THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE

THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS: SHIFTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ELA INSTRUCTION Webinar for CCSSO April 12, 2012 Meredith and David Liben dliben@studentsachieve. net mliben@studentsachieve. net www. studentsachieve. org

Students who struggle greatly to read texts within (or even below) their text complexity grade band must be given the support needed to enable them to read at a grade-appropriate level of complexity. Even many students on course for college and career readiness are likely to need scaffolding as they master higher levels of text complexity. From Appendix A, p. 9 CCSS - ELA

NEED TO MAKE THREE TIGHTLY INTERRELATED INSTRUCTIONAL SHIFTS 1. Regular practice for all students with complex text and its academic vocabulary 2. Reading and writing (speaking and listening) grounded in evidence from text 3. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction and informational texts GETTING STARTED ON THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS for LANGUAGE ARTS 3

Why the CCSS Emphasis on Complexity? • “Between the Lines” ACT 2006 Study • Complexity Gap between 12 th grade and college and career demands • 6 th Grade Mc. Guffey Reader circa 1961 was more difficult than average high school anthology is now • Too many students never get to complex text GETTING STARTED ON THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS for ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 4

WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF COMPLEX TEXT? Subtle and/or frequent transitions Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes Density of information Unfamiliar settings, topics or events Lack of repetition, overlap, or similarity in words and sentences Complex sentences Uncommon vocabulary Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student • Longer paragraphs • Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures • •

FEATURES CANNOT BE BROKEN DOWN AND SEQUENCED • • • Complex text can contain any possible combination of these features • • Can’t possibly isolate these or control for these features in a scope and sequence or traditional skill based approach • • Where does that leave you? • • Subtle and/or frequent transitions Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes Density of information Unfamiliar settings, topics or events Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences Complex sentences Uncommon vocabulary Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student Longer paragraphs Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes genres

COMPLEX TEXT • To teach students how to read complex text we need to use complex text. • With extensive support! • Doing so will align with the standards in a number of ways

CLOSE READING OF COMPLEX TEXT • Each question supports multiple standards • Each lesson addresses many of the standards • The CCSS are written so that reading, writing, listening and speaking are inextricably linked. • Tom Sawyer example • Full exemplar and others can be found at www. achievethecore. org

But Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work— the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration. – (straitened: severely limited) Question: Describe Tom’s state of mind prior to his inspiration. Work together to find as many phrases as possible that point to his mood.

CLOSE READING ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH • Need to look carefully at fluency program at every grade level. • Need to look carefully at how vocabulary and word study are taught • Need to look carefully at syntax • All of these aspects need to be carefully attended to if the achievement gap is to be reduced rather than enlarged by the advent of the CCSS for ELA.