Differentiated Instruction“It's all quite relative you see.”

Materials

1.) SpringBoard Textbook, TEACHER'S EDITION 2.) College Board Standards for College Success, ELA 3.) FCAT Content Focus Report, 9-10 4.) SSS Standards

Dessalines Floyd, District Literacy Specialist, Floydd1@duvalschools.org

How to Differentiate Using SpringBoard Texts

Important Terms

Differentiate

Benchmark

Sunshine State Standards (SSS)

Remediation

Enrichment

4 Primary Ways to Differentiate

Content/Topic

Process/Activities

Differentiating the Product

Accommodating Individual Learning Styles

Scenario

You are a 9th grade ELA teacher. Today, you are beginning Unit 3, Exploring Poetic Voices. Upon previewing the unit (About the Unit), you notice that several of your students may potentially encounter difficulty with one skill in particular--“analyzing poetry for figurative language, structure, form, and theme.” However, you do not make any instructional changes until you have pre-assessed the students by allowing them to fully complete the lesson. As you know, you should not differentiate solely based on what you think your students can/cannot do.

Activity 3.5 is extremely challenging for one student.

Estimate problematic area(s). Review the SSS benchmarks, College Board

Standards, and the FCAT content focus. Determine how you will differentiate. Re-teach (offer remediation OR enrichment) Re-assess (do not change your assessment

unless you found errors in your original)

What is the SB standard?

The specific performance expectation is R1.2.6 R1.2.6 (Uses understanding of form, elements, sound,

figurative language, imagery, symbols, and allusions to guide comprehension of poetry).

Which FCAT benchmarks does this standard cover?

The content focus includes bothboth descriptive and figurative language, LA910.2.1.7.

“The knowledge, skills, and attitudes that we want children to learn.”

CONTENT

Browse the entire scope of the SB objective (R1.2.6). Do you notice how the demand on thinking increases

from Level 1 to Level 4?

Perhaps you need to change the topic.

Teach the student how to interpret free verse.

Cover interpretive elements in poetry (e.g., lines, stanzas, rhythm, meter, rhyme).

Teach the student to recognize how figurative language influences meaning.

We are helping the student access the work by differentiating the topic. The acquired knowledge should support learning by ultimately helping the student to compare how poems of the same form use figurative language to convey meaning at Level 4.

And the rest is a breeze...

PROCESS

“Varying learning activities or strategies to provide appropriate methods for students to explore the concepts.”

In the same scenario...

Provide a graphic organizer (or modification of an existing one) to help the student make meaning.

Instead of requiring that the student compare their own written version to a published one, provide two published poems before finally requiring that the student write a free verse of their own.

We are differentiating the activity...NOT the standard!

“Varying the complexity of the product that the students create to demonstrate mastery of the concept.”

The PRODUCT

Can you think of ways that we might differentiate the product?

The student may be asked to write a poem with with stylistic elements that he or she is familiar with (e.g., the lyrics of a popular song) as opposed to free verse.

Instead of a poem, allow the student to write his or her ideas in a template that you provide in order to aid in the construction of meaning.

This work should build until mastery of the intended benchmark/objective is reached.

“How do students respond to their learning environment? In what ways do personality differences/preferences promote learning?”

LEARNING STYLES

How might we differentiate this lesson in order to meet the student's learning preference?

• Perhaps reading the poem aloud may help the student hear the differences in rhyme, meter, and rhythm across poetry types.

• Provide the student with opportunities to construct visual representations of learning.

• Some students enjoy bodily-kinesthetic activities.

• All-in-all, we are STILL progressing toward mastery of the Sunshine State Standards.

Begin with the end in mind.

Resources

• Differentiated Instruction

http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/differentiating.html

• College Board Standards for College Success, ELA

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/association/academic/english-language-arts_cbscs.pdf

• SpringBoard, English Textual Power Levels 1-6, Annotated Teacher Edition

• Reading/Language Arts Standards (Florida); Benchmarks

http://etc.usf.edu/flstandards/la/index.html

Dessalines Floyd, District Literacy Specialist , Floydd1@duvalschools.org