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How?
The goal of a Socratic Seminar is for students to help one another understand the ideas, issues, and values reflected in a specific text.  Students are responsible for facilitating a discussion around ideas in the text rather than asserting opinions. To encourage participation, give students questions to prepare in advance, or have students work in pairs or groups to share answers with the class. This allows MLs to practice their answers and increases their chance of success.

Why?
ML students benefit from speaking practice and by hearing their peers using academic language.   Structured discussion approaches like the fishbowl or Socratic Seminar ensure broader integration of MLs who may be hesitant to participate.

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Do students have opportunities to listen, speak, read, write about the lesson content? Are they given enough time?

What scaffolds are necessary to help students access the content?

(eg. visual representations, diagrams, graphic organizers, videos, models, sentence frames, etc.)

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What structures are put in place to facilitate meaningful discourse and collaboration?

What discipline specific language will students need to know and use to successfully engage in a constructive       conversation?

How will students be grouped?

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Developing Academic Language: Questions to consider

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Developing Academic Language: Questions to consider

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What are the academic language demands (vocabulary, sentence, discourse, functions) of the text and task?

For example, are students expected to read a text/ watch a video that has long and complex sentences? Are there a lot of technical vocabulary words students may not be familiar with? How accessible is the language in the text/ directions?

How will teachers help students navigate the academic language demands to understand the content?

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Activate Background Knowledge: Questions to consider

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Activate Background Knowledge: Questions to consider

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What background knowledge do students need/have to help them access the lesson?

Given their current background knowledge, can students access the content of the lesson?

How does the lesson honor the lived experiences and prior knowledge (academic, cultural, linguistic.) of students?

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How?
Link to color coding key used at Denny

Why?
Color coding materials or concepts during lessons allows students to group ideas, and/or make associations and connections between related materials to help with comprehension.

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Color Coding for Informationa and Argument Writing

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#1: Constructive Conversation Talk Domains

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#1: Constructive Conversation Talk Domains

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How?
Use these domains as a guide to teaching discreet conversation skills and to create anchor charts for students to refer to in the classroom.

Why?
Provides an example for building ideas with 4 component skills: create, fortify, negotiate, and clarify.   Allows students to have back and forth talk that builds ideas and accomplishes a useful learning purpose.

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#1: A variety of strategies to teach vocabulary

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#1: A variety of strategies to teach vocabulary

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A variety of strategies to teach vocabulary:

·   vocabulary in general

·   Make an EMOTIONAL connection

·   Make it Fun

·   Words Sorts

·   Signal Words

·   Act it Out

·   Graphic Organizers

·   Word Banks/Glossaries

·   Use Technology

·   Word Walls

·   Words in Home Language

Why?
Having a robust vocabulary pays a critical role in student’s learning, communication skills, language development, and comprehension.

Effective vocabulary instruction includes:

·        Definitional and contextual information about a word

·        Multiple exposers to a word in different contexts

·        Encouragement of student’s active participation in their word learning.

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How? Students write and share what they already know about the topic in the K (What I Know) section. Then add questions in the W (What I Want to Know) section and write their learnings in the L (What I Learned) section as they uncover new information through written and digital texts. Here is an example of an expanded KWL chart that includes application of the learning and questions. Variations

Why: Engage students in a new topic, activate prior knowledge, and monitor learning

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Socratic Seminar Topics, Stems and Rubrics

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Socratic Seminar Topics, Stems and Rubrics

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Socratic Seminar topics, stems & rubric - Copy

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How?
Sentence stems are sentence starters that the teacher provides to students to help get them started in their oral responses or their writing assignments.  ·        When asking students to respond to a question, the teacher provides a sentence stem that rephrases the question into an answer statement.

Why?
Sentence stems are open-ended, allowing students to fill in the blanks.  Sentence frames are a little different from sentence stems. Whereas sentence stems come at the beginning of the sentence, sentence frames provide most of the words, and the students add in the words that fit in the blanks.   | Sentence stems also give the students a model of how to phrase a response so that it is in a complete sentence.  Having the sentence stems provided lowers the students’ affective filter because they only have to think about the second part of the sentence.  They can also serve as models for academic writing for students of all proficiency levels when you want them to take it from simple sentences to paragraphs and essay papers.

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Why? Tier 2 words are cross curricular academic words, appearing frequently across topics and content areas. It is crucial to teach tier two words as they are an integral part of reading comprehension.

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https://twitter.com/Alex_Corbitt/status/777327034150322176?scrlybrkr=c29720de

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Updated KWL Chart!💡🏆 (by @langwitches) #edchat #education #elearning #edtech #engchat #satchat #sschat

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Updated KWL Chart!💡🏆 (by @langwitches) #edchat #education #elearning #edtech #engchat #satchat #sschat https://t.co/b9SubYto3f

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Updated KWL Chart!💡🏆 (by @langwitches) #edchat #education #elearning #edtech #engchat #satchat #sschat pic.twitter.com/b9SubYto3f
— Alex Corbitt (@Alex_Corbitt) September 18, 2016

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Updated KWL Chart!💡🏆 (by @langwitches) #edchat #education #elearning #edtech #engchat #satchat #sschat https://t.co/b9SubYto3f

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Updated KWL Chart!💡🏆 (by @langwitches) #edchat #education #elearning #edtech #engchat #satchat #sschat https://t.co/b9SubYto3f

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Updated KWL Chart!💡🏆 (by @langwitches) #edchat #education #elearning #edtech #engchat #satchat #sschat

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Socratic Seminar: Social Justice Standards: Speaking and Listening Rubric

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Socratic Seminar: Social Justice Standards: Speaking and Listening Rubric

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Speaking  Listening Rubric - Socratic Seminar  Social Justice Standards - Copy

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#3: Writing: Framed Paragraphs/Essay Structure

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#3: Writing: Framed Paragraphs/Essay Structure

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Framed paragraphs can:

offer a structure for students to use as they begin to write paragraphs and essays

guide students by providing the transitional phrases and sentences

incorporate various sentence types

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Why?
·        Provide an approach to meaningful teaching of vocabulary with an emphasis on student engagement and higher-level thinking skills

·        Reinforce understanding of subject related words with a focus on key concepts

·        Provide reference support during reading and writing activities.

·        Provide visual cues

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How? Anticipation guides ask students to think, write, and/or talk about their opinions on key themes or big ideas in upcoming texts and units. They are often organized as a list of statements students agree or disagree with. It can be helpful to have students revisit their anticipation guides at the end of a unit to reflect on changes in their thinking and/or in preparation for writing an essay. Example: anticipation guide 4 corners is a similar, but more kinesthetic strategy. 4 Corners Strategy

Why? Anticipation Guides stimulate students’ interest in a topic and set a purpose for learning.

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Why?
While sentence starters are useful for all students, they are a necessary support for English Learners. This is because English Learners are always balancing their attention and learning between the content or the cognitive task and the linguistic load or language requirements of the task.

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#3: Framed Paragraphs/Essay Structure: Informational Text Structures

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#3: Framed Paragraphs/Essay Structure: Informational Text Structures

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Sentence Stems for Conversations - Spanish

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#2: 4 Corners - Anticipation Guide Kinesthetic Version

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#2: 4 Corners - Anticipation Guide Kinesthetic Version

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https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/four-corners

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Get all students involved by asking them to show their stance on a statement through their positioning around the room.

Advisory

Civics & Citizenship

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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Get all students involved by asking them to show their stance on a statement through their positioning around the room. Advisory Civics & Citizenship English & Language Arts History Social Studies Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening. - Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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#3: Framed Paragraphs/Essay Structure Informational Essay Scaffold with Color Coding

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#3: Framed Paragraphs/Essay Structure Informational Essay Scaffold with Color Coding

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#2: Table Talk Tents  - Build, Clarify, Fortify

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#2: Table Talk Tents  - Build, Clarify, Fortify

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#3: Multimedia - Providing documents in student home languages

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#3: Multimedia - Providing documents in student home languages

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How? Show students a related video (with English subtitles) or slideshow or display a photograph on the document camera. A simple prompt could be “What did you notice?” or “What did you find interesting?”

Providing MLs in advance with texts or videos in their home language can be another way to promote background knowledge. There are also many free online resources that can help with this kind of support.

Why?
Asking students to write or talk with a partner is a great way to instantly gauge prior knowledge, build background, and spark interest.

Use of home language:

provides access to the curriculum for MLs; supports the understanding of concepts and knowledge; leads to the construction of richer texts; contributes to the development of English through transferable skills

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The Best Multilingual & Bilingual Sites For Math, Social Studies, & Science

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Having academic content available in the native language of English Language Learners is valuable for several reasons. One, it's useful for teachers who use the widely-respected and thoroughl...

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Why?

Promotes student interest in reading and gives learners a focused purpose for reading.

It supports learner’s abilities to clarify and synthesize ideas, pose relevant questions, and capture analytical thinking about a text.

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Activities to develop a classroom culture of discourse.

They are meant to be part of a daily routine that students are trained to do and are part of the classroom procedures/systems.

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Talk Activities Toolkit - Ms. Sanchez Version

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#4: Preparatory Texts at Different Lexile Levels

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#4: Preparatory Texts at Different Lexile Levels

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How?
Use the same text written in different Lexile levels. There are many resources available online that make it easy to find or create accessible texts. We’re not suggesting teachers simplify the complex text they’re planning to use for close reading. Instead, teachers can provide simplified texts addressing topics or themes similar to the ones in the complex text as a way to build background knowledge.

Why?
Providing simpler, preparatory texts in anticipation of a more complex reading task can be very helpful in building background knowledge and reading confidence.

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Having the "same" text written for different levels of English comprehension can be a life-saver for a multi-level class of English Language Learners or for a teacher with a mainstream class that includes some students that are facing other challenges. They can be an important tool for differentiation.

But where do you get these different versions other than creating them yourself?

Here are a few sources, and I hope that readers will suggest more:

Newsela provides several "levels" of the same newspaper articles, along with accompanying online quizzes, that students can read and take. For a small fee, Teachers can create a virtual classroom, assign articles and monitor student progress. However, students can read the articles for free without having to pay anything.

News In Levels offers similar resources, but without the ability to track student progress online. The site is free.

For The Teachers has similar leveled articles available for download. It, too, is free.
Breaking News English
Text Compactor lets you paste text into it and then automatically shares different versions with fewer words. It seemed to work pretty well when I tried it.

Rewordify is like a super-sophisticated Text Compactor on steroids. You can read my previous post about it: "Rewordify" Is One Of The Most Unique Sites Out There For English Language Learners & Others.

Reader Laurie suggests Embedded Reading, which has these kinds of similar "leveled" texts in English, as well as in other languages.

I learned about CommonLit from the amazing educator Suzie Boss at her recent Edutopia post. It's a neat site that doesn't actually provide the "same" text written for different "levels." What it does do, however, is provide leveled readings - with prompts - on the same theme. It's pretty neat. (They've just added many new features - see "CommonLit" Now Lets Teachers Create Free Virtual Classrooms)

Books That Grow has a library of texts that have each been edited to be made accessible to different reading levels. And it has some other unique features - teachers can create virtual classrooms to assign and/or monitor what students what are reading and students can click on words that are new to them to see definitions and hear how they are pronounced. They are also planning on adding comprehension questions. The texts can be read on any device.

You have to pay for it, but Birdbrain Science and History have similar resources (they've changed their name to RocketLit).

Newsela, which is on this list, has now begun to provide Spanish translations of some articles, including providing them at different reading levels. Here is their blog post announcing the feature, and here's a link to their Spanish-language text sets.
The British Council Has Excellent Leveled Reading Resources "TIME/Edge" Could Be Useful For Students Over The Summer
Kids Discover has several levels for social studies instruction - for a price that does not seem to be unreasonable.
"Simplish" Automatically Simplifies And/Or Summarizes Text "ReadWorks" Now Provides "Same" Texts At Different Level
Scholastic has a small number of audio-supported same text at different levels (they also have a few more here). In addition, their Storyworks program has many more, though it costs about $8 per student to use.

Thanks to Christina Cabal's blog (which is on the The Top Blogs and Resource Sites For Teachers Of English Language Learners list), I've learned about a new site called Learn With News. It provides articles about current events, which each one having three versions at different lexile levels. They also provide questions for each article. However, they are not interactive online, so you would need to either print them out or project them. The site also says they will soon be adding audio support for the text.
"Freckle" Provides Hundreds Of Articles In "5 or more different reading levels" "News-O-Matic" Is Definitely A Site I Would Consider Using With Students Right Now "TIME FOR KIDS" NOW OFFERS MATERIALS IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES, SAME ARTICLE IN DIFFERENT LEXILE LEVELS
Graded listening is a radio program from the British Council that is provided in three "lexile" levels.

Transforming the Resources You Have into Accessible Formats for All Students is an excellent post by Carmen Nguyen.

Brittanica Kids has all of its articles written in three different levels: Kids, Students, Scholars. There is a cost involved, but a lot of their resources are available for free. For example, I found this article on The Compromise of 1850 that I'll be using in my ELL U.S. History class. They also have a small collection of free "read aloud" books for new readers. I'm not sure what the restrictions are about what's free and what's for subscribers only.
The OER Project Offers The Same Social Studies Texts In Different Lexile Levels - For Free!
I think a lot of teachers will find this post from TESOL useful: Create Your Own Leveled Readers.

The Juice offers daily news articles at four different levels. You have to pay for it, though it's not astronomical.

This is a good list-I'd add that Scholastic Action (needs purchasing) is a hit with Middle & High #ELs newcomer to advanced. It includes different lexile versions. With engaging graphics, digital supplements, & access to past issues and it's easy to build high interest units.

- Holly Sawyer (@HollySawyerESL) October 31, 2021

VERY GOOD VIDEO ON "TEXT ENGINEERING" TO MAKE IT MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ELLS & EVERYBODY ELSE
What makes writing more readable? is a really interesting interactive from The Pudding. It illustrates - graphically - how to write in a more accessible way.

News2You provides weekly news articles in four different levels. It costs about $240 annually.
ChatGPT Will Make Different Lexile Level Versions Of The Same Text
Welma simplifies sentences and paragraphs through the use of AI.

HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE TEXTS WITH CHATGPT is from TechNotes.
" Eigo.ai " Is A New Free Site Using Artificial Intelligence To Support ELLs NEWSELA MAKING BIG CHANGES TO THEIR FREE PLAN
Diffit looks likes a nice tool for teachers to use for creating differentiated materials and more.
HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THE GREAT SITE "DAYS IN LEVELS"?
I'm adding this list to The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction.

Also, see THE BEST STRATEGIES FOR "ENGINEERING" TEXT SO THAT IT'S MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ELLS.

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The Best Places To Get The "Same" Text Written For Different "Levels"

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Having the "same" text written for different levels of English comprehension can be a life-saver for a multi-level class of English Language Learners or for a teacher with a mainstream ...

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#4: Reading: 7th grade science annotation example

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#4: Reading: 7th grade science annotation example

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#3: Daily Talk - Discourse 101 Presentation

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#3: Daily Talk - Discourse 101 Presentation

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A presentation with more specific and concrete examples of how to incorporate discourse into daily lessons and routines.

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#4: Reading Annotations: 8th grade ELA Example

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#4: Reading Annotations: 8th grade ELA Example

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#3: Daily Talk - Academic Discussion Protocols

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#3: Daily Talk - Academic Discussion Protocols

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Academic Discussion Protocol Example Slides

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#5: Reading - Reading Roles - Can be used for expert groups and jigsaw reading

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#5: Reading - Reading Roles - Can be used for expert groups and jigsaw reading

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How?
Students are in groups of 4 and the groups choose their roles.

Why?
Reciprocal teaching encourages students to think about their own thought process during reading and helps students learn to be actively involved and monitor their comprehension as they read.  Simultaneously, it teaches students to ask questions during reading and helps make the text more comprehensible.

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#5: Reading Roles - Directions for using reading roles

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#5: Reading Roles - Directions for using reading roles