Fiction and Nonfiction

Language Arts Units for Gifted Students in Grade 4

Carolyn M. Callahan, Tracy C. Missett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000492965
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The CLEAR curriculum, developed by University of Virginia's National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, is an evidence-based teaching model that emphasizes Challenge Leading to Engagement, Achievement, and Results. In Fiction and Nonfiction: Language Arts Units for Gifted Students in Grade 4, students will read and analyze short stories and write their own short story in the fiction unit. In the nonfiction unit, students will study nonfiction (and creative nonfiction) texts to examine how writers use many of the same devices to tell nonfiction stories. Students will read a variety of texts and will write their own memoirs. These units focus on critical literacy skills, including reading diverse content, understanding texts as reflections of culture, and finding bias in fiction and nonfiction.Grade 4

Part I
Introduction and Using the CLEAR Curriculum Units

DOI: 10.4324/9781003235194-1

Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003235194-2

As researchers at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, we recently completed a 6-year study of the effectiveness of two units based on the CLEAR Curriculum Model. The CLEAR (Challenge Leading to Engagement, Achievement, and Results) Curriculum Model incorporates elements from three widely-used, research-based models in gifted education—differentiation, depth and complexity, and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model—by Carol Tomlinson, Sandra Kaplan, and Joseph Renzulli, respectively. The CLEAR Curriculum Model addresses the recognition by leaders in the field that the heart of effective programming for gifted education services lies in the development and the implementation of curricula and instructional strategies that will challenge and enhance learning outcomes for high-ability learners.

The CLEAR Curriculum Model is comprised of five foundational elements:

1. continual formative assessment,
2. clear learning goals,
3. data-driven learning experiences,
4. authentic products, and
5. rich curriculum.

These elements are integrated into a curricular framework that reflects both the language arts Common Core State Standards and the National Association for Gifted Children Pre-K to Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards. This integration ensures layers of challenge, opportunities for more in-depth study, and the production of authentic work resembling that of professionals within a discipline.

Teachers who participated in our study implemented two language arts units, one in poetry and one in research, in their third-grade gifted classrooms. The poetry unit, "The Magic of Everyday Things," received the 2012 Curriculum Award from the National Association of Gifted Children. As researchers for the study, we visited more than 100 classrooms across the country and interviewed more than 100 teachers who implemented the CLEAR units. We observed their teaching, their interactions with the curriculum, and student engagement. We also analyzed student achievement data, which indicated that the CLEAR Curriculum works! That is, students who were exposed to the units outperformed peers in gifted classrooms who did not have access to the curriculum.

We also listened to our participating teachers throughout the study. These teachers reported not only that students thrived during the poetry and research units but also that they—the teachers—learned a great deal about best practices in the field of gifted education. Teachers shared that for the first time they finally understood how to differentiate instruction for their students. Buzz phrases like "authentic products" and "formative assessments" came to life, providing a unique source of professional development for teachers whose endorsement credentials vary from state to state. Because no other available curriculum integrates the most popular models of gifted instruction in a way that the CLEAR Curriculum does, these teacher reports provide extraordinary testimony.

Finally, we worked with gifted coordinators who shared their frustrations about the loss of personnel and professional development opportunities vital to the livelihoods of their gifted education programs in the context of a tough economic climate that devalues gifted education programs and the students served in them. We heard their expressed appreciation for the opportunities for professional development embedded within the poetry and research units themselves.

Throughout our research, we fielded countless e-mails and telephone calls from our participating teachers, their principals, and district coordinators and, resoundingly, they asked: Where can we get more?

This three-part series answers that question.

CLEAR CURRICULUM UNITS FOR GIFTED STUDENTS (GRADES 3-5)

The CLEAR Curriculum Units for Gifted Students (grades 3-5) offer two units per grade level for a total of six distinct units based on the CLEAR Curriculum Model. All units put theory into practice and provide teachers with research-based curricula. What's more is that these units are based on a tested model that has been shown to work. For more on their effectiveness, see an article in the American Educational Research Journal, in which Callahan, Moon, Oh, Azano, and Hailey (2015) presented the achievement data documenting the success of the poetry (grade 3) and research (grade 5) units for students exposed to them.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

Each book in the series contains two grade-level appropriate language arts units based on the CLEAR Curriculum Model, including the award-winning and empirically supported poetry and research units. Each unit incorporates best practices from the field of gifted education while promoting critical literacy skills for the gifted student. Although each book can stand alone, the units are also vertically aligned so that a student advancing through all three grades can encounter innovative and challenging language arts lessons that have clear scope and sequence of learning outcomes that extend the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Let us tell you more about the CLEAR Curriculum Model.

THE CLEAR CURRICULUM MODEL

The CLEAR Curriculum Model is a synthesis of fundamental and compatible curricular features from (a) the Differentiated Instruction Model (Tomlinson, 1995,1999), (b) the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM; Renzulli & Reis, 1985, 2001); and (c) the Depth and Complexity Model (Kaplan, 2005). The CLEAR Curriculum Model was developed as part of a Jacob K. Javits research grant authored by Carolyn M. Callahan, Tonya R. Moon, Holly Hertberg-Davis, and Catherine M. Brighton.

The Differentiated Instruction Model (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999) aims to address the diverse learning needs of students across differing ability levels, interests, and learning profiles. Its success is grounded in modifying three key elements of curriculum—content, process, and product—based on variations in student learning characteristics. As such, differentiation is a flexible instructional model for a broad range of students, including those who are gifted, based on the incorporation of a variety of both curricular and instructional arrangements. Several concepts from differentiation, as conceptualized in Tomlinson's model, lie at the heart of the CLEAR Curriculum Model. For example, the use of continual formative assessments supports teachers in differentiating the academic experiences included in the curriculum and aids teachers in acting on their recognition that gifted students learn and express learning in unique and diverse ways. More specifically, the continual formative assessments provide valuable feedback, or data, to teachers about individual student readiness and inform "next steps" instruction for diverse gifted learners. Thus, the data derived from continual formative assessments allow for tailoring of the curriculum to each student.

Differentiation is also evident in the flexible grouping arrangements provided in the CLEAR units. The use of flexible grouping arrangements facilitates matching the pace of learning, degree of challenge and interests of students to instructional tasks, and allows students to create individualized products that reflect their learning (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999). Whole-group, small-group, and independent activities simultaneously build community and foster autonomy.

The SEM (see Renzulli & Reis, 1985, 2001) represents one of the most important contributions to the field of gifted education, and SEM has been adopted by many school districts across the county. At its core, SEM stresses the creative process and encourages academic experiences that mirror the work of "real-world" professionals. SEM promotes student engagement through the use of three types of enrichment experiences, which include (a) exposure to extensions of traditional content within the context of its use by real-world professionals (Type I learning experiences), (b) development of process skills that are applied to solving real problems (Type II learning experiences), and (c) investigations of topics and/or creation of products that reflect in-depth investigations into solving real problems in areas of student interest and ability (Type III learning experiences). The feature of SEM that is differentiated at the highest tier is student choice of independent topics for investigation, where students can engage in meaningful learning within the context of real problems in a field and create products demonstrating the skills of an expert in that field. The elements of student choice and authentic investigation are evident throughout the CLEAR units.

The underlying principles of the Depth and Complexity Model (Kaplan, 2005) characterize the CLEAR units and contribute to building layers of challenge and meaning for students. Depth and Complexity employs standards based curriculum as the basis for promoting academic rigor. The model develops advanced levels of understanding by integrating elements of depth and complexity. To provide depth, CLEAR units focus on big ideas, language of the discipline, details, and patterns, and then those concepts are coupled with a focus on complexity, including multiple perspectives, interdisciplinary connections, and ethical issues (Kaplan, 2005). The dimension of complexity affords teachers and students multiple opportunities to think deeply about the content and identify associations and relationships that exist within, between, and among areas of study. Accordingly, the CLEAR units are designed to ensure that students recognize that big ideas and principles are rarely simple. Using these elements of the model also allows for the development of critical literacy skills, as students learn how to "read" bias—their own and others.

FIGURE 1. THE CLEAR CURRICULUM MODEL.

Based on the compatible theoretical underpinnings of Tomlinson's, Kaplan's, and Renzulli's curriculum models, as well as principles of exemplary curriculum development in general, the units reflect five foundational elements (see Figure 1) evident throughout all of the CLEAR units.

CONTINUAL FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

The CLEAR units use formative assessments throughout to provide valuable feedback about students to teachers. Formative assessments serve as a guide to planning instruction with student responses to the assessments informing subsequent instruction. Each unit includes both the formative assessment tool as well as thorough instruction on how assessment data from that tool can be used to differentiate lessons. Use of formative assessment in this manner allows teacher flexibility with the curriculum, thus allowing the instruction to meet students where they are in terms of readiness, interests, and learning profiles. Exit cards, journal entries, and multiple choice responses are examples of formative assessments provided to teachers throughout the units. Figure 2 is an example of an exit card used in the fifth-grade research unit.

CLEAR LEARNING GOALS

The units In this series have clear learning goals consistent with the Pre-K to G...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: Introduction and Using the CLEAR Curriculum Units
• Part II: Unit Plans
• References
• Appendices: Unit Resources
• About the Authors
• Common Core State Standards Alignment