Reading Closely for Textual Details Developing Core Proficiencies English Language Arts / Literacy Unit
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READING CLOSELY FOR TEXTUAL DETAILS DEVELOPING CORE PROFICIENCIES ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS / LITERACY UNIT GRADES 11-12 "And I am willing to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government" OD LL DUCATION www.odelleducation.com OD LL DUCATION Page 1 DEVELOPING CORE PROFICIENCIES SERIES This unit is part of the Odell Education Literacy The Core Prociencies units have been designed Instruction: Developing Core Prociencies to be used in a variety of ways. They can be program, an integrated set of ELA units spanning taught as short stand-alone units to introduce or grades 6-12. Funded by USNY Regents Research develop key student prociencies. Teachers can Fund, the program is comprised of a series of four also integrate them into larger modules that build units at each grade level that provide direct up to and around these prociencies. Teachers instruction on a set of literacy prociencies at the can also apply the activity sequences and unit heart of the CCSS. materials to di5erent texts and topics. The materials have been intentionally designed for Unit 1: Reading Closely for Textual Details easy adaptation to new texts. Unit 2: Making Evidence-Based Claims Unit 3: Researching to Deepen Understanding Unit materials available at Unit 4: Building Evidence-Based Arguments www.odelleducation.com READING CLOSELY FOR TEXTUAL DETAILS Becoming literate involves developing habits and unit takes the invisible process expert readers prociencies associated with many reading have internalized and makes it explicit – to purposes, from reading for pleasure to preparing support teachers and students as they develop for high-stakes business meetings. This unit prociency in reading text closely. develops students’ abilities to read closely for textual details—a prociency essential for a Procient readers can also explain and share the variety of reading purposes and contexts. discoveries they have made through reading and Attending to and analyzing details are essential analyzing a text. Developing evidence-based skills for accessing meaning, allowing texts to explanations is essential for clarifying and inform our understanding and enrich our lives. deepening one’s own understanding as well as the foundation for participation in academic and Rather than simply ask students to read closely, civic life. This unit integrates the development of this unit instructs them in a process for doing so. explanatory communication skills into the close The activities lay out a process for approaching, reading process. Students learn to explain their questioning and analyzing texts that helps readers thinking and link it with textual evidence both in focus on key textual characteristics and ideas. Just discussion and writing. The unit culminates in a as experts in any eld access deep understanding structured text-centered discussion in which by knowing what to look for in their particular students examine discoveries they have made elds, expert readers know the questions to ask of about an important topic, by explaining and texts in order to guide them to deep meaning. comparing their textual analyses with their peers. The framework of questioning presented in this OD LL DUCATION Page 2 HOW THIS UNIT IS STRUCTURED The unit activities are organized into ve parts, This organization is designed to strengthen the each associated with short texts. The parts build precision of instruction and assessment, as well as on each other and can each span a range of to give teachers <exibility in their use of the unit. instructional time depending on scheduling and student ability. The nal activities in Parts 1-4 are designed as independent student tasks that can be done Part 1 introduces students to the idea of reading either in class or as homework. closely for details through an examination of a range of text types. Part 2 introduces students to a Part 5 includes an optional extended assessment particular process for close reading that involves activity involving the creating of a student questioning the text—at rst generally and then portfolio of work and a re<ective essay on their in text-specic ways—to help them focus on experience throughout the unit. important textual ideas and characteristics. Part 3 develops student prociency by analyzing textual details for making comparisons across texts. Parts 4 and 5 develop students’ abilities to express their analysis, rst through writing text-based explanations in Part 4 and then, in Part 5, through facilitating and participating in text-centered discussions. HOW THIS UNIT MIGHT BE EMBEDDED IN CONTENT-BASED CURRICULUM The unit is explicitly and intentionally framed as curriculum and instructional plans, and to skills-based instruction. It is critical for students establish content connections that will be to understand that they are developing core meaningful for students. This might involve literacy prociencies that will enrich their connecting the unit to the study of topics or academic and civic lives. The unit and activities eras in social studies, related genres or voices in should be framed for them as such. Nonetheless, literature, or themes and guiding questions. the texts have been chosen, in part, for their rich Whatever the curricular context established by content and cultural signicance. They contain the teacher, the central emphasis of the unit many important historical and contemporary should, however, be on evidence-based, text- ideas and themes. Teachers are encouraged to focused instruction. sequence the unit strategically within their OD LL DUCATION Page 3 HOW THIS UNIT TEACHES WRITING Communicating understanding e5ectively is an The writing activities—including the writing essential part of the close reading process. And students complete on the tools—are all very while this unit focuses primarily on reading limited in scope. In most cases students write only prociencies, writing from textual evidence plays one or two sentences and at most a few short an important role in most of the activities. The paragraphs. This in NO way suggests that they are nature of the writing instruction at this stage in limited in importance. The limited scope the Developing Core Prociencies Series is rooted intentionally allows teachers and students to in some core principles. First, strong writing <ows focus on building the ability to accurately from deep comprehension of a text or topic. Many incorporate textual evidence into their deciencies in writing are the result of shallow or communication, and include e5ective word uniformed critical thinking. The unit writing choice, punctuation, and syntax that are activities are linked closely to student reading in appropriate to the audience and task. ways that help them both develop and express their emerging understanding of the evidence at hand. Students are continually asked to explain their thinking about texts in their writing. Developing this ability is fundamental to supporting students as they craft extended pieces of writing in later contexts. HOW THIS UNIT TEACHES VOCABULARY This unit draws on a variety of strategies for The texts and activities also provide many teaching academic and disciplinary vocabulary. opportunities for academic vocabulary The primary strategy is the way critical disciplinary instruction. Many of the activities focus directly on vocabulary and concepts are built into the analyzing the way authors use language and key instruction. Students are taught words like words to develop ideas and achieve specic “analyze,” “perspective,” “questioning,” and purposes. “criteria” through their explicit use in the activities. Students come to understand and use these The sequence of topical texts also builds words as they think about and evaluate their vocabulary knowledge and connections, textual analysis and that of their peers. The supporting both textual comprehension and handouts and tools play a key role in this process. vocabulary acquisition. The texts are formatted By the end of the unit, students will have with integrated tools for vocabulary development. developed deep conceptual knowledge of key Each page includes editable glossaries where vocabulary that they can transfer to a variety of teachers and students can choose various words academic and public contexts. to dene. Some words have been pre-selected and glossed. Teachers may choose to di5erentiate vocabulary support by student. OD LL DUCATION Page 4 INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORTS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS AND STUDENTS READING BELOW GRADE LEVEL This unit is intentionally designed so that all measures. Students are expected to become an students engage directly with a series of texts that “expert” for only one of these texts, providing progress in grade level complexity and activities teachers with an opportunity to di5erentiate as the unit unfolds. Appropriate sca5olding is content (text selection) based on students’ built into the unit design, activity sequence, and reading levels or English language mastery. tools to make instruction comprehensible to students – especially those who are English Short Texts, Focused Reading: Most of the texts Language Learners or are reading well below in the unit are relatively short in length, allowing grade level at the start of the unit – so that they students to focus on individual paragraphs and directly experience the complexity of the texts. sentences as they learn to read closely and derive The unit actively supports these students through meaning. Text-dependent questions included in explicit instruction of skills and strategies,