Thinkquiry Toolkit 1

Reading and Vocabulary Strategies for College and Career Readiness

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• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781119127772
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

Essential, easy-to-implement tools for teachers to help improve literacy across the content areas, as mandated by the CCSS

Thinkquiry Toolkit 1, Second Edition, is a collection of teacher instructional practices, student learning strategies, and collaborative routines that improves reading comprehension and vocabulary learning in grades 4 through 12. Each practice, strategy, or routine is research-based, high impact, multi-purpose and effective in improving student learning across multiple content areas. It addresses the importance of the ability to read, write, speak, listen, and think well enough to learn whatever one wants to learn, to demonstrate that learning, and to transfer that learning to new situations. Thinkquiry Toolkit 1 iscomprised of five sections:

• Overview of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy and the related instructional shifts
• Selecting the Right Tools for Maximum Learning
• Laying the Foundation Before Reading/Learning
• Building New Knowledge During Reading/Learning, and
• Expanding and Deepening Understanding After Reading/Learning

If teachers collaboratively use these practices, strategies, and routines; teach them to students; and use them regularly across content areas, students will develop confidence and competence as readers, writers, and learners.

A division of Public Consulting Group (PCG), PCG Education provides instructional and management services and technologies to schools, school districts, and state education agencies across the U.S. and internationally. They apply more than 30 years of management consulting expertise and extensive real-world experience as teachers and leaders to strengthen clients' instructional practice and organizational leadership, enabling student success.

Part 1
Overview of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy and the Related Instructional Shifts

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS ELA & Literacy or “the standards”) have been widely adopted or adapted in the majority of states across the country. This research-based set of standards raises the bar for what students will learn in each grade and sets the expectation that all students can and will achieve college and career readiness. As schools and districts begin to align curriculum and instruction with the CCSS ELA & Literacy, they review and reconsider the instructional activities, tools, protocols, and materials they currently use. In this same spirit, we revisited the tools, strategies, and instructional approaches in Thinkquiry Toolkit 1 to confirm its alignment with the rigor of the CCSS ELA & Literacy and its accompanying instructional shifts. This trusted collection of high-quality, research-affirmed strategies, tools, and approaches continues to be a valuable resource for teaching and learning in the Common Core era both for current users of Thinkquiry Toolkit 1 and for those who are seeing it for the first time. This new section of Thinkquiry Toolkit 1 describes the instructional shifts required by the CCSS and connects them to the Thinkquiry strategies, tools, and approaches.

In this section, we provide an overview of the instructional shifts as well as what they mean for teachers, students, and instruction. Understanding the instructional shifts will help you most effectively choose the right Thinkquiry tools.

Introduction to the CCSS ELA & Literacy

The CCSS ELA & Literacy is a clear set of college and career-ready standards for kindergarten through twelfth grade. Published in 2010, the standards were developed under the auspices of state education chiefs and governors in 48 states; teachers, parents, school administrators, and experts from across the country provided input into the development of the standards. The standards are based on research and evidence and are built on the strengths of previous state standards. They are “based on rigorous content and the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills” (Common Core State Standard Initiative, 2015c). The intent of this new set of high standards was to provide consistent, clear expectations across the states and to ensure that all students would have the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in college and career.

Thirty-two College and Career Readiness anchor standards (CCRA) form the basis for all of the standards. They are organized in four domains: Reading (10), Writing (10), Speaking & Listening (6), and Language (6). Grades K–5 also include a set of standards for Reading Foundational Skills. At each grade level (elementary) and grade band (secondary), a detailed set of standards is built backward from these anchor standards. Reading standards are further divided into Reading for Literature and Reading for Informational Text. Additionally, the Reading standards (informational only) and Writing standards are made more specific for history/social studies, science, and technical subjects.

Each domain of the standards contains clusters of standards with a similar focus.

Reading

1. Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas, and Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

Writing

1. Text Types and Purposes, Production and Distribution of Writing, Research to Build and Present Knowledge, and Range of Writing

Speaking & Listening

1. Comprehension and Collaboration, and Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

Language

1. Conventions of Standard English, Knowledge of Language, and Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

Not only is each grade-level standard built on the one in the grade before it, the standards within and across domains relate to and integrate with one another. For example, the Language standard L.3 explicitly states, “Students will use their knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.” This integration appears throughout all of the standards, emphasizing the reciprocal relationships among the domains.

The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, but they do not dictate how to teach the skills and content. These rigorous standards represent a challenge not only for students but for teachers as well. Teachers need support to help students achieve this new, high set of standards and be able to read, discuss, and write about increasingly complex texts. Thinkquiry's strategies, routines, and practices are tools teachers will use to scaffold students toward independence and success in the standards.

Instructional Shifts Required by the CCSS ELA & Literacy

The CCSS ELA & Literacy require shifts in curriculum and instruction from teaching to earlier standards. These changes comprise three instructional shifts:

1. Regular practice with complex text and its academic language
2. Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational
3. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

These shifts are closely related, contain overlapping elements, and have sometimes been stated as six, eight, or even ten “shifts.” The three previous statements are the most common ways in which the shifts are characterized; they serve as a useful foundation for discussing the changes teachers and students must make in order to achieve college and career readiness in literacy.

Instructional Shift 1: Regular Practice with Complex Text and Its Academic Language

The CCSS ELA & Literacy set an expectation that students will be able to read and comprehend increasingly complex texts as they progress through the grades. Text complexity refers to the comprehension challenge of a text; complexity is measured both quantitatively and qualitatively. The more challenging and sophisticated a text is, the greater its complexity. The CCSS create a staircase of increasing text complexity so that students are expected to both develop their skills and apply them to more and more complex texts (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2015b). Previous standards increased the level of literacy tasks from grade to grade but did not weigh in on text complexity at each grade. As a result, students often ended their high school grades reading texts that were below the level of complexity they were expected to read in college and career. The authors of the CCSS ELA & Literacy sought to remedy this gap by setting grade-level expectations for text complexity.

One of the factors that most influences text complexity is the text's academic language and vocabulary. In order to comprehend more complex texts students must be able to understand the vocabulary in the text and negotiate the overall structure of the text, its paragraphs, and its sentences. Of particular concern is academic vocabulary—sophisticated words that relate to specific disciplines and words that appear in multiple contexts but may not be familiar in everyday speech. Students whose vocabulary is limited will also be limited in understanding increasingly complex texts. Therefore, the standards are clear in their expectations that teachers will guide students in learning high-utility vocabulary, including knowing how to define words by using clues in the context in which they appear. This emphasis on vocabulary, while always implicit in ELA & Literacy standards, has been made explicit in the CCSS ELA & Literacy.

The need to increase text complexity at K–12, and the close relationship between text complexity and academic language, explains why Instructional Shift 1, Regular Practice with Complex Text and Its Academic Language, is so important. Thinkquiry strategies, practices, and routines help students acquire and use academic vocabulary as well as organize, navigate, and comprehend complex text.

A more detailed discussion of text complexity and academic vocabulary appears later in this section.

Instructional Shift 2: Reading, Writing, and Speaking Grounded in Evidence from Text, Both Literary and Informational

The CCSS ELA & Literacy focus strongly on the role of evidence-based responses. Previous standards did not emphasize the use of textual evidence, and teachers often encouraged students to draw from their own experiences or feelings rather than from the texts. However, beginning in the earliest grades, the Reading, Writing, and Speaking & Listening standards set an expectation that students will collect evidence from texts and deploy it skillfully to support their writing and discussions. This emphasis prepares students for the demands of college and career, where much of the writing and presentation requires students to take a position or inform others while citing evidence, rather than personal opinion.

This shift has become associated with the practice of close reading: “Close analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately” (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 2015). Aligning instruction with the CCSS requires teachers to create carefully sequenced series of text-dependent questions and tasks, scaffolding students toward deeper understanding of texts. Students further deepen their knowledge and understanding through structured, evidence-based discussions. As a result, students spend more time reading and learning from text and, in doing so, their ability to read and learn from text increases.

Related to this shift is a change in the focus of writing as well. Whereas many writing curricula emphasize narrative writing, the CCSS ELA & Literacy place a strong emphasis on argument and explanation, both of which require textual evidence to be effective. In writing, this shift places an increased focus on the informative and argument genres, using textual evidence to inform written claims. Finally, the speaking portion of this shift focuses on rich student discussions that are grounded in text-based understandings.

Instructional Shift 2 asks teachers to consider carefully how they ask students to think about and respond to text. This requires them to take notes, summarize, and organize information from the text. It requires students to build the skills and stamina for reading closely, rereading, and determining the explicit and inferred meanings in text. Students learn to annotate text, examining both the details and the big picture, and make connections b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About PCG Education
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1: Overview of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy and the Related Instructional Shifts
• Part 2: Selecting the Right Tools for Maximum Learning
• Part 3: Laying the Foundation before Reading/Learning
• Part 4: Building New Knowledge during Reading/Learning
• Part 5: Expanding and Deepening Understanding after Reading/Learning
• References
• Additional Resources
• End User License Agreement