Splitting Hairs: Language of Common Core

Upon setting out to unpack ELA Reading standard 2, I found the language, which seemed so normal at a glance, to be unclear. The more I dug into the nuances of the words within the standards, the less consistency I found. When examining the terms of recount, central idea, central message, lesson, moral, and theme, I found conflicting ideas, and ultimately, had to make my own assertions. I must thank two of my sisters for helping me think through this one, as they both have literature backgrounds. I would love to hear your thinking on the topic.

The second College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard (CCR) standard for reading reads as follows:

Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

This overarching standard, which is to represent how students should think about both narratives and expository text, uses the terms central ideas or themes.

Within the grade levels, the language progression within Reading Literature Standard 2 is as follows:

   1st Grade           2nd Grade                   3rd Grade       4th Grade   5th Grade
central message  central message,       central message       theme             theme
or lesson              lesson, or moral          lesson, or moral

Common Core was developed with both an increasing of complexity of concepts throughout the grade levels, as well as a mirroring of concepts between literature and informational text standards. The CCR standards are meant to envelope diverse types of text. Therefore, when the CCR standard uses the term “central idea,” I believe this refers to the main idea, which is the gist of what the author is saying. In narratives, the main idea could be thought of who, did what, and how or why that was important. In expository, the main idea is the topic. The central idea/main idea is bound by the text. On the other hand, the grade level specific terms transcend the text. At first glance, these words seem like the same ideas, however, since the standards were created to increase as we progress through the grade levels (as seen below), then there must be nuances in their application.

Let’s examine each term individually, and then examine how they are related:

Theme

According to Griffith (2011), the theme expresses ideas about the real world outside of the text. Symbols, patterns, and problematic situations within narratives are some clues that help readers determine the theme. The theme is not the subject of the story, but rather, the commentary about that subject. While Griffith states that the theme must be a developed sentence, others believe the theme may be expressed in a word or phrase. Kirsner and Mandell (1994) examine themes as words, phrases, and sentences that depict human emotion, conflict, and experiences such as jealousy, loss of innocence, disillusionment of adulthood, and the beauty of love. Themes can be implicitly or explicitly stated, and stories may have multiple themes (Barone, 2011).

Central Message/Lesson

Students begin looking for the central message or lesson in first grade, which indicates that it is a concept that is less complex than theme. When we think of a central message or lesson, we can formulate our lesson around the question, “What can we learn from this story?” or “What does this story teach us?” These questions are simpler than theme, and while they do require a level of analysis by drawing conclusions and synthesizing the text, it does not require the reader to examine the text in the same depth as theme. There can be overlap between lessons and themes, but in general, themes go beyond lessons. (Barone, 2011)

Morals

The moral of a story is related to the lesson. Morals deal with issues of ethics or general truths. Often morals are found in fables, although they can also be found in other tales as well. At times the moral is explicitly stated at the end of a fable. This is called the maxim.

Morals are mentioned in the third grade standards, which makes sense as fables are also introduced at this grade level. This is more about a progression of explicitly expanding the types of narratives students read as they progress through the grade levels.

Tying it all Together

Based upon the individual analysis of terms, these are my conclusions:

The Central idea is the same as main idea. The central message is a lesson, which could be the theme. A moral is a specific type of lesson, most often found in fables. The theme is less concrete than lessons. To find the theme, readers must draw conclusions and infer based on a variety of evidence as found through recurring events, patterns, symbols, and underlying conflicts. The theme goes beyond a lesson, although there can be overlaps. Figure 3 is one visual interpretation of how these concepts can be viewed.

Therefore, in the story Cookies from Frog and Toad Together, the central or main idea could be Frog and Toad keep moving their cookies out of sight to show willpower, but they keep finding the cookies hard to resist. Within that story, they keep hiding the cookies from their sight, and keep finding that does not help because they always have access to the cookies. They learn (lesson or central message) that temptations are hard to resist, or that willpower takes more than putting something out of sight. The theme is based on recurring patterns. If we look at the collection of Frog and Toad stories, there is a focus on friendship. What does this story particularly say about friendship? Although Frog keeps helping Toad (and himself) by hiding the cookies and then ultimately feeding the birds, Toad ends up going back home to make more treats. Therefore, a theme at its most basic level could be friendship, or could be expanded to although we can help our friends, they ultimately must help themselves. As you can see, the concepts may align or cross over between what is bound within the text and what transcends the text.

References

Barone, D. M. (2011) Children’s Literature in the Classroom: Engaging Lifelong Readers. The Guildford Press. New York, NY.

Griffith, K. (2011). Writing Essays About Literature A Guide and Style Sheet. Eighth Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.

Kirsner, L. G., & Mandell, S. R. (1994). Fiction: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Harcourt Brace & Co: Fort Worth, TX.

Lobel, A. (1999). Frog and Toad Together. New York: HarperFestival

ELA Common Core Resources

In my quest to unpack Common Core and to develop a deeper understanding of how to teach with the new standards, I have spent many hours researching the nuances within the CCS document, and I am still in the early phases. Common Core focuses on outcomes, but not the teaching process (with the  exception of close reading). While resources to support teachers are just beginning to emerge, there are a few great websites and blogs that are already in place. Below are a few that I have stumbled across:

New York State Department of Education 

http://schools.nyc.gov/Academics/CommonCoreLibrary/default.htm

New York has provided many free resources in relation to Common Core, including sample units, support videos, and descriptions of instructional shifts mandated by the new standards.

Achieve the Core http://www.achievethecore.org

This website maps out specific lessons for doing a close read with your students at a variety of grade levels, examines how to develop text-dependent questions, and a list of websites supporting Common Core.

The Reading and Writing Project http://readingandwritingproject.com

This website is led by Lucy Calkins and provides insights on perspectives about Common Core and  resources for teachers, including checklists and text lists.

Burkins & Yaris Blog http://www.burkinsandyaris.com

These two educators, one being a published author and another being a literacy coach, provide insightful thoughts in their exploration of common core.

Read Tennessee http://www.readtennessee.org

This website unpacks reading standards for grades K-3. They go into depth of concepts, ideas, and skills that support the standards, as well as look at the language of the discipline.

North Carolina http://www.ncpublicschools.org/acre/standards/common-core-tools

North Carolina has set about unpacking all the standards for both reading and math. This is a much more superficial examination compared to Tennessee, but may be a good starting point.

Whether you have begun examining the Common Core State Standards or not, you will need to in the near future. It is a daunting task. I hope that they sites may be a support to you in your learning journey.

Answering the Question: Common Core

It’s time again to revisit the ELA Common Core standards. In case you haven’t spent much time yet exploring the standards, let me clarify its organization. There are six categories of language arts standards: Literature, Informational Text,  Foundational Skills, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language. Unpacking the Common Core standards is continuing to prove to be a complex feat. When unpacking a standard, I  examine it from Kindergarten-5th grade. Since the standards build upon each other by grade level, I must really examine what the purpose of the standard is at each level, and how that builds toward upper grade.

This week, I decided to explore the literature and informational text standard 1 about questions, answers, and key details. This standard seemed straightforward at first, but since it is in two types of genres, I soon realized there was a lot that needed to be clarified. For this standard, students need to understand the difference between narrative and expository text, be able to identify features and structures of the text, determine importance in order to identify key details, and develop their questioning strategy. Furthermore, students need to understand the difference between topics and main ideas, and how main ideas vary by genre. Also, as you explore the category of key ideas and details, the standards delve further into features and structure.  Although this seemed very convoluted at first, I slowly dug my way out of the abyss to find some clarity. Below is one way you could map out this unit using a whole-part-whole philosophy. This unit will imbed a variety of reading standards and two comprehension strategies (determining importance and questioning).

WHOLE: Genres
Narrative vs. Expository: The depth of this lesson would depend on the grade level. Perhaps K-2 would just define the difference as stories and informational text, and further define narratives by their story elements and expository by topic and key details. In this lesson, teachers would examine short pieces of both types of text and chart similarities and differences. This could be through modeling, or textual analysis as a class. Students may need repeated experiences with this lesson.

PART: Narrative Structure & Features & Author’s Study

Make a unit chart to add on to for each book that you read. On this chart include: title, genre, structure, features, main idea, and key details. The structure and features will repeat as long as you are in narrative, but this repetition is intentional for students to notice what changes and what does not.

• Author Exploration: Choose an author or two to study. Explore the author. Choose resources about the author for the students to get to know the author and what motivates that author as a writer. (Tie in with Point of View standard as well.)

• Determining Importance: Key Details vs. Minor Details – Use the comprehension strategy of determining importance to help decide what is most important in the story and what is not. You can story map each narrative on your unit chart in the structure & features column. When you get to the events parts, stop and examine key vs. minor details. One way of approaching this is to have the students retell the story and you type down each sentence. In collaborative groups or as a class, you can sort the details as key or minor. As you are building this sort examine what each detail tells us about the story. How do we know if this detail is important or not? What is important in the story? I read online that a student once likened determining importance to a pot of pasta. When you strain the noodles (or the details), all the water goes through (the minor details), and what is left is the pasta (key details). Another comprehension strategy that I strongly encourage you to embed and read up about it synthesizing. Elements of synthesizing require determining importance and lead to inferential thinking about the text. Debbie Miller discusses synthesizing in Reading with Meaning and Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis discuss synthesizing in Strategies That Work.

• Other Story Elements: Each grade level has increasing complexity of examining story elements in Literature Standard 3, from  simply identifying characters, setting, and major events (K-1)  to  examining the interaction between the characters and the events (2-3), to deeper examination of these elements (4th), and comparison among texts (5th). You can also embed Literature Standard 2, which is related to themes. I recommend using the same text for a week or two to explore in depth. Therefore, you may spend 2-3 days on determining importance, and then further explore that text for the story elements, mapping out their thinking based upon your grade level standard.

• Main Idea: For 3rd grade on up, examine the main idea of narrative. This is the point of the story. Often determining who, did what, and how or why that was important and summing that up in one sentence, will offer the gist of the story. This is important for developing summaries as the children get older. It also serves as a platform for comparing main idea in expository text.

PART: Expository Structure & Features

Continue your unit chart from earlier to add-on to for each book that you read. As students progress through the grades, the type of  text structure should change so students become familiar with the six formats (Description, Sequence, Compare/Contrast, Cause & Effect, Problem/Solution, and Question & Answer).

• Text Selection: Some possible resources for this section include your social studies or science texts,  guided reading books, content readers, and/or primary sources.

• Text Structure & Features of Text: Examine text such as Time for Kids. How is this structure e a narrative? How do we need to prepare our brains differently? Where do we start? Does it matter? Identify features of expository text (headings, subheadings, captions, illustrations, photos etc).

• Determining Importance: How are these key details going to be different from in narratives? Think about organization (structure) of the text. We are looking for a topic and supporting key details. If you are familiar with step-up to writing, I have used this in the past to break down expository text. If not, model how you would determine the topic and key details. Examine key vs. minor details. How do we determine what is most important. Think about the hierarchical organization of the text.  Here is a great resource for lessons I found online for examining different types of expository text and determining importance.

PART: QUESTIONING

• Based on your grade level’s standard and objectives, scaffold lessons to teach the strategy of questioning. Follow the gradual release of responsibility. Use both narrative and expository texts. Focus on asking relevant questions about key details and finding the answers to their questions.
  

WHOLE: REVISITING CONCEPTS

• Reexamine and chart what they have learned about the difference between narrative and expository, their structures and features, how they as readers approach each text, how they determine importance, and questioning. Reexamine how the approach to reading is both similar and different for the two genres.

Teaching with the Common Core standards is much like teaching with differentiation. You don’t throw out everything you know, but rather, carefully examine what students need to know, be able to do, and understand. Then look at your resources to determine next best steps, and research new resources for what you don’t have. Instead of starting with your  planning time with lesson plans and files, you finish with them.