Purpose Anyone?

When dissecting Common Core, I am constantly grappling with what I think I know vs. what is really truth vs. what the authors’ intend for us to do. While some ideas are clearly articulated, expanded upon, and delineated with examples, others are not. One such area is the idea of author’s purpose. If you actually search those words within the Common Core standards, it will come up blank. However, throughout the primary grades, there is a consistent reference to the author’s main purpose or reasons. I am currently examining CCSS-Literacy.RI.2.6, which states that students should be able to do the following:

Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

This sounds simple enough, but my quandary lies within this – when we think about author’s purpose, we usually do not quarantine it to one genre. Generally, when broaching author’s purpose, teachers think of PIE – persuade, inform, and entertain. I also like to add in describe. However, these categories do not all work well for informational text. The terms specified in Common Core are DEA – describe, explain, or answer. Describe for expository text would be very different from describe for poetry or how an author may use a description to paint an image of scenery. The nuances within these three terms are difficult to separate. Let’s say a text was procedural, such as How to Build a Duct Tape Wallet. One could justify that the author is describing how to make the wallet. On the other hand, this procedure, while being descriptive, is also an explanation. But why did the author write this text? One could easily say to answer the question of how to make a wallet. Even in the dictionary, describe is defined as “to explain something.” So why the three different terms? Was it to be all-inclusive because in the bigger picture, students need to understanding that informational text is to inform, and DEA are three ways of teaching the reading? And what about the other reasons author’s write outside of the informational world? Why has that been left off completely?

When I searched the internet to see what other people determined, it seems the consensus is to continue making it as easy as PIE. Continue to examine narratives, poetry, and informational text for author’s purpose. However, within informational, be specific on what exactly is being taught. Perhaps we could use an organizer like the one below to think about the structure of author’s purpose:

When thinking about the purpose of Common Core, it has been made clear by the authors that there is an increased focus on critical thinking and informational text. I believe the point of the authors’ with standard RI.2.6 was to ensure that students think critically about the point of what they are reading so that they read accordingly. From my perspective, in order for students to think critically, they must also understand why author’s write any specific type of text, and through that lens, will be able to think about the organization to increase comprehension across the genres. So while author’s purpose does not make as clear of an appearance in literature, students must understand the difference between genres, and therefore understand the differences among why authors write, thereby, empowering themselves as writers to decide upon their purpose and structure their writing to that end.

Thinking about Key Details

As the first cluster of standards for both literature and informational text fall under the umbrella of key ideas and details, it is clear that they are important concepts. But what exactly are the key details students should adhere to? In literature, the elements of narratives are delineated for primary grades, along with questioning. However, aren’t the details students need to highlight relative to the task? If students are trying to unpack the characters, then perhaps the most significant details would be different from those that depict the setting. And while significant plot points should reveal elements of the character, they may not give a complete picture. This got me thinking about how to teach key details so that we understand the gist of what we read, but also have clarity in dissecting different elements of what we read. Although the standards do not mention minor details, students must also be able to distinguish between the details that represent the crux of what they are examining and the cursory details that enhance the story. Perhaps we can examine stories with a whole-part-whole approach. What are the key details that disclose the plot? What details illuminate the characters? What details paint the setting? Which details support the theme? Were these details related to the plot, characters, setting, or all? Can we pull from those key details to determine the theme? Which details are key to answering text-dependent questions? Perhaps through our process of close reading, we can read for each purpose, map out the important details for each area, and then analyze how they cross over. Perhaps then, we could all develop more clarity! Below is an idea of how to organize a class chart examining these different elements. Of course, there are still key details to think about for informational text, but I will save that for another day!

Examining Key Details

Title of Story:

Focus	Plot/Events	Setting	Characters	Theme	Questions
Key Details

Understanding Genre

Common Core explicitly outlines different, yet overlapping standards for both literature and informational text. This is a significant change in focus, demanding us to evaluate how the two differ, how they overlap, and what types of text we are being called to use. The literature standards within Common Core relate to fictional works. Traditionally, we have spent a heavy emphasis on narrative stories. However, the multiple standards explicitly outline the use of poetry . The focus of using complex text allows us to open the doors to a variety of literature that will demand students to inspect the content and structure in depth. Fictional literature may include narratives, poems, letters, dramas, plays, and essays. Literature that is nonfiction is addressed in the informational text standards, and may include biographies, recipes, how-to books, facts books and so forth. Artwork and illustrations should also be examined as they can reveal information or a story.

Therefore, while we are teaching standards for literature and informational text that mirror each other, we must also be cognizant of strategically teaching the genres as they require different mindsets for reading. As shown in the table below, these genres have different text structures and features, which overlap and need to be made explicit for students. Although the literature and informational text standards are similar in many ways, the way students approach reading should depend on the type of text they are reading. A narrative is a story. A poem is a written piece with a sense of musicality and entrenched with literary devices. Dramas and plays involve conflict and are created with a performance in mind. Expository text tells information. Generally the primary purpose of a narrative is to entertain, the purpose of poetry is to describe, the purpose of a drama or play is to entertain, and the primary purpose of expository is to inform. Therefore, it is critical that educators explicitly teach students how to identify the genre they are reading and keep track of information based on that text’s structures and features.

Analysis of Genres

Genre	Literature: Narratives	Literature: Poetry	Literature: Drama/Plays	Informational Text: Expository
Definition	Story	A piece written with a sense of musicality	A story that is intended for performing that focuses on character dialogue & conflict	Non-fiction, informational text used to explain, describe, or inform
General Author’s Purpose	Entertain	Describe	Entertain	Inform
Structure	Beginning, Middle, End Paragraphs	Stanzas Can take on a shape	Beginning, Middle, End Dialogue	Description Sequence Compare/Contrast Cause/Effect Question/Answer Paragraphs
Features	Story Elements	Line Breaks, White Space	Story Elements	Topic & Supporting Details
Descriptive Literary Tools	Poetry features literary tools, however, they can be used in all types of Fictional Literature. These tools include rhythm, rhyme, repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, sensory images etc			Generally not used

Why Change?

Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context of the reading situation. (Michigan State Board of Education, 2002)

When you reflect upon your childhood reading instruction, what stands out? Was it memorable? Exciting? Meaningful? Did you love to read and devour books? Did you know how to grapple with difficult text? Did anyone show you how to get deeper into the text? Did you spend time exploring the depth and wonders of stories? Unfortunately for me, the answer to all these questions was no. I don’t recall reading being challenging or purposeful beyond the task at hand. I remember independent reading tasks where we plowed our way through the SRA leveled text box. We started at a specific color of story, read the stories and answered the questions, and when we got enough right, then we moved on to the next color. This was of course self-corrected with an answer key, self-monitored, and self-reported. I remember getting stuck on brown, and being frustrated that I was on a level while others were passing me. I also remember eventually cheating to move on. I didn’t have the comprehension strategies to help me when things got tough, but I did have an answer key. I also remember that we did have reading groups, and I was stuck in the middle one and couldn’t get out. I always felt I belonged in the highest group, but didn’t have a way of moving.

I am sharing this story because I often hear people lament about change. “Why do we need to change education? It worked for me.” And while yes, I am technically a success story because I did stay in school and become an educator myself, I disliked school growing up. I loved my teachers, but counted down the years until I would be finished. Ironically, I have now learned that I will never be finished. Now I do love learning, but when I was a child, school was not about learning, but rather about finishing. I was not a critical thinker, and it was not demanded of me. If I regurgitated what was taught, then I was awarded good grades. I never thought about reading comprehension until I became a teacher. Reading is so internal, it is just what you do, or so I thought.

So much research has come out about reading in the past 20 years, which has often been lost in implementation in the last 10 years due to scripted lessons. Many teachers across America have been forced into following set programs in published textbooks, rather than examining the needs of the students in their classrooms. These texts, such as Open Court, give little time to differentiation, reading aloud, or access to higher level texts. Instead of student learning being the focus of each reading lesson, the script created by someone far outside the classroom dictates what should be taught. Clearly this is counterintuitive to what teaching should be. The strongest supported reading program by the government, Reading First, is another example of a highly scripted program. These types of programs were developed based on the recommendations of a highly researched based practices found in the National Reading Panel’s (NRP) Report from 2000. Scripted lessons became the result of the NRP, although many flaws have since emerged from the summary of the findings within the report (Yearian, 2011). Since implementation of Reading First in thousands of classrooms, it has been found that while phonics skills improved, comprehension did not. (Gamse et al., 2008).

With the adoption of Common Core Standards, there is a much needed refocusing back on reading comprehension. Teachers are encouraged to examine their students’ needs within school sites and develop instruction that will be most meaningful for those students. For many teachers, this will be a huge shift from the current culture and practices within their schools and districts. While you may or may not agree with how Common Core came about, and how it was written, it seems to me that some change could really do us good.

References

Gamse, B.C., Jacob, R.T, Horst, M., Boulay, B., and Unlu, F. (2008). Reading First Impact Study Final Report Executive Summary (NCEE 2009-4139). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Yearian, S. J. (2011). Empowerment of Teachers and Students through Innovative Literacy Practices. (Doctoral Dissertation) Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (Accession Order No. AAT 3474300).

Perception and the Truth

Many credit Lee Atwater with the quote, “Perception is reality.” And when viewing your own life, does this not ring true? One would never consider a turtle to be a speedy creature, but then again, that depends on who is doing the considering.

Perspectives have much to do with experiences, schema, and interpretation. Author’s bring their own unique perspectives to the texts they write. They select what they will reveal to the reader explicitly and implicitly, how the text will be organized, and how their point of view will be carried out. Often the author’s own ideas begin as incomplete thoughts, twisting and turning through the process of writing, changing and evolving until they come out the other side into a cohesive whole. At times, the characters of novels reveal themselves to the authors through the storytelling, and take on a life of their own, and yet, the author still has command over what will be revealed through the character’s dialogue, actions, and thoughts. Despite all this control, readers develop their own interpretation based upon the evidence within the text, but also their own personal perspectives. Other experiences with texts, the world, and other people affect how they view what the author reveals. Therefore, readers apply their own connections to develop their own perspective, but must also examine the evidence within the text to understand what the author directly reveals as well as infer to gain meaning from underlying messages, ideas, and themes.

Common Core emphasizes the importance of point of view, devoting standard six for Reading Literature and Informational Text to this concept. Why is it so significant? Understanding the role of point of view allows the reader to think critically about a piece. What are the author’s motives and purposes in writing a text? What context or historical background does the author emerge from? How does this affect the portrayal of events? Readers must understand the effects of their own perceptions and the author’s point of view in order to get at the truth of what they are reading. Even then, that gets us to a deeper question – what is the truth?

Thank a Teacher!

It’s that time of year again, when everyone can smell the freedom of summer. The students begin to get antsy, and teachers stress and work intensively to make it to the end zone. I always feel like it should be an easy slide home, but it always proves to be just as hectic as the beginning of the year. Now is the time to thank teachers for their hard work. I have heard complaints before about how other jobs do not get the same type of accolades, so why should teachers? My response is as follows:

People deserve and perform better through positive recognition of their efforts and work. It’s amazing how far a few kind words and a token of gratitude can go. All people who show exemplary dedication to their work deserve this recognition. This includes mothers  and fathers (who yes, get a different day), and employees in all different fields. So why do I celebrate my son’s teachers? They are the ones who take care of him when I am not there. They give him the support he needs to grow and flourish, teach him lessons about life, and are an integral part of his experiences. A good teacher can have a profound effect on a child. With the proper guidance from both school and home, my son will develop solid foundations as he grows up. His teachers are my partners, parenting from a different perspective.

As a teacher, I know how much of myself goes into my students. It is not just about reading, math, and writing. There are daily lessons about becoming caring human beings, about demonstrating tolerance and love, and about dealing with difficulties and conflicts. Teaching is not just about improving the minds of America’s tomorrow. Tightly woven within the job is supporting impressionable young scholars’ social, emotional, and mental well-being. It is both exhausting to worry about 30+ students, and exhilarating to see their successes.

My son and I made this craft to give his teacher, but also a heartfelt personal note from me along with a gift. I wrote the poem thinking about what his teachers have done for him this year. First we traced his hands on a piece of construction paper and I added a heart. Then I cut out the hands and saved them for later. We used a sponge to paint pink and white to cover a white piece of construction paper. Then I put the cut out hands and heart on top of the page and we sponge painted with purple on top. When we were finished, we just peeled off the hands. After it dried, I glued down the poem and a picture of my son. This page went into a class book along with a page of his drawings.

The notes I get from students and parents help carry me through the rough times. They remain special even as they have moved on in their lives. I encourage you to take some time to think about your child’s teacher from this year. What has that teacher uniquely done that has made a difference for your child?

What is Number Sense?

Early in my teaching, I was able to identify when students struggled with numbers. I didn’t have the sophistication or necessary tools to pinpoint exactly where the problem originated, or the gaps that needed filling, but it was glaringly obvious as children dragged their way through math, seeming to fall further behind daily, that something was not right. Because I didn’t have the understanding of mathematics and how children think, my only support for these children was grasping at straws. More practice and more games didn’t improve their number sense, but made the parents, children, and me feel like were trying, and perhaps making some marginal improvement.

Over the years, I have had conversations with many teachers about number sense and place value. What does it mean? What does it look like? What can children do and say when they understand numbers? What do we do when children struggle with numbers? As it turns out, this is a complex topic, that many feel ill-equipped to answer, and researchers struggle to find a common definition. Many teachers rely on the place value skills enumerated in textbooks and older standards. But, does that really mean a child understands numbers? If you teach a child how to compare, order, and round numbers, does this mean they have mastered number sense?

There are a variety of definitions of number sense in the field of mathematics. NCTM (2012) defines number sense as follows:

“Number sense refers to a person’s general understanding of number and operations along with the ability to use this understanding in flexible ways to make mathematical judgments and to develop useful strategies for solving complex problems (Burton, 1993; Reys, 1991). Researchers note that number sense develops gradually, and varies as a result of exploring numbers, visualizing them in a variety of contexts, and relating them in ways that are not limited by traditional algorithms (Howden, 1989).”

McInstosh, Reys, and Reys (1992) defined number sense as “a propensity for and ability to use numbers and quantitative methods as a means of communicating, processing and interpreting information. It results in an expectation that numbers are useful and that mathematics has a certain regularity (makes sense).” They further delineated their definition with the clear framework detailing number sense below, with the understanding that overlap occurs.

Number Sense

Key Components	Student Understandings
Knowledge and facility of numbers	A sense of orderliness of numbers (place value,and relationships and ordering between and among number types)Multiple representations for numbers (symbolic, equivalencies, decomposing, and comparisons) Sense of relative and absolute magnitude of numbers (comparing to physical and mathematical referent) System of benchmarks (mathematical and personal)
Knowledge and facility with operations	The effect of operations (whole numbers, fractions, decimals)Mathematical properties Relationship between operations
Applying knowledge of and facility with numbers and operations to computational settings	Relationship between problem context and computation (exact vs. approximate)Awareness that multiple strategies exist (invent, apply, and select strategies, determining efficiency) Inclination to utilize an efficient representation and/or method Inclination to review data and result for sensibility (reasonableness)

Framework for Number Sense (McIntosh et al. 1992)

McIntosh et al. make it clear that number sense is not just about knowing what to do, but rather, must be entrenched in what makes sense. Thinking must be involved at all levels of working with numbers, and therefore, numbers and procedures cannot be taught in isolation. This framework very much supports the goals of Common Core.

The goals within Common Core, NCTM, and McInstosh et al. are further supported by the goals of mathematical proficiency as defined by The National Research Council. The Council determined five interwoven and interdependent strands of mathematical proficiency. In their report, Adding It Up Helping Children Learn Mathematics (2001), they clarify the importance of depth, clarity, precision, flexibility, and reflection in student thinking as delineated by the strands below:

• conceptual understanding—comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations
• procedural fluency—skill in carrying out procedures
 flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately
• strategic competence—ability to formulate, represent, and solve mathematical problems
• adaptive reasoning—capacity for logical thought, reflection, explanation, and justification
• productive disposition—habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy.

If we reflect upon how number sense is defined, then what does number sense look like? Students with strong number sense can subitize easily, understand magnitude (relative size of numbers), have established cardinality, can strategically decompose (break down numbers) to make computation easier, understand the importance of ten within our number system, understand number relationships, and have proportional reasoning. They determine the efficiency of their strategies, the reasonableness of their answers, and understand the application and context within which operations are used. These concepts cannot be taught in one lesson or unit. They are ongoing experiences students need as part of their math education throughout the grade levels. When students emerge from classrooms focused on these concepts, they come to understand that math is about relationships, not memorization, and flexibility rather than rigid rules.

Therefore, number sense entails far more than the traditional chapter on place value. Proficiency cannot be measured by a skill set, or regurgitation of memorized procedures and rules. Students need dynamic experiences with numbers. They need to be able to dive into the depth of numbers, explore their uses, their flexibility, their application, their differences, their nuances, and their reason. And, while numbers are both abstract and concrete, they need to be seen as something that makes sense. Ultimately, learning mathematics must be with understanding. When we present math as a series of rules and explain to children how to follow a procedure step-by-step, we have actually robbed them of the opportunity to develop both number sense and mathematical proficiency. As this is how our system is designed, many children receive passing grades throughout school, only to falter later on, finding there is no solid foundation to support more advanced mathematics.  Common Core is calling us to change our practices so that children emerge from the classroom as mathematical thinkers that demonstrate the ability to adapt to the ever-changing world awaiting them, rather than as mini-calculators with an isolated set of memorized skills.

Kilpatrick, J., Swafford, J., & Findell, B. (2001). Adding it up : helping children learn mathematics / Mathematics Learning Study Committee, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council ; Jeremy Kilpatrick, Jane Swafford, and Bradford Findell, editors. Washington, DC : National Academy Press, c2001.

Mcintosh, A., Reys, B. J., & Reys, R. E. (1992). A Proposed Framework for Examining Basic Number Sense. For The Learning Of Mathematics, (3), 2.

NCTM (2012). Illuminations. Cited on December 30, 2012 from http://illuminations.nctm.org/Reflections_preK-2.html.

Unless…

“I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” – The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

I have been thinking about the Lorax a lot lately. It is my son’s current favorite movie, and while he enjoys the music and finds humor throughout, I find myself mulling around the inherent messages of the movie (and the book) and how it could be used in the classroom. I love the complexity of the Once-ler in the movie.  As we watch the film, my son wonders if the Once-ler is bad. In the book, that seems a little more clear cut, but the movie offers background information of the Once-ler as a dreamer, a victim of his family, and one who endures despite the odds. However, he does indeed become “bad” as he become engulfed in the greed of money. Through contrition he sees redemption. We are also offered the comparison character of Mr. O’Hare, who creates an entire city deprived of the most essential element of life, air, so that he can profit. How do we define evil? When does someone cross the line? Can someone be both good and evil? How would you characterize the Once-ler in the movie vs. the book? Why do these perspectives vary? One of the greatest goals of Common Core is to get students to think deeply and analyze from multiple perspectives. Why not use movies to support this goal? I am not saying most lessons should entail film clips, but they are an engaging way of drawing students into the world of cognition. And, while we need to consider complex texts, the use of the arts (including paintings and music) can be equally intriguing. It seems to me that the appeal of the movie could work at multiple levels.

“Which way does a tree fall? A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.”
– The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

“Are they sad?” This is the question my three-year old consistently asks as the animals and the Lorax mourn the loss of the tree that the Once-ler just cut down. Although he can’t articulate how he knows they are sad, older students (such as first and second graders) can. As the Once-ler hums along pulling the tufts off the tree, lying about his acts, it is clear that he feels very differently than the animals. What clues do we see and hear that tell us how the different characters feel about the first Truffula Tree being cut down? (Text-dependent question) How and why do their points of view vary? (Understanding Point of View RL 6) How does your point of view of an event affect how you behave? (Big Idea Question) In the movie, the dialogue, music, and words used to convey their thoughts reveal how each character feels. This small five-minute clip could easily be viewed several times to analyze these questions from multiple perspectives. (Close Reading)

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Contemplate this quote for a moment. What do you connect it to? What are your thoughts? What comes to your mind that needs change? How does this relate to our daily lives? Our current climate? How does this relate to history? Who do we know that worked to make “it” better?  The Lorax provides a lens for upper grades and beyond to delve into big ideas about change and making a difference.  What historical figures cared about transformation? How did they show that they cared? Does caring always lead to improvement? (What about those who care about negative changes?) How will you make a difference now? What issues affect your current lives that you can make better or change? (Bullying?) What are the consequences of not getting involved?

Before I exit my post for the week, I would like to leave you with one last quote to think about Common Core and –  in the spirit of The Lorax – our lives: “It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.” 

Using Close Reading and Questioning

Earlier in the year I wrote about the importance of close readings and what they entailed. As close readings are an essential part of Common Core standards, teachers will need to rethink how they spend their shared reading time block. Teachers accustomed to using textbook models are comfortable with following the steps outlined in the text for a single reading of the story. Some teachers may have extended the reading a second time. Teachers familiar with comprehension strategy instruction may spend several days or a week on one story to focus on a specific comprehension strategy. Lifting the text and examining the text for evidence may be a norm. However, close reading goes beyond both of those. It certainly has elements of comprehension strategy instruction, but demands more time on text, and certainly more student time with challenging texts. Teachers may read the same text for 1-2 weeks for a variety of purposes, sometimes as a whole, other times in small parts. Teachers will need to strategically map out this time, selecting texts with depth, and focusing lessons around content that students need to understand. For example, if a third grade teacher was focusing on the comprehension strategy of questioning, with the objectives of readers ask questions about unknown words, parts, and key details, as well as readers find answer to their questions using the text, background knowledge, inferring, or outside source (with some questions being unanswered), a close reading of The Princess and the Beggar by Anne Sibley O’Brien may look like the following:

Day	Lesson	Charting/Activity	Standards Addressed
1	Read story aloud with students. Stop and pause throughout the reading.	Students write questions on post-it notes throughout the reading, including unknown words and phrases. Have students share and chart their deepest question.	RL 1, RL 4
2	Classifying questions: What type of questions do we ask? (e.g. clarifying, character motives/traits, unknown words or phrases (vocabulary), predicting etc.)	Analyze the questions from day one for how they relate. Group questions and determine categories. Have students work in collaborative groups to determine how they can categorize their questions. As a class discuss questions that didn’t fit into your categories and create any new ones that they may need.	RL 1
3-4	Chart story elements students remember from the day before. Read story aloud again. Discuss the categories from the day before. Tell them today they will examine the category for character traits/motives. As we reread the story, we will examine how the princess, the king, and the beggar think, speak, and behave. Then we will revisit those questions	BEFORE READING: Chart story elements (characters, setting, major events). Chart questions students have about the three different characters. DURING READING: Chart character traits’ motives along with the evidence from the text. Examine how those traits relate to the sequence of events. Revisit questions throughout the reading as they are answered. AFTER READING: Examine which questions were not answered. Can we answer them now? If not, why? Which questions seemed to get at the heart of our characters? Which types of questions got us deeper into understanding the characters? (For example, how and why vs. who)	RL 3
5	Examine just the poem within the story. What is the poem about? Pull the poem apart to determine meaning and infer the point/lesson of the poem. What does this poem reveal about the princess?	Have the poem written up separately from the story so you can pull it apart and discuss meaning as it unfolds and how it relates to the story as a whole. Include questions they have about the poem, and work to find the answers through pulling it apart. Examine the literal and nonliteral language within the poem.	RL 4, RL 5
6	New Words and Phrases: Examine their questions that related to vocabulary. Take words/phrases from day 1 that have not been addressed. Students should have text so they can look closely for evidence.	CHART: Write the new words/phrases, evidence or clues for determining meaning, and images to help us remember the meaning. Give students their own chart too. As the class discusses the words, they should write their thinking on their page and share out. For words without context, provide context (either sentences or pictures) for them to help support inferring for word meaning.	L4
7	Shared Inquiry: Examine a specific text-dependent question, such as, “How does pride play a role in the princess’s decisions?”	Students brainstorm their thinking first, citing text evidence for their answers. Class discussion starts with this question, but then probes beyond based on the conversation. Students have text to use for evidence. Ultimately, the class examines the data of their discussion and revisits their answers from before.	RL 1
8	Revisit Questions from Day 1: Answer and Sort	Whole Class: Examine some questions from day 1: Discuss the questions and their answers, citing evidence. Sort questions by the types of answers (Text, Background Knowledge, Infer, Outside Source/Unanswered)	RL 1
9	Answering Questions and Sorting by T, BK, I, and U/OS	Students work in collaborative groups to find the answers to the questions they sorted on day 2. Where did their answers come from? Cite evidence when answering and sort questions in the end by the categories from day 8.	RL 1
10	Recount	Students write a recount of the story using the brainstorm organizer. Students also determine the lesson of the story. Students share recount with a partner.	RL 2
11	Lesson Discussion	Examine the lessons students wrote from the day before. Organize by teams of similar thinking. Have them get into groups and develop an argument as to why that lesson matches the story. Have a class debate.	RL 2, W 1

Effective close reading should draw students deeper into the nuances of the text. Students should feel empowered and develop a greater understanding of the importance of exploring texts. Close readings should build students’ stamina and drive, and ultimately build a passion for reading, which is one of our foundational goals to begin with.

Does Comprehension Strategy Instruction Fit in with Common Core?

This was my first thought when I surveyed the standards. Although there was clear evidence that questioning was a valued strategy, what about the rest? Is it still important for students to visualize? make connections? predict? infer? determine importance? synthesize? Because I believe comprehension strategy works on multiple levels, I was intent on answering these questions, and in my quest have found ways of connecting the standards to strategy instruction although many of the terms are omitted.

There was a bold statement made early on about the frivolity of making connections – how it leads readers into themselves instead of the story, and a backlash against personal response. My initial reaction was to cringe. Isn’t reading always personal? Even technical manuals make sense only through processing relationships and connecting to what you understand. That is why my husband can spend hours reading his airplane manuals and they make sense, and all I see is a bunch of random pieces of information that have little meaning to me. He has the schema, or background knowledge, to make sense of all the bits of information. He relates new data to what he already knows and revises his thinking for new airplanes. He possesses the technical (or tier 3) vocabulary terms to relate to the data, and most likely visualizes the cockpit and how the information is used to fly the airplane.

To me, reading is a process of constantly making connections to, within, and across the texts, so why wouldn’t it be included in the standards? According to Louise Rosenblatt (as cited in Pardo, 2004) there are four components to reading: the reader, the text, the social cultural context, and the transaction. Readers bring their own background knowledge, interact with the features of the text and the author’s intent, and develop meaning based on what they bring to the text that day. It is in this transaction that readers apply a variety of comprehension strategies to determine meaning. As we know, our understanding of text changes over time because we change over time, along with what we are reading for in a text. This personal relationship with text is foundational in how we make meaning.

Although making connections has been contested (and New York has balked at this by adding an eleventh standard on personal response), a case can be made that upon a closer look, there are clear ties to connections within and across texts. And although personal connections are clearly de-emphasized, there are standards that need scaffolding to be attained, and students need to understand how to articulate how they relate  to texts to delve deeper into ideas, emotions, and events within texts.

One of the biggest critiques of making connections is that it promotes students to parade their ideas off topic, which leads them further away from the text, rather than closer. However, learning and the integration of ideas are deeply entrenched in making connections. With Common Core, we are being asked to refocus our attention on how we teach connections to make sure students are bringing their knowledge about the world to really explore the “four corners of the text” rather than the corners of their lives. Therefore, instead of abandoning the strategy, we need to make sure we guide students through the text and reexamine the different facets of connections.

Connections examine both the relationships of the reader to the text, but also the relationships of what exists within and across the texts. When thinking about the strategy of making connections, it may be helpful to think about different categories. The first type of connections is the personal relationship between the reader and the text. At this level, readers become aware of how ideas and details within the text relate to their own lives and other stories in their background knowledge. They become purposeful in developing these relationships by categorizing them by text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world. An essential essence of this foundation is for the reader to become active in the process of relating to texts, and become cognizant of the interaction between the reader and the text. The second type of connections entails readers developing understanding of textual structures and features, and making connections across texts according to these elements. This type of connection is clearly articulated in the Common Core Standards. Some examples may include genre, writing style, author’s purpose, themes, writing style, and literary tools. Teachers may purposefully select texts by author’s study to examine connections across texts, or writing styles to compare different authors. The third level of making connections examines the relationships within a text. How do the parts relate to the whole? How are the images related to the text? How does understanding the text structure allow the reader to understanding relationships within the text. Connections entail building relationships with texts at a variety of levels. Therefore, when reading the standards, words such as the integration of ideas, relationships and connections may all point towards a comprehension strategy that appeared overlooked – making connections.

Reference
Pardo, L. (2004). What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Reading Comprehension. The Reading Teacher. Vol. 58, No. 3.