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

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?

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.

Text Structures and Features

When I was growing up, there was little thought to the type of text we were reading. I followed assignments, read the stories in the primer, and answered questions. It did not occur to me that we should read differently for different types of text. To be honest, this thought did not occur to me until I became a teacher, and more specifically, when I first taught third grade. I remember doing a STAR practice test the week before doomsday (the actual STAR test), and my students performed horribly on an informational passage. The questions seemed really difficult unless you read the passage for the structure of expository text. Once you pulled out the supporting details each paragraph detailed about the topic, the answers were clear. This required the reader to identify the type of text, understand how the text was organized, examine the relationships within and among the paragraphs, and then relate them to the questions being asked. From then on out, I made understanding genres part of my reading instruction along with learning to distinguish among them, and determining what types of organizers would help the reader unpack the text. Common Core has clearly identified the need for students to understand diverse genres and their elements. This emphasis seems very appropriate to me given my experiences with working with students. While the fact that we have two separate categories of standards to elucidate the importance of explicitly teaching types of text, today I want to look at standard 5.

Craft and Structure: College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard 5:

Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole. (CCSS)

Students are expected to know how different types of texts are organized, distinguish among types of genres, and determine how the separate parts relate to the whole. When examining standard 5 for grades K-5 for literature, the types of texts mentioned include stories, poems, dramas, and prose. Traditionally, these categories were easily distinguished by stories/prose being in paragraph format, poems being written in stanzas, and dramas including a speaker before the sentence. Modern writers certainly blur these lines and can make classifying text more challenging. However, for the elementary classroom, teachers can easily select text that keeps these categories clear to build basic building blocks. The venn diagram  examines some of the basic features that distinguish poetry and narratives. Dramas are similar to narratives except that the organization is related to the speaker rather than paragraph format and that white space may be used to signify the change in characters.

Standard five for informational texts specifically examines text features and structures. Students are expected to differentiate among the different types of texts as early as kindergarten. Throughout the grade levels, students increasingly become more responsible for understanding the structure of texts, the significance of their impact on the development of the text, and the dissection of the relationships between parts, wholes, and the text progression. The set of differentiated task cards to the left support instruction and independent practice of expository text features for primary grades. These skills are essential building blocks since students in fourth and fifth grades need to be able to identify the type of text organization or structure– i.e. cause and effect, problem/solution, comparison, etc). Although some literature standards do not examine the relationship between narratives to expository text, this distinction is later made in the informational texts standards. Therefore, it is critical that students understand the features and structures that distinguish different types of texts from a basic to more complex level throughout the grades.

So how does standard 5 impact our instruction in the classroom? Students need to analyze texts from an early age, identify features that genres have in common. Primary teachers may begin the year by having students sort books as they read them aloud, then delve into the library and examine how the books can be sorted by genre. Text identification should become part of every story that is read. Perhaps instead of scaffolding the story before reading, the class can examine the text structures and features to determine what they are reading for. What type of organizer would work to keep track of our thinking about a text? What can we expect to find in the text? Thinking about comprehension strategy instruction, this relates to predictions. Rather than just predicting events, readers can predict the type of text they will be reading. Readers of all grade levels will benefit from examining texts closely to understand and determine the features and structures to improve comprehension. And, as with all vocabulary, the language of the discipline needs to be part of their every day discussions so that it becomes how they articulate their ideas.