP 2009 Framework

• NAEP 2009’s other big category is “Literary Text,” in which they include:– “fiction.

– literary nonfiction, such as essays, speeches, and autobiographies or biographies.

– poetry.”

A released NAEP item• Students read an informational article on the blue crab.• They are asked the following question (from the 1998 NAEP):

The growth of a blue crab larva into a full-grown blue crab is most like the development of

A) a human baby into a teen-ager

B) an egg into a chicken

C) a tadpole into a frog

D) a seed into a tree

• The answer to this question is not explicitly stated in the text.

• What does a student need to know and be able to do to answer this question correctly?

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate. [emphasis added]

Semantic Ambiguity Instruction• A recently-published intervention designed to

help students deal with multiple meaning words and sentences is:Zipke, M., Ehri, L. C., & Cairns, H. (2009). Using semantic ambiguity instruction to improve third graders' metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension: An experimental study. Reading Research Quarterly, 44(3), 300–321.

• Four sessions, 45 minutes each, taught individually

• Improved reading comprehension over that of a control group that read during the sessions.

Semantic Ambiguity InstructionZipke, Ehri, & Cairns (2009)

Session 1: Multiple Word Meanings• Brainstorm and discuss multiple meaning words • Pick out homonyms from a set of nouns, verbs,

adjectives, and adverbs (22 of 40) • Teach strategies for identifying homonyms:

– Can it fit another form class? “(e.g., if it’s a thing, can it also be something you do?).”

– Are synonyms for the words really different? “(e.g., for the word ball, baseballs and basketballs are both still sports equipment so they are not really different meanings of ball).”


Session 2: Multiple Sentence Meanings• Discuss seven ambiguous sentences with

pictures for each meaning– e.g., “The dog chased the man on a bike”

• Represent eight sentences by using Colorforms – e.g., “The ball was found by the kitten”– Had three-column chart: who does what to whom


Session 3: Riddles• Discuss riddles

– E.g., “Why do spiders like baseball? They’re good at catching flies.”

• Use three-column chart (see previous slide) and manipulatives to explain answers

• Invite riddles students know• Have students write their own riddles

1. Identify topic of interest2.List of words related to topic3. Identify homonyms on list4.Write riddles in riddle book


Session 4: Amelia Bedelia• Read Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower

(Parish, 1979) – Have children stop at every multiple meaning

sentence • how did Amelia understand it?• what was the intended meaning? and how do you know?

• Read Amelia Bedelia’s Family Album (Parish, 1988)– Cover up Amelia’s interpretation and ask what Amelia

would say (e.g., of what a boxer does) – Have children add their own entries to the book


5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. [emphasis added]

Teaching

Word

Relationships

• Relating new words to known words and examining relationships among words have long been recommended and researched elements of vocabulary instruction.

• Three instructional techniques that engage students in examining relationships among words are: • Semantic word mapping (e.g., Rupley, Logan, & Nichols,

1999)• Semantic feature analysis (e.g., Bos & Anders, 1986)• Concept wheel (e.g., Rupley, Logan, & Nichols, 1999)

Semantic Word Map:

Farms

What They Do

Grow plants for people or animals to eat or useRaise

animals for people to eat or use

Animals

cows, pigs, chickens, sheep,

ostriches!, fish. . .

Crops

corn, wheat, soy beans, rice, fruit, vegetables. . .

Equipment

silo

barn

plow

Tractor

Milking machines

(Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2002)

Elkader:IS:bberry:Public:SEC: MISC.:x2005-06:MATH/ELL PSTR & HNDTS:SPANISH:Semantic 3 Sp ver.doc from ReadingRockets.org

Example Concept Wheel:Hibernation

Sleep

Rest

Winter

Dens

Low heart rate

Bats

Bears

Turtles

Garter snakes

Toads

Hibernation Sleep

BearsWinter

(Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003)


6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. [emphasis added]

Vocabulary in

Infor

mational

Text

(particularly expository informational text)• Vocabulary in informational text is different than

in narrative text (Hiebert, 2006; Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007).• The words themselves• Repetition• Definitions• Clues to word meaning

Vocabulary in the

Common

Core

TIER ONE WORDS• “Tier One words are the words of everyday

speech usually learned in the early grades, albeit not at the same rate by all children. They are not considered a challenge to the average native speaker, though English language learners of any age will have to attend carefully to them. While Tier One words are important, they are not the focus of this discussion.”

Vocabulary in the

Common

Core

TIER TWO WORDS• “Tier Two words (what the Standards refer to as general

academic words) are far more likely to appear in written texts than in speech. They appear in all sorts of texts: informational texts (words such as relative, vary, formulate, specificity, and accumulate), technical texts (calibrate, itemize, periphery), and literary texts (misfortune, dignified, faltered, unabashedly). Tier Two words often represent subtle or precise ways to say relatively simple things—saunter instead of walk, for example. Because Tier Two words are found across many types of texts, they are highly generalizable.”

Vocabulary in the

Common

Core

TIER THREE WORDS• “Tier Three words (what the Standards refer to as domain-

specific words) are specific to a domain or field of study (lava, carburetor, legislature, circumference, aorta) and key to understanding a new concept within a text. Because of their specificity and close ties to content knowledge, Tier Three words are far more common in informational texts than in literature. Recognized as new and “hard” words for most readers (particularly student readers), they are often explicitly defined by the author of a text, repeatedly used, and otherwise heavily scaffolded (e.g., made a part of a glossary)”.

Working

Toward

Standard

6

• Encourage students to notice unfamiliar words• Model noticing unfamiliar words• Praise students for identifying unfamiliar words• Have students collect unfamiliar words at school and at home• Go out of your way to use words students are just learning• Play word games

• Teach use of context clues– Definitions– Appositives– Larger context– Graphics

• Teach word parts

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. [emphasis added]

Discussion

Can I

mprove

Comprehension

Murphy, Wilkinson, Soter, Hennessey, & Alexander, 2009: Analyzed 42 studies of discussion with comprehension

outcomes Many approaches resulted in improved comprehension Nature of impacts varied Some approaches that showed improved comprehension

were: Instructional Conversations Philosophy for Children Questioning the Author

Discussion

• Many effective approaches involve higher-order questions and follow-up questions as in: Higher-order questions– What do you think about . . . ?– Why do you think . . . ?– What does . . . . remind you of?– Have you ever . . . ?– What is the author. . . ?– If you were the author. . . ?

Discussion

• Follow-up questions– What makes you say that?– What did the author say about that?– Say more. . . – Do you agree with _______?– How does that connect with what ______ said?

A Discussion-based Approach: QtA• Questioning the Author (QtA) is one approach to

fostering high quality discussion:• See the following slides for examples of queries (Beck,

McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, 1996, p. 389; reprinted in Duke, Bennett-Armistead, & Moses, 2003).

• For additional information, see • Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Hamilton, R. L., & Kucan, L.

(1997). Questioning the author: An approach to enhancing student engagement with text. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

• Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2006). Improving comprehension with Questioning the Author: A fresh and expanded view of a powerful approach. New York: Scholastic.

Queries to Guide Questioning-the-Author Discussions

Goal QueriesInitiate the discussion What is the author trying to say?

What is the author’s message?What is the author talking about?

Help students focus on the author’s message

That is what the author says, but what does it mean?

Help students link information

How does that connect with what the author already told us?How does that fit in with what the author already told us?What information has the author added here that connects to or fits in with___?

Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, 19961996

Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, 1996

Goal QueriesIdentify difficulties with the way the author has presented information or ideas

Does that make sense?Is that said in a clear way?Did the author explain that clearly? Why or why not? What’s missing? What do we need to figure out or find out?

Encourage students to refer to the text either because they’ve misinterpreted a text statement or to help them recognize that they’ve made an inference

Did the author tell us that?Did the author give us the answer to that?

Queries to Guide Questioning-the-Author Discussions

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading

5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing

4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

From the Common Core

• “To build a foundation for college and career readiness, students . . . learn to appreciate that a key purpose of writing is to communicate clearly to an external, sometimes unfamiliar audience, and they begin to adapt the form and content of their writing to accomplish a particular task and purpose.” (p. 18)

• Having students read and write real-world infotexts for real-world purposes.• Reading for the purpose of obtaining information you

want or need to know • Writing to convey information to people who want or

need to know it

• Second and third graders in classrooms in which infotext reading was of more real-world texts for real-world purposes showed higher growth on several measures.

(Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007)

Use real-world texts

for real-world reasons

Some set-ups for real-world reading of informational text in science

• Discrepant events to generate questions• E.g., prisms on the overhead

• Demonstrations of phenomena to generate questions• E.g., volcano, caterpillars

• Serendipitous events brought from world outside• E.g., broken arm

• Announcing topic and asking for questions• E.g., K-W-L charts (topic: sound)

(Duke, Purcell-Gates, Hall, & Tower, 2006/2007)

Some set-ups for real-world reading of informational text in science

• Literacy in response to a community need• E.g. pond brochure

• Literacy as part of problem-solving• E.g. dying tadpoles

(Audience integral to authentic writing -- audiences include distant readers (e.g., Costa Rican pen pals), within-school audiences, and within-classroom audiences)

(Duke, Purcell-Gates, Hall, & Tower, 2006/2007)


2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

• There is a great deal of research to suggest the importance teaching students to plan their writing (e.g., Graham & Perin, 2007).

• The following slides help to illustrate how one fifth-grade teacher, Niki McGuire, engaged students in planning content-rich science text.



8. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

The WWWDOT Approach to Teaching Evaluation of Websites

as Sources of Information WWWDOT Approach

• Who wrote it and what credentials do they have?

• Why was it written? • When was it written or updated? • Does it help meet my needs? • Organization of site• To do list for the future

• Cassie: I looked at the second grade one and it is a real school, written by a second grader]. There is a Ms. Taverna at that school so I know that information is true.

• Katie: Okay, it might be true. But a second grader wrote it. How good is it for us? We are in fourth grade.

……• Cassie: Yeah, but they must have gotten the information from somewhere, probably a

teacher.• Juan: Okay, but do we know where that teacher got the information? What if the

teacher got it off the Internet from, like, the tree octopus?……• Paula: Does anyone find it suspicious that there was no date on the Rochester one? • Ms. Kate: Why does that bother you, Paula?• Paula: If the information is important to go through all the trouble and money to make

the website in the first place, they should care enough to put the date on it.• Ava: And without the date, we don’t know if it is old information or new.……

• Jon: If I was going to vote, I would say the one from National Geographic.• Ms. Kate: Why is that, Jon?• Jon: I know National Geographic. I watch them on TV and I have books by

them. Besides, there are tons of their magazines at school.• Mason: But couldn’t someone steal their name and the look and put it on the

Internet? What about the ads?• Cassie: I don’t know. I think if we had to vote, I’d say the truest is the little

second grade project but the best was National Geographic. • Ayesha: Yeah, but seriously, do you want to trust second graders to teach you

something that you need to get a good grade on?……• Luke: I think I would vote for National Geographic too. It was written just a

couple of months ago and on their website I can find what I want to read very fast.

One i

mportant thing largely

missing from the

Common

Core

Standards

Engagement

One i

mportant thing largely

missing from the

Common

Core

Standards

• There are strong relationships between engagement and reading comprehension (e.g., Guthrie, Rueda, Gambrell, & Morrison, 2009) and engagement and writing achievement (e.g., Graham, Berninger, & Fan, 2007).

• Some students seem to know how to use strategies but choose not to (e.g., Hall, 2006).

One (of

many)

Studies

Showing

Engagement

Matters. . .

Jiménez & Duke, 2011: Fourth-grade students were given

three texts on a topic they reported they were interested in reading about

three texts on a topic they reported they were not interested in reading about

When reading texts on a topic they were interested in reading about, students: used more comprehension processes used a greater range of comprehension processes had higher recall (nearly double the score)

Summary• Informational text in a major focus of the

Common Core Standards and the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

• There are specific research-tested instructional approaches that can help students along a path toward meeting the Common Core Standards related to informational text.

• In implementing these instructional approaches, we must not forget the importance of student engagement.

Our mission is to advance knowledge Our mission is to advance knowledge related to literacy achievement in related to literacy achievement in

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Documents

Informational Reading and Writing and Connections to the Common Core, K-12 Nell K. Duke Michigan State University Literacy Achievement Research Center