How Does a Teacher of Literacy Approach Close Reading and Common Core Targets?

 

       While channel surfing the other day, I stumbled upon an old Family Ties episode where teenaged daughter, Mallory, finally decides to stop her usual procrastinating behavior and study for finals.  Michael J. Fox's character, Alex, awakens at two a.m. to find Mallory asleep with her head in her textbook.He calls her out on her slumber, and not willing to admit it, Mallory spits back, "I was still studying.  I was just reading closely."  Obviously, the close reading that Mallory was participating in is not what the creators of the Common Core had in mind for students and was in no way helpful in making Mallory a more skilled and critical reader.  My worry is that unless we, as educators, make it a point to understand the our role in the process of close reading, students may not get much more out of reading closely than Mallory did using her textbook as her pillow.

        In his blog entry "Close Reading With Adolescents," Tim Shanahan reminds educators that close reading is not a teaching technique;  Instead, it is an outcome.  What does this mean, really?  Well, it means that teachers cannot simply announce to students, "Class, today we are going to read closely!" and expect miracles to ensue.  Simply requiring students to reread the same piece multiple times, especially if the piece is quite challenging, is not enough to develop literacy in our students. To illustrate, my ten-year-old son recently was struggling with understanding the directions to a Lego building kid.  He couldn't figure out what he was being instructed to do.  If I had simply told to go back to his room, reread the piece three more times, talk to his brother about it (who I believe knew less than he did) and then write about it, I doubt he would've understood what to do any better than the first time through. He needed explicit instruction from me.  I needed to help him to navigate the text features, and break down some of the complex sentences into pieces that made sense. Please do not misinterpret what I am saying to mean that no value exists in reading the same thing multiple times.  On the contrary, I believe that this experience is essential for students when delving into sophisticated passages.  In fact, in previous blogs, I have actually advocated for this experience and have witnessed magic happen when a student finally is able to put the pieces of a challenging text together.  However, I agree with Shanahan that it is the tools that teachers help students develop that lead them to be able to read closely when provided with the opportunity to read a complex piece multiple times.       
          What tools and strategies will you give to your students so that they can better navigate texts, understand what to do when meaning starts to wane, and organize their thinking about the text so as to understand it on a deep level?  If you are unsure,  my recommendation would be to begin to read books like Close Reading of Informational Texts by Sunday Cummins or Notice and Note by  Beers and Probst and decide for yourselves which strategies would work best for your students.  Ideally, of course, it would be best if these decisions about which tools to use were made at the building level so that students would become familiar with a common language from class to class and year to year.  Consistency between subjects and grades is always what is best for students.
         To summarize, we need to remember that we are teacher's of literacy and not teachers with literacy.  In other words, requiring students to read and write daily in our rooms is important but also need to be accompanied by explicit instruction and modeling of reading strategies.  Consider the following sixth grade CCSS informational text learning target:  CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.2 Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details;  If I am a teacher with literacy I may spend time creating the perfect graphic organizer for students to list out main ideas and supporting details.  I will model how to fill in the chart for students.  I will give them plenty of time to practice and collect their work to assess how they are progressing on this particular target.  I will undoubtedly find that some students master the target easily and others continue to be confused about the central idea and appear to have misconstrued the author's message.  So I give them more practice and more charts. I might ask myself:  why are they still not getting it?  I may grow frustrated when the same students continue to misinterpret the text, list supporting details as central ideas, and still appear to struggle with this learning topic.  I may even complain to my colleagues:  "I just don't get it!  I've been teaching this same target for weeks! I've modeled how to complete the chart!"   As I write this, I cringe remembering the times that I've found myself the teacher in situations very similar to this one. I'd been  a teacher with literacy.
          On the other hand, a teacher of literacy, recognizes the need to help students interact with text before immediately moving to the target-aligned graphic organizer. Modeling the chart is not enough just as asking students to closely read without giving them tools to do so is insufficient. In Close Reading of Informational Texts, Cummins recommends modeled lessons on annotating and analysis of text features, prior to introducing the THIEVES strategy which helps lead the students to deciphering the central idea. Students need to understand how to interact with the text while reading and be given explicit instruction on using text features to their advantage if they wish to determine the central idea of a text.  It is only after these key lessons are taught successfully, that the teacher of literacy, might move to the targeted lesson:  using the THIEVES (title, headings, introduction, every first sentence in each section, visuals and vocabulary,  end-of-the-article questions, summarizing thinking) strategy to help students decipher the author's main message.  
        Will there still be students who struggle?  Probably.  But the teacher of literacy will already have determined who these might be and have devised a proactive plan to support each of these students.  For example, he/she might elect to visit them first when independent work time occurs, or he/she might ask them a few guiding questions prior to asking them to complete the chart.  In any case, those who struggle will be fewer because they will have been explicitly taught the subskills needed to achieve the Common Core learning target.  The creators of the Core have told us again and again that the outcomes are non-negotiable, but how you get there is up to you.  Make sure the journey you lead your students through is paved with plenty of opportunities for literacy growth. 

Click the link below to join in close reading discussions with colleagues.

         

I've Committed Readicide, Have You?

I often sing the praises of Kelly Gallagher, a literacy expert who has traveled the country sharing his knowledge with educators and providing professional development workshops.  Over the years, Gallagher has written several books on improving literacy instruction, which include Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School  (2003), Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12 (2004), Teaching Adolescent Writers (2006), and, most recently, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts (2011).  But the thing I love most about Kelly Gallagher is that he is a high school teacher in Anaheim, California.  He is a fellow practitioner who takes what he does in the real-world of his classroom and shares it with the rest of us to help better our practice.  

By reading Gallagher's books and from attending his workshops, I have come to realize that throughout my career as an 8th grade English teacher, I had committed readicide--on a daily basis.  (Check out Gallagher's book Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It)

What is readicide?  To quote Gallagher, readicide is "the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools."

Some of these inane and mind-numbing practices include:

1. valuing the development of test-takers over the development of lifelong readers
2. mandating breadth over depth in instruction
3. requiring students to read difficult texts without proper instructional support
4. insisting that students focus solely on academic texts
5. drowning great books with sticky notes, double-entry journals, and marginalia
6. ignoring the importance of developing recreational reading
7. losing sight of authentic instruction in the shadow of political pressures

For me in my 8th grade English class, I systematically killed the love of reading by committing readicide crime #5: drowning great books with sticky notes, double-entry journals, and marginalia.  Drowning great books is a perfect description of my daily lesson plans.  Not only did I go overboard with the "during reading" activities, but I also kept the students busy with "after reading" activities, such as quizzes, worksheets, and analysis writing.  This doesn't mean that we shouldn't give students activities and provide support throughout the reading of a book; however, we just don't want to go crazy with it.  We don't have to require students to analyze everything.  Instead, we need to find the "sweet spot" of instruction, which I will explain later on in this post.

According to Gallagher, when we over teach a book, we prevent our students from experiencing the “reading flow”--the feeling you get when you become so engaged in reading that you lose yourself in it.  When we overanalyze a book and spend weeks and weeks teaching it, we disrupt this flow.  When we force students to stop reading to fill out a chart or respond to a question, we don’t allow them to lose themselves in the text.  Reading books provides kids with “imaginative rehearsals” for the real world.  If reading the book takes too long, they will lose interest.  We teach books because they raise interesting issues, provide life lessons, and relate to modern day experiences.  We need to avoid focusing on the trivial and sacrificing what is meaningful.  How can I expect my students to appreciate the joy of reading when every time they experience the flow I kill it with a worksheet?

Here is what Kelly himself has to say about the drowning of great books:

Source

On the flip side of over-teaching books is readicide crime #3: requiring students to read difficult texts without proper instructional support.  We can't just hand the student a book, sit back, and expect them to read it and learn from it.

The "Sweet Spot" of Instruction

When teaching a text, Gallagher encourages teachers to find that "sweet spot" of instruction by providing students with enough information to ease them into a text without overdoing it.  Advocates of the Common Core are often critical of teachers who provide so much front-loading and background knowledge of a text that there is no need to actually read the text.  In other words, we might let kids initially grapple with the text, but then we swoop in and help them before things get too challenging.  However, for some kids, we need to ease them into the text before we expect them to accept the challenge of reading it.  Many of our kids just won’t read without our help.  How can we strike this balance between providing enough support so that our kids can read the text while making sure we don't drown the book in a sea of worksheets, charts, and post-it notes? 

Gallagher suggests thinking about the following question when we plan a lesson:

Have I provided the kids with a reading purpose/reading focus?  What we do before the reading can be as important as the reading itself.

Gallagher calls this framing the reading:  

Sometimes the framing of the text is motivational in nature.  Motivated readers will understand what they read better than non-motivated readers.  For example, before teaching about African-American involvement in World War II, a history teacher could ask her students to stop and ask questions.  What are you wondering about?  Sometimes we have to answer the “so what” question before the reading commences.  

Framing helps gain surface-level comprehension.  When teaching a challenging text, such as a Shakespeare play, tell the kids in modern English what is happening.  Bullet list events from the novel and leave one blank.  Then tell the kids to read and figure out the blank.  Throughout the reading, leave more and more blanks and slowly remove yourself from the reading.  As a history teacher, provide a complete outline for students with a few blanks, and slowly leave out the blanks over time until the students are writing outlines on their own.  Gallagher suggests starting with a "guided tour" and ending with a "budgeted tour."  The teacher’s job as being the tour guide should slowly be removed and the kids start touring on their own.  

Framing also helps us identify the purpose in reading the book.  For example, provide kids with the final exam question before reading.  As you read aloud to the kids, stop and point out things that relate to the final exam question.  When the kids read at home alone, tell them a bit about what they will encounter and what they should look for as they read.  And tell them to come back with one comment or question about this.  For example, in Lord of the Flies, begin reading chapter 1 aloud and then stop and tell the kids that they are going to go home and read about how the boys will find a shell.  Hint—the shell is not really a shell.  It’s a symbol; it stands for something.  For tomorrow, come to class with a question or comment about the shell.

Adopt a big chunk/little chunk philosophy

Have the students read a chapter (a big chunk) of the book for homework.  The next day, choose a passage (little chunk) from the reading to analyze through a close reading.  Gallagher cautions teachers against close reading every day.  Remember, we don’t want to kill the book!

Building endurance

Gallagher believes that some of the reading has to be done at home in order to free up time for writing on class. He recommends building up students' endurance for reading by assigning only a few pages of homework a night and slowly increasing the amount of reading over time.

As a reading intervention teacher, I think about Gallagher's suggestions often.  The last thing any of us ever want to do is kill the love of reading in our students.  However, it seems that well-intentioned everyday practices in our classrooms might contribute to the decline in reading motivation as students progress through the grade levels.  I have committed readicide, but I have made it my goal to stop killing the love of reading and start learning how to reignite students' passion for books.

Motivating with a Close Reading of Pop Music in an RTI Reading Class For Middle School Students

If you are an educator working with young adults, you probably understand all too well that in order for students to learn they must be motivated to do so.   Think back to an individual in your classroom who has struggled, and I am confident that at least part of the reason could be traced back to lack of engagement.  It is no surprise that students act out or choose not to participate fully because they are bored or uninspired.  These same students, however, suddenly transform into energized and animated alter egos when the school day ends,  once again returning to their world of you tube videos, MTV, and itunes.   We know that  adolescents are “social actors” who “bring their popular culture into the school culture where the struggle between these two is inevitable”  (McLaren as cited in Wood et. al, 2006 p.56).  The reality is that  bringing popular culture into classroom lessons could significantly reduce the motivation issues that exist in many classrooms today.   Personally, I have found that welcoming pop music and other forms of pop culture daily into my Response to Intervention reading course has caused glazed-over eyes to dissipate and objectives to be met with more enthusiasm.  

           When my colleague Erica Martin and  I became reading interventionists, working with struggling middle school readers,  we quickly learned that our students would not make any reading gains if they weren't motivated to read.  Our students are not unique in this way:  more and more students across America have chosen a path of non-reading.  In fact, Kelly Gallagher has recently asserted that we are less in danger of having an illiterate society as we are of having an aliterate one.  Not only do many of my students struggle with motivation, but they also require intervention in the areas of vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and reading fluency.  One effective way Erica and I have found to strengthen motivation and increase reading skills simultaneously is to incorporate pop music into our daily plans.  

         Fluency refers to the reader’s ability to read text accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with appropriate expression.  If a reader struggles with fluency and reading the words, he or she will most likely experience difficulties making meaning from the text.  One research-based method to help older students who struggle with reading fluently is to perform repeated readings of the same text (Gillet, et. al, 2008).  Here the student practices reading a passage repeatedly until the same passage begins to sound like conversational speech.  Tim Rasinski, a leader in the field of literacy development, recommends using songs to increase reading fluency.  According to Rasinski, the melody of a song “may also be thought of as a form of prosody, an important element in fluency” (2010, p. 134).  Asking students to practice reading the lyrics while simultaneously singing a song to which they donot already know the words is an excellent way to add pop culture into a class while teaching fundamental skills (Rasinski, 2010).   Thus, Erica and I decided to combine the repeated reading and song approaches inside our classroom.

         At first, we chose random songs that we thought students might like to sing, but eventually we discovered that we could increase students' background knowledge with the songs we selected.  As Kelly Gallagher says, "You have to know stuff to be able to read stuff."  In other words, students with limited background knowledge will struggle to connect new learning with existing knowledge.  Thus, comprehension becomes a challenge.  What began as an entertaining way to build fluency, slowly morphed into a key component of our balanced-literacy RTI intervention program.

          Every Monday, students perform a close reading of a new song before singing it.  Students read the song silently with a pencil in their hand.  As Fischer and Frey recommend, they underline what they feel is important, circle what is confusing, and annotate their ideas and wonderings as they read.  Then, they discuss their findings in a small group.  I am always quite amazed by how this process alone leads to some very deep conversations about theme and extended metaphors (although the students are often not aware that this is what they are doing) without an adult ever having to open her mouth to ask a question.  In fact, some of the text-dependent questions I have created no longer need to be asked after observing their rich discussions.  Next, the students reread the song and write about the discussions that they had in their groups, reflecting on what the song means to them.   Finally, for a third read, I  play a you tube version of the song that contains the lyrics for students to sing along to practice fluency.  If you think middle school students are too shy to sing aloud, think again.  Some of my most stubborn students had the most fun with the singing portion of intervention.

          Each day that week, students will practice their fluency with that same song,  sometimes singing as a group and sometimes reading the lyrics into their ipods to play back and self assess using The Florida Center For Reading Research Reading Fluency Evaluation.  They chart their progress and reflect on their own reading skills.  Once per week, they participate in a partner scoring, taking turns evaluating each other to ensure they are using the evaluation rubric correctly.  The songs they sing always connect thematically with the texts we will read that week. Sometimes the song lyrics are deep and reflective, while other times the content is on lighter side.  For example, when we were reading about the Swine Flu Pandemic, we used a parody of "We Didn't Start the Fire" called "The Swine Flu Song" that claims pigs were unfairly blamed for the flu outbreak.   While reading stories and articles about Hurricane Katrina, we found a song titled "Still New Orleans" that discusses how New Orleans will remain strong despite the devastating effects the hurricane had on the city.  Just last week, we  learned that several students had little, if any, knowledge about Memorial Day and why they received Monday off school.  Along with articles about how the holiday evolved, students performed a close read of  Tim McGraw's "If You're Reading This" about a soldier who has written a letter to his wife to be read should he not be able return home.

ANNOTATIONS MADE BY A STUDENT AFTER AN INITIAL READING OF "IF YOU'RE READING THIS"

       Along with the close reading, the words we choose to explicitly teach during intervention using Beck's Word Conversation Method can always be found in that week's songs and related readings.  We select Tier 2 and Tier 3 words that connect to the theme of the week, so that students can easily apply their new words to writing tasks after they've been exposed to the words several times first.   

        Sometimes, in my conversations with teachers from other schools who are also teaching reading interventions, Erica and I will receive mixed reactions when teachers learned that our program does not come pre-packaged in a box that contains the label "research-based."  How can we get away with using a program that is not 'research-based'?  They always want to know.  Our answer is always the same:  Our work is research-based.   Just because it does not come with pre-printed worksheets and handouts that can be recycled to use again each year regardless of which students appear in our desks or what is currently going on in the world, does not in any way take away from the fact that all of the strategies and methods are well-researched and supported by those leading the work in the field of literacy.  I would, in fact, argue that what we do is better than anything that could be bought simply because it is created with individual students in mind.  After all, need I remind you of the biggest obstacle that a middle school teacher has to hurdle?  Motivation.  Finding texts that are timely and engaging is something we have going for us that those boxed programs simply do not.  After all, the boxed programs are created for the masses.  Ours are created for that student in period four who hates reading but cannot stop telling us fun facts about sharks.  Which do you think is more motivating for that student?  

         Furthermore,  if you haven't snuck a peak at What Works Clearninghouse (WWC) recently, you might want to do so.  The WWC,  created by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Educational Sciences, provides educators with information to help make "evidence-based" decisions about whether or not various intervention programs yield significant results.   

You'll probably find as you browse the WWC that the same pricey programs that claim to work miracles on their webpages and the colorful fliers that line your mailbox each day,  do not boast such outstanding results  after all if you were to look closely at the data.   As educators, we know what can happen if we do not explicitly teach our students to consider author bias when evaluating sources and how we should never simply take a source at its word.  Please don't forget to do the same when you are considering how you will spend the crucial time you have with the students who need you the most.  Their futures depend on it.

Works Cited

Gillet, , J.W., Temple, C., & Crawford, A. (2008). Understanding reading problems: assessment and instruction. United States of America: Pearson Eduction, Inc.

Rasinski, T. V. (2010). The fluent reader. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Wood, K. D., Soares, L., & Watson, P. (2006). Research into practice: Empowering adolescents through critical literacy. Middle school journal, 37(3), 55-59.