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Deepening Text Analysis through Student Talk

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Deepening Text Analysis through Student Talk

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To increase proficiency in a language, it is crucial that the learner practices speaking and listening. Teachers with ELL students should provide ample opportunities for discussion because allowing these students to practice their new language will help them become more fluent speakers. In this video, Ms. Nguyen models how to provoke student conversations about complex texts.

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ELA.RL.6.3

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RL: Reading Standards for Literature 6-12

6: 6th Grade

3:
Describe how a particular story'\x80\x99s or drama'\x80\x99s plot
unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the
characters respond or change as the plot moves
toward a resolution.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.SL.6.1a

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening Standards 6-\x80\x9312

6: 6th Grade

1a:
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacherled)
with diverse partners on grade 6 topics,
texts, and issues, building on others'\x80\x99 ideas and
expressing their own clearly.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read or
studied required material; explicitly draw on
that preparation by referring to evidence on
the topic, text, or issue to probe and reflect on
ideas under discussion.

b. Follow rules for collegial discussions, set
specific goals and deadlines, and define
individual roles as needed.

c. Pose and respond to specific questions with
elaboration and detail by making comments
that contribute to the topic, text, or issue
under discussion.

d. Review the key ideas expressed and
demonstrate understanding of multiple
perspectives through reflection and
paraphrasing.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does this lesson fit into a larger unit on the Black Panthers?

2. Why does Ms. Nguyen scribe as students talk?

3. How does talking prepare students for writing?

School Details

Westlake Middle School
2629 Harrison Street
Oakland CA 94612

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Deepening Text Analysis Through Student Talk

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Sixth grade ELA teacher Viet-ly Nguyen has students prepare for writing by discussing a text using a participation protocol. Students have been studying the Black Panthers and reading One Crazy Summer. After reading a chapter from the book, students work together to analyze characters' actions.

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In the video "Talk Moves," Ms. Groves demonstrates how conversation stems can help English Language Learners communicate their thoughts when they do not know how to express themselves. This resource offers insight on how teachers can help ELL students gain confidence in their communication abilities by providing opportunities for scaffolding.

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Kahoot is a gaming platform that allows teachers or students to create interactive quizzes. Teachers could utilize this resource in classrooms to conduct formative assessments or review course content.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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This video shows an example of how teachers can implement technology to help students participate in discussions and demonstrate their knowledge. Instead of creating a summative assessment at the end of the activity, teachers can find ways to evaluate student understanding during the learning process.

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After teaching a lesson, teachers need to know how much information the students understood. Exit tickets allow students to show what they need more help understanding. This video explains the value of exit tickets and how they can help teachers fill in the gaps in student knowledge.

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IU Login: Indiana University - Stale Request

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Teachers use formative assessments to provide feedback and guide their students' learning. In this article, the author lists fifty-six examples of formative assessments. These assessments focus on informally assessing students during activities to gauge understanding, which can be beneficial when teaching complex or complicated content.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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This article focuses on moving away from traditional fact-based educational styles. Instead of focusing on information that will eventually become outdated, this author suggests teaching students life-long skills that will help them become active citizens.

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My freshman-year introductory psychology course was designed like most courses one finds not just at the college level, but from middle school onward. The main means of teaching was lecture, and the main assessment of performance was a set of tests that measured our recall and basic understanding of

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Text-dependent questions help students dig deeper into the text and extend their understanding. While there are many ways to create text-dependent questions, rubrics can help keep teachers on track with important considerations.

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Creating text-dependent questions can be tricky, especially if a teacher is new to the process. This resource gives teachers stems to help write these questions based on various categories.

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Text Dependent Questions Stems by Level (1)

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This document introduces text-dependent questions and their alignment with the Common Core State Standards. The step-by-step instructions tackle features in a text that teachers should acknowledge when creating text-dependent questions.

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Close-reading and text-dependent questions go hand-in-hand because to answer/create text-dependent questions, you have to be familiar with the content. This first part of this PowerPoint lists strategies and examples to help students with close-reading. The second part provides steps to creating text-dependent questions.

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This PowerPoint focuses strictly on the ins and outs of text-dependent questions and what they must entail for Common Core State Standards. Teachers can use this PowerPoint to create differentiated text-dependent questions.

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This article explains why students should read a text three times. Reading a text three times allows students to understand the central topic, pick up on subtle details, and execute the text's task (depending on the subject).

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Students need to understand that readers dive into different texts for different purposes. Sometimes we read for entertainment. Sometimes we read to learn. But technical texts are read with another goal in mind-to execute something, to perform something, to solve something. Readers of technical text are most successful when they "read closely." In school this includes most texts read in art, P.E., building trades, FACS, math, business, and other technical courses. For example, how-to manuals, directions, instructions, experiments, recipes, diagrams, charts, maps, story problems, etc.

First Reading

When reading closely, teach students to first read the technical text/story problem all the way through. They are reading this first time for gist. Students need to know the main idea, how it will be accomplished, and what the end result will be. (In math, this would be reading for the context of the problem and what they are solving for. If it's a multi-step problem, this also gives them an overview of the different operations they will have to perform.)

Second Reading

After this first reading, students will reread. This is NOT rereading because they didn't comprehend. They aren't rereading to self-monitor or to fix-up misunderstanding. In fact, they likely understood all that they read. This second reading is to notice more closely, more precisely, the key words, the important details, and the subtle but significant information embedded among all those big ideas. They are also rereading to take note of what information is NOT important or could be ignored.

During this second reading of technical text, students should have pencils in their hands. They circle, underline, strike-through, and make notes in the margins. (When working with digital text, students need to know how to interact with the text, how to make digital notations, and how to enlarge their view.)

Third Reading

Now, it's time for the third reading (or the second rereading). With the goal understood, it's time to dive into constructing the object, following the recipe, executing the instruction, or solving the math problem. Embracing the Read a little; do a little strategy (developed by Smekens Education Consultant, Kristi McCullough), students will reread each step or facet, pausing to execute the task before reading on. The reader never strays far from the text. He reads one step and accomplishes what it requires.

When solving a math story problem, this third reading will also be done with pencil in hand. However, the purpose of the pencil is not to make notes in the text, but rather begin computing the problem on paper. Read a little; do a little is the mantra of anyone solving a math story problem or diving into technical text.

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Students need to understand that readers dive into different texts for different purposes. Sometimes we read for entertainment. Sometimes we read to learn. But technical texts are read with another goal in mind-to execute something, to perform something, to solve something. Readers of technical text are most successful when they "read closely."

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Giving students a list of vocabulary terms to memorize will not ensure that they will retain the meanings of the words long-term. Using dual-coding strategies to increase the chance of words moving from the working memory to the long-term memory is more effective than simply asking students to "memorize the terms." This article lists activities students can do to learn new vocabulary.

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4. Taboo: Just like the game, students have to get their class/team to guess a relevant content-area term, without using the most common words associated with it. In italics are a sample list of terms for review. The words after the colon are all taboo and cannot be used when giving clues to teammates.

genre: topic, category, theme, types

diameter: circle, across, radius, distance

magnify: larger, bigger, enlarge, blow up

multiple: multiply, many, times, several

grammar: vowels, words, parts of speech, language, proper

persuasive: persuade, encourage, manipulate, make, influence

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4. Taboo: Just like the game, students have to get their class/team to guess a relevant content-area term, without using the most common words associated with it. In italics are a sample list of terms for review. The words after the colon are all taboo and cannot be used when giving clues to teammates.

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What It Means to Teach Disciplinary Literacy

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What It Means to Teach Disciplinary Literacy

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This Google Slide teaches the difference between content area reading and disciplinary literacy. As an ELA teacher, I will need to recognize when to use each technique based on the standard.

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This website article highlights the struggle of teaching content area reading. As students transition to higher grade levels, the texts become more complex and complicated. Implementing the strategies in this article could be a helpful first step to introducing students to multiple (and increasingly difficult) areas of reading.

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The Challenge of Content Area Reading

We see it all the time: kids who read pretty well in Language Arts demonstrate more problems when reading in other subject areas. For kids who struggle to read literature at their grade level, content area reading is even more daunting to the point of being nearly impossible for some when they hit high school subjects in history, math, and the sciences.

What begins as a relatively small problem in elementary school looms larger and larger as kids move on to middle and high school. The difficulty of the reading increases as does the volume. And so do the tasks we ask kids to perform based on what they have read. At 11th or 12th grade, school gets very, very hard for students who don't read well in content area subjects. It's hard, too, for the teachers who try to teach them.

Curriculum standards and high stakes testing have focused our attention on the matter: more kids need more proficiency in more subjects, and reading plays a part in every one. With several years of test scores to reflect on it has become clear that what kids don't get about a particular subject often has to do with what they can't read about it.

It's a mistake to think this problem just showed up while we were sleeping through the new millennium. Kids have always struggled to read effectively in the content areas. Put simply: content area reading is more difficult than reading literature. And now that this issue is being acknowledged publicly across the country, many of us are focusing our energies to address it.

First Things First

When I visit schools to help them improve their content area reading , most teachers want to know two or three specific lessons they can teach to help them solve two or three common problems. But before lessons can be effective, I find that more fundamental changes need to be considered, changes that are often tied to school culture.

I'm a big believer in the idea of putting first things first. (I don't always do it, mind you, but I believe in it because when I don't do it, I'm always wrong.) The first layer we have to deal with involves taking a look at our attitudes and practices in eight broad areas:

Reading Differences. From the standpoint of how readers approach the task, there are substantial differences between fiction and non-fiction. Often, kids aren't aware of this; they go about reading a textbook or an article on the Internet the same way they read a novel. We need to help kids shift their expectations and their approach to match the kinds of texts they have to deal with.

Reading Balance. Traditionally, reading in Language Arts has meant reading literature about 90% of the time according to the best estimates that I'm aware of. But later on, in middle and high school, their reading starts to become more like that of adults in world outside of school which is dominated by non-fiction. We can help kids make this transition by giving them more access to non-fiction in Language Arts where they can take more time to develop important skills.

Reading Process. Most kids see reading as a single act; they don't think of it as a process at all. In order to help kids improve, we have to help them become of how they read especially when they aren't reading very well. Every reader has a process and some processes are better than others. As the complexity of their texts increases, kids need to know not only what they are reading but how they are reading as well.

Reading Strategy. The most common strategy employed by students when they encounter a difficult part of a text is simply to stop reading it. Without explicit training and frequent reminders, few students develop strategies to overcome specific problems. While strategies are valuable to students when reading literature, they are almost certainly required for success when reading non-fiction. We need to be explicit about specific strategies kids can use when they tackle tougher texts in the content areas.

Reading Modeling. Even though most teachers don't teach reading, all teachers can read. And that means that all teachers can model their own reading processes and strategies in front of their students. Kids need to see models of successful adult readers in the content areas just like they see them in Language Arts.

Reading Retention. In non-fiction content area reading, we emphasize the retention of specific information. Even kids who read well may not remember enough about what they read because they don't have good tools for memorization and self-study. In addition to showing kids how to understand non-fiction information, we have to show them how to remember it as well.

Reading Applications. Part of making information easier to remember is making it meaningful to the person who has to remember it. If all kids do after reading is fill out worksheets or answer questions at the end of the chapter, they tend to develop habits and attitudes that compromise their effectiveness.

Reading Value. For many readers, especially very young ones, the value of reading literature is evident in its enjoyment. But they often view non-fiction very differently, often seeing it connected exclusively to assignments and tests as merely a way of getting a grade. We have to do a better job of demonstrating to our students what we as mature adult readers know: that non-fiction reading ability is an essential life skill of inestimable value in the real world.

It's Hard but it's Important

I find teaching reading to be the hardest thing to teach because I can never actually see it happening. Even the best brain imaging technology cannot show us exactly what is going on when our students process text. At the same time, I know that it is absolutely crucial that all kids learn to read well enough to function effectively in the world. And that's why I feel a deep obligation to make sure that kids learn as much about reading as they can - whether I'm teaching Language Arts or not.

In the last few years, I've heard it said that every teacher needs to teach reading. While I can appreciate the good intentions behind this idea, I don't agree with it. Our curriculum is crammed full to bursting and I don't think content area teachers have the time or the training to teach reading well. Nor do I think most of them have the interest to do so. Science teachers need to concentrate on science, math teacher on math, history teachers on history, and so on. But every subject requires reading of some kind. So while I don't believe that all teachers need to teach reading, I do believe that all teachers can help their students read more effectively by making small changes to their regular teaching in the areas that I have outlined here. If Language Arts teachers take a leadership role in defining how reading is taught, content area teachers can support them effectively without taking time away from their curriculum or making radical changes in their practice.

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Reading: Switching Gears -- Reading Across the Curriculum Content Areas

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The Challenge of Content Area Reading We see it all the time: kids who read pretty well in Language Arts demonstrate more problems when reading in other subject areas. For kids who struggle to read literature at their grade level, content area reading is even more daunting to the point of being nearly impossible for some when they hit high school subjects in history, math, and the sciences.

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STEM, Literacy, and the Common Core Standards

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STEM, Literacy, and the Common Core Standards

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In the past, school systems considered ELA teachers responsible for teaching students literacy skills. Nowadays, every content area teacher must teach students reading, writing, and vocabulary skills. This article discusses the positive implications of this change on STEM classes.

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Teachers in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) are heading back to school this fall with some added anxieties: new Common Core State Standards seek to put reading, writing, and vocabulary at the forefront of the STEM classroom. Here, Shannon Reed breaks down what the new standards mean to STEM teachers, and how they can use the opportunity to engage with students more profoundly.
Georgia Scurletis recently wrote about vocabulary and readability as approached by the new Common Core State Standards, a great article that you can read here. In this article, I'd like to share some of the insights I gained from working with the CCSS when I taught English and Theatre at a high school level in New York City. More specifically, I want to explore an aspect of the CCSS which is both exciting and, perhaps, slightly terrifying: the new emphasis on reading and writing within STEM classes.

Like many English teachers, I used to despair over how students' literacy skills somehow were solely my province, wishing that my colleagues in Math, Science, History and so on took more of an interest in helping improve our students' aptitudes in reading and writing instead of flogging my department for our inability to assure perfect grammar. The good news is that within the CCSS, students' reading, writing, and vocabulary skills are everyone's concern, which is as it should be. To that end, the Standards state that "both content and skills are important" and make specific suggestions to improve literacy within the STEM classrooms.
Don't Panic!
There are schools in the US that already promote cross-curricular planning and lesson development, but for most standard high schools, this development will have a major impact on teaching. Instead of the typical high school experience in which each subject area meets in distinctly separate ways, the emphasis will move towards more collegiality amongst the STEM classes and the English department (perhaps among other departments as well!).

When I worked with a Science colleague to develop a curriculum called SciPlay, which combined Earth Science core content and Playwriting practice, we were initially intimidated by figuring out ways to incorporate writing and reading into the already-jam-packed Earth Science curriculum. Coincidentally, the principal we had at that time was interested in shifting the school towards using the in-development CCSS, and we were intrigued to see that much of what we were doing lined up with those new suggestions. Gradually, we realized that we weren't going to have to tack on literacy tasks, but rather teach the same material in new ways that embraced literacy skills.

For example, the CCSS for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects suggests a range of texts for grades 6 - 12 that includes (along with stories, drama and poetry) "the subgenres of exposition, argument, and functional text in the form of personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts (including digital sources) written for a broad audience." We quickly saw that by asking students to write scenes based on accounts of scientific discovery or work, we were enabling them to better understand those accounts AND easily meeting the requirements of the CCSS. It was exciting to see that what made sense to us in terms of engaging our students was on the forefront of what would be asked of all high school teachers in the near-future. Equally pleasing was that this work wasn't difficult.
Vocabulary, Particularly
Within both the standards for reading and writing, there is an emphasis placed on vocabulary. Students should be able to "interpret words and phrases as used within a text" as well as "write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately." Additionally, students should be able to write "discipline-specific content," which indicates that literacy in mathematics is a bit different from literacy in the English classroom. This makes good sense, of course. As I found in my college classes, my ability to analyze dramatic structure with great competence was of little help in my Astronomy class. We all have had the experience of using vocabulary to try to gain a foothold in a world new to us, whether when we start watching a new sport, or move to a new part of the country. Those first victories are remembered terms and names; students will feel the same.

Inevitably, competency in literary pursuits inevitably leads back to competency in vocabulary. I was reminded of this as I prepared to take my GREs last fall. My competency in Math was severely compromised by my lack of competency in Math's vocabulary. I could find the hypotenuse of a triangle because I remembered what a hypotenuse is. I could not find the square root of any number because I had no idea what a square root was, anymore. A thorough review of the terms was necessary.

For teachers, this opportunity to explore literacy in the STEM classrooms should be embraced as a way to assure themselves of their students' competency within their course content. I've written before about how I prefer to ask my students to use their vocabulary words in sentences so that I can see if they have some facility with the words, instead of parroting back the definitions they've looked up or been given. Similarly, the request that students write well about science, math or technology provides a dual opportunity: First, teachers can teach vocabulary in a way that will empower students to feel capable in their writing and reading. Further, students can then demonstrate that mastery of terms in short or extended writing pieces, receiving feedback on their new skill set and developing their literacy, too.

A side note for Math teachers: the Mathematics Standards include a glossary at the end, which runs for 2 ½ pages. Teachers wishing to be sure their students grasp necessary Math vocabulary are well-advised to begin there.
What Could Students Read? What Could Students Write?
I do worry that STEM discipline teachers, already pressed for time and with these new demands looming over them, will begrudgingly take the easy way out on literacy. That is, they'll assign essays on famous scientists or mathematicians and grade them without much thought. There's more scope for interesting, involving assignments that match the CCSS than that, but planning is necessary.

A good first step for STEM teachers uncomfortable with these new requests would be to pair up with a trusted English-teaching colleagues (or, really, any other colleagues who demonstrate creativity in the classroom) and explore ways of incorporating literacy into the STEM class. When my colleague and I did that, we were able to come up with a multitude of assignments, far more than we could have possibly taught. It was an untrue cliché that, as the theatre teacher, I was the "creative" one. I just had more experience in planning for a looser classroom, but my colleague was able to brainstorm fantastic ideas once loosened from her fear of neglecting her curriculum.

The Standards don't offer much to STEM high school teachers in terms of suggested texts. At this time, only Thoreau's Walden could be considered a STEM-aligned work of literature on the list. I hope that the revisions of the CCSS include more suggestions, more in line with those offered for lower grades. Still, that does provide a good deal of flexibility for STEM teachers - administrators can't demand that teachers incorporate what are supposed to be suggested texts if no such texts exist.

Where to find texts, then? News sources are always a good bet. We incorporated newspaper stories about weather phenomenon and discoveries throughout the universe in our SciPlay curriculum. Since our emphasis was on playwriting, appropriate plays (and excerpts from plays) were also used: Brecht's Galileo is still fresh and involving. Fiction is always a possibility, depending on what the core content is. Plus, there are so many interesting non-fiction books out there today, from Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs to Cheryl Strayed's Wild, from Malcom Gladwell's Outliers to Mary Roach's Stiff, developing a curriculum for a STEM class could actually be - forgive me - fun!

Any text chosen will present challenges to students in readability. (Again, I refer to Georgia's wonderful article for more on this.) But there is a trade-off. Students will struggle to understand the vocabulary of these texts more than they will a textbook, which provides definitions and stringently grade-level reading, but they will be much more strongly motivated to do so because of their interest in the text. I saw the same students who wouldn't read a two-paragraph biography of Galileo read the entirety of a play about the same, simply because the play was inherently more interesting.

In terms of writing, think beyond the essay! The CCSS do not ask for "informational essays" or "biographical research papers." Instead, they give guidelines for the work involved, not the final product. For example, by the end of high school, students should be able to "integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem." That suggests an in-depth, multi-media exploration of a crucial issue in science or technology, e.g. "What to do about climate change?" or "Is genetic science moral?" or "Has the Internet changed society for better or worse?" How this integration and evaluation should be presented in final form is left up to the teacher (and, perhaps, the student). A brochure? A poster? A short story? A rap? A monologue? A speech? One of my favorite assignments was when the students wrote pop songs about the basic facts of scientist's life story. I couldn't get "Oh, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac Newton!" out of my head for days.

What I hope is clear by now is that while a well-researched, informational essay is one way of satisfying the requirements of the Standards, it is only one way, and there are many others, as well. These may require more creativity from teachers in the construction of these tasks (and, especially, in the grading of the final project) but they will also require greater imagination, and more buy-in, from the students completing the tasks.

In short, while the Standards do make more demands on STEM teachers, they also raise the profile and importance of STEM classes. It will be more difficult for students to forget what they've learned when they've learned it more creative, thoughtful and involving ways. It's also possible that these classes will enjoy a resurgence in students' interest and affection, which would be wonderful for society, in general. We need more creative scientists, mathematicians and technologists. I salute the Common Core State Standards for valuing the importance of these classes in a way that deepens their potential to connect with more students.

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STEM, Literacy, and the Common Core Standards

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Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus: Teachers at Work - Teachers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics are heading back to school this fall with some added anxieties: new Common Core State Standards seek to put literacy at the forefront of the STEM classroom.

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Learning how to teach literacy skills in multiple content areas can be complicated. This article lists basic strategies that any teacher can use in their classroom.

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The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) literacy standards for content area teachers provide incentive for teachers to focus on instructional techniques to meet students' rigorous literacy needs across the curriculum.

One of us (Ginni), an associate professor who teaches content area literacy courses at a regional university, and the other (Jason), who teaches middle grades science/ social studies, collaborated to develop literacy activities for science and social studies students that were intentional and embedded into the curriculum. These literacy activities are neither "extra" nor a replacement for the content.

The following examples come from science and social studies classrooms but teachers can apply them to other content areas as well.

Building on the Familiar

First, we wanted to supplement the literacy focus using practices that were already in place. Jason was already using bell ringers, exit slips, and note-taking in class. All these provided opportunities for embedded literacy instruction.

For bell ringers, Jason assigned short paragraphs from a textbook or from other sources. Students read the paragraph, answered direct questions, and underlined the evidence in the text that supported their answers. This extra step-underlining the evidence-enhanced students' ability to use the text to support their responses.

Initially, he asked questions directly from the text; students could easily find and underline the answers. Gradually, he assigned longer passages of text and posed questions that forced students to analyze, compare, or infer. They continued to identify the parts of the text that led them to reach their conclusions, but now the text did not provide exact answers to the questions.

The purpose of the bell ringers was not to review content from the previous class. Rather, students were required to think about concepts in a new way or to learn a new concept.

The questions Jason used as exit slips weren't based on the text alone. If he wanted to assess students' understanding of a concept, he used questions that pertained to information from all kinds of class activities. To reinforce the literacy component, however, he could add one or two text-related questions such as:

What conclusion from the text was supported or challenged by the lab that we completed?

Of all the evidence that the author used to support his opinion, which two facts are the most convincing?

How is ____________________ (main idea) from _________________ (text) supported by something you have seen or experienced in "the real world"?

The idea is for the text to support, challenge, or explore the classroom concepts in a thought-provoking way.

Jason also adjusted his note-taking techniques in class. He was already using graphic organizers or note-taking guides for mini-lectures. He noticed opportunities for students to use these tools when they were watching videos or reading. One of his favorites was note-taking matrices.

In one activity, he wanted his students to consider the environmental impact of sources of energy. He provided students with a matrix and had them do research to complete the chart and reach a conclusion about the most environmentally friendly energy source.

Targeting Problem Areas

Students work together to develop deeper learning.

Jason noticed that his students had trouble with comprehension, vocabulary/concept development, and summarization. Although the CCSS require students to do more than just comprehend-they need to analyze, compare, and evaluate-Jason argued that if students didn't comprehend, they couldn't do those other things, either. The solution was to use activities that supported comprehension and then extend students' understanding.

To promote vocabulary and concept development, Jason used a Guess and Adjust activity. Students used their background knowledge to "guess" a definition of a specific word or concept; then, as they read their text, they "adjusted" their understanding of the word or concept based on what they learned from the text. The initial "guessing" step motivated students to read because they wanted to see if they were right!

To develop students' summarization skills, Jason assigned activities with parameters such as, "Write a five-sentence summary of this text. For the first sentence, identify the main idea about the entire article (hint: re-read the introductory and concluding paragraphs). For the next three sentences, write down the supporting details that you find in the article (hint: notice that your article is divided into three sections; use each of these sections to write your three sentences). For your last sentence, explain what is important about this article (hint: think about why this topic is important)."

As students became more adept at summarizing, Jason could stop giving hints and specific parameters.

Adding Rigor

Literacy skills can be embedded in the science classroom.

The CCSS require students to recognize the type and structure of text, to identify the author's purpose in writing, and to consider how information in one text can be integrated with information in other texts (including written texts and visual or multi-media texts).

Attending to this requirement was less about creating new activities and more about being intentional in teaching and using existing activities. Sometimes, it was just a matter of asking additional questions of students. For example, when introducing an argumentative piece about global warming, Jason asked questions like these:

What do you think is the purpose of this text? Is the author going to inform us, argue for a particular position, or tell us a story? How can you tell?

Now that you recognize that the author is presenting an argument, how do you expect this article to be organized?

After the class read the text, he debriefed and repeated this type of discussion with texts that represented alternative views. A comparison could be made between competing arguments, prompting discussions about purpose, structure, content, evidence, reasoned arguments vs. facts or opinions. This deep thinking is prompted by a few well-placed and well-designed questions.

Aligning Texts with Writing

The CCSS indicate that students need to develop pieces of writing that are well organized, taken through the writing process, and written in the argumentative and/or informational modes, using narrative excerpts as support. Last year, Jason assigned his social studies students an informational full-process piece. He was not surprised to find that the students' writing skills were lacking. He also discovered that their writing demonstrated only surface understanding of the content. He thought they had a deeper understanding of the content, which in this case related to Julius Caesar, but realized that they couldn't analyze this historical figure's impact. They could describe him, they could repeat facts from their reading, but they couldn't interpret or evaluate the information.

Jason was aware that his students struggled with grammar and mechanics, but knew that teaching writing is about teaching students to think and communicate- in this case as an historian.

We wrote a model paper to demonstrate the type of thinking that he wanted students to reflect in their writing. He also became more intentional about using different modes of writing as reading assignments throughout his units, helping students focus on how those pieces are written. In this way, he prepared his readers to become effective writers.

Connecting Reading and Writing

Jason wanted to use writing-to-learn activities regularly and a student journal intermittently. He liked that students could keep their notes, reflections, vocabulary exercises, and targeted questions in one location. He also liked that they had a complete resource for review before a summative exam.

The journal exercises were often based on excerpts or complete texts; some of those texts were visual (maps, pictures, written texts), auditory (mini lectures, videos, discussions), and multi-media (websites, online interactive activities). For lengthier writing assignments, Jason intentionally used text as the foundation, often requiring students to quote directly from text because he wanted them to use direct evidence from the reading.

Using text is not the same thing as teaching text. Jason had to be explicit about how students should engage with the texts and how they should respond to them; gradually he could pull the scaffolds away as students became more proficient. His goal, after all, was for them to demonstrate independence in their reading and writing.

Embedding Literacy Across the Curriculum

The most profound benefits of embedding literacy within the content curriculum include:

Although students initially rebelled against anything literacy-related, they eventually recognized the activities as a regular part of class. They began to enjoy the activities because Jason chose texts that were interesting, thought-provoking, and relevant.

Until students' misconceptions and depth of thinking were consistently revealed through their reflections and responses, Jason had depended primarily upon discussions and other forms of assessment. Now he was encouraged to use literacy activities for evaluation often.

Students performed better on summative assessments when the concepts were taught using a combination of instructional techniques. The hands-on activities were not replaced, but they were supplemented by encounters with text. Jason noted a positive difference in students' performance on summative exams.

One of the most difficult challenges in the process was finding appropriate texts. He had no trouble finding videos, he used pieces of his textbook regularly, and he could find some information online for students to use. However, he had to adapt or modify several texts. This was time consuming and sometimes he overestimated what his students were ready to handle.

Students must be exposed to rigorous texts, but this should be done incrementally so as not to frustrate readers. This delicate dance was very much trial-and-error. Jason is comforted by the fact that he can add to his cache of texts over time; he doesn't have to have multiple texts for multiple units from the beginning.

Although content area teachers are accustomed to differentiating their content for students, differentiating texts was more complicated. Ginni spent almost as much time helping Jason consider ways to modify the text or the presentation of text as helping create or modify activities. When Jason began to do this on his own, he realized that modifications such as using small groups, conducting readalouds, using excerpts instead of entire texts for selected students, and highlighting important segments of text could be implemented easily.

Jason's students' continued success and engagement with the literacy activities took time and effort, and sometimes their improvements were incremental, but their content understanding improved along with their development as literate and critical thinkers. With student success as the ultimate goal, linking content area and literacy instruction is not only a manageable endeavor, it's a powerful one.
Previously published in Middle Ground magazine, October 2012

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Literacy as the Link: Common Core Standards and Content Area Teaching - AMLE

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The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) literacy standards for content area teachers provide incentive for teachers to focus on instructional techniques to meet students' rigorous literacy needs across the curriculum. One of us (Ginni), an associate professor who teaches content area literacy courses at a regional university, and the other (Jason), who teaches middle gradesRead More...

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This blog provides links to articles that provide information on teaching strategies. If teachers need advice or information on teaching ELL students, they can navigate through the website to find resources, such as the article "English Language Learner Do’s and Dont's."

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The latest news and resources in education since 2007

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Colorín Colorado is a website that provides research, information, and resources to families and educators of English Language Learners. If teachers have questions concerning ELLs, they can reference the website for materials and/or advice.

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A bilingual site for educators and families of English language learners

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Helping students gain the skills to unpack informational texts is a significant step to getting them college- and career-ready. This article lists five websites that help teachers find differentiated texts for their classrooms.

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Editor's Note: Teaching Channel has partnered withStudent Achievement Partnerson a blog series about digital literacy tools and their effective use by educators.
One of the most exciting shifts in the Common Core State Standards is the increased use of content-rich, informational text.

Let's think about this. As professionals, how often do we read texts that are outside of our comfort zone? Perhaps it was a legal document, a lengthy contract, or 16th Century prose. A lot of time, no doubt, was spent trying to decode the language used. Our human brain only has a finite amount of working memory available at any given time. And when we're reading, our brain is either decoding or comprehending. It can't do both well. The process is uncomfortable. And yet, many of us ask this of our students on a daily basis. It's no wonder they struggle!

Preparing our students to be college- and career-ready is our priority. We must help students build the skills necessary to unpack informational texts. A key to this is providing engaging texts that are motivating and meaningful. We must remember the task of teaching informational reading skills does not just rest on the shoulders of ELA teachers. ALL educators are teachers of reading.

Below, we share five sites that will help you find these texts with ease and even differentiate the same article for the different learners in your room.

Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with nonfiction text that's relevant. Articles are updated daily with real-world news from major publications. Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that's just right for each student.

Newsela supports differentiation through interest and ability level. With its wide array of highly engaging categories, students are very likely to discover content that piques their curiosity. The free version of Newsela also gives teachers access to articles at varying Lexile levels. So hypothetically, educators can take the same piece and present it to students at a 620 Lexile as well as an 1170.

We've used Newsela with seventh grade students and saw a drastic improvement in their reading abilities. Articles were given as cold reads to help students apply and practice reading skills to measure mastery. After taking the PARCC test, students shared that Newsela was the closest resource used in our classroom to the assessment.

Text sets are another way to utilize Newsela. The Common Core calls for students to analyze multiple texts on the same topic and/or theme. You can create your own sets by searching the articles. Newsela has even started to create their own text sets that accompany specific novels.

They've recently launched an extension of their site that is explicitly designed for elementary students. Articles here have been vetted by the Newsela Elementary editorial team to determine whether emerging readers have the schema and maturity to handle its content and deeper meaning.

And don't forget, this resource can also be utilized for students to conduct research.

TweenTribune is a news site brought to you by the Smithsonian that provides daily news articles for students. Articles are selected by professional journalists working in collaboration with teachers and students. As a Smithsonian resource, it has a plethora of science and history focused articles. This is a perfect website to find content-specific resources for our history and science teachers.

Like Newsela, TweenTribune offers the same article at different lexile levels, which gives teachers the ability to differentiate with the click of a mouse. Educators can create classes to assign articles and quizzes to their students that are automatically graded and delivered to the teacher's online gradebook. The site has lesson plans for teachers that can be filtered by topic, grade level, and Common Core standards. It also doesn't leave our Spanish speaking students out -- TweenTribune provides resources in Spanish, too. This is a great resource for ESL/ELL teachers.

Wonderopolis is a magical place where natural curiosity and imagination lead to exploration and discovery for learners of all ages. Each day, Wonderopolis poses an intriguing question and explores it in a variety of ways. Their approach both informs and encourages new questions, sparking new paths of wonder and discovery in family and classroom settings.

Wonderopolis taps into our inherent love of learning and provides a golden opportunity to capture the interest and engagement of your class. With hundreds of different "wonders" available, teachers can provide choice and have students select something they'd like to learn more about. Each "wonder" includes vocabulary (which is previewed), text (which explains the wonder in kid-friendly terms), and also a video. Additionally, there is supporting material available for children to continue the inquiry -- which may serve as a springboard to inform a Genius Hour project if given the opportunity.

Google, the greatest search engine of all time (we are a bit partial), has created a news repository. It's a searchable archive of newspapers from around the world, dating all the way back to the 1700s.

You can easily search topics or specific time periods to provide students primary sources. Think about the power of this. Students can search a paper from the North about the Civil Rights Movement, and then students can read the Southern perspective by the contemporary news reporters. Students have access to first-hand accounts to analyze and create their own perceptions of events during a particular time. Take it a step farther by examining two different countries during one of the World Wars, or the English perspective on America's Revolutionary War.

Students are often receiving history from textbooks. "History is written by the victors" is a phrase often attributed to Winston Chruchill. Give students the ability to decipher biases (a skill called for by the Common Core) and interpret and analyze history through differing perspectives.

DOGO is a robust online network that aims to empower students to engage positively with digital media and a worldwide audience. The website caters to children, embodied in their name "dogo" -- which means 'young' or 'small' in Swahili. DOGO is comprised of several websites that foster both fun and interactive experiences by providing kids the opportunity to earn badges for reading and expressing their opinions. Students can connect with peers from around the world virtually and build their own personal learning network around digital texts in the ELA classroom.

DOGOnews.com is a leading source for current events, news, and non-fiction texts across a variety of categories and grade levels. Students can discover articles of interest and post comments based on their reactions to the content, all within the confines of a kid-friendly ecosystem.

DOGObooks.comhouses an extensive catalog of book reviews composed by kids for kids. Students can explore and/or submit reviews. All posts are moderated and vetted, so content is appropriate. As you learned in our last post, we very much value engaging students with authentic experiences. Leveraging this online network to share their thoughts about books and read others' perspectives, truly cultivates authenticity for our children.

DOGOmovies.com mirrors the concept of DOGObooks by providing a platform for students to discover, watch trailers, and craft reviews of movies. Similar to DOGObooks, all reviews are moderated and vetted to ensure appropriateness. Film is a highly-engaging, multimodal tool to incorporate in the classroom. Teachers can foster both reflection and meaningful writing by encouraging students to express their opinions on the movie; in other words, students can write arguments to support claims using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence, as called for in the Common Core.

We think it's critical that educators expand the definition of "text" beyond simply words on a page. Film, art, and music are all texts which kids can respond to in written form. Students can take the content of a film, for instance, and craft powerful arguments to support claims regarding symbolism, character development, mood, and theme. The skills being applied by the students are the same even if the source is not traditional.

Some of you may disagree with the idea that the definition of text is more nuanced -- and broader -- today. We completely understand. However, education is evolving. The norms of today's classroom practice cannot look like yesterday's. We encourage you to take risks and re-imagine pedagogy. The teacher doesn't have to be the smartest person in the room anymore. The world is shrinking -- and that's a good thing. Let's provide students multiple networks with which to learn, and audiences with which to connect. Let's get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Let us know how these tools work for you in the comments below.

Continue the Conversation

And don't forget to join our class on Remind: Digital Tools for TCHrs where we will continue to share one new digital tool per week throughout the school year. Text @4TCHrs to 81010 from your mobile device to continue learning together.

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Literacy in the Digital Age: 5 Sites With High-Quality Information

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Editor's Note: Teaching Channel has partnered withStudent Achievement Partnerson a blog series about digital literacy tools and their effective use by educators. One of the most exciting shifts in the Common Core State Standards is the increased use of content-rich, informational text. Let's think about this.

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Not every student is going to read at grade level. Some students may be behind, while others are ahead. As a teacher, it is essential to provide texts that meet students at their reading level because if students cannot understand what they are reading, they will not understand the learning goals behind the information.

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Multiple Texts Multiple Opportunities (1)

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Text sets provide students with multiple options to connect and understand an overarching concept. This website lists resources that explain how to find differentiated materials.

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Research Guides: Education (Lesson Planning Resources): Text Sets

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The what, why and how of creating text sets

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You Can't Learn Much from Books You Can't Read

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You Can't Learn Much from Books You Can't Read

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Classrooms that rely solely on textbooks to provide information tend to experience students falling behind in reading comprehension. Textbooks expose students to complex language and syntax that often cause students to struggle. Moving away from this "one-size-fits-all" strategy, the authors of this article propose introducing methods such as individual instruction, multiple resources, and student choice.

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You cant learn much from books you cant read (1)

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With access to the largest database in the world (the internet), it is becoming increasingly important for teachers to teach students how to turn separate texts into coherent information. This article provides strategies and tips for helping students comprehend texts and extend their understandings to other resources.

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Article- Fostering Comprehension Across Multiple Texts Fisher and Frey _1_ (1) (2)

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Incorporating "before," "after," and "during" comprehension strategies can help students activate prior knowledge, make connections to the content, and reflect on their learning. This website provides research-based strategies that hit each of these points, maximizing student comprehension.

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Browse our library of strategies that support interactive and engaging learning that helps students make stronger connections and deeper understanding of text and topics.

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This video focuses on the gradual release of responsibility. Teacher Sarah Brown Wessling gives teachers strategies to help their students become more active learners.

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This article explains how to utilize graphic organizers in a classroom. Designing organizers around learning goals, student interests, and potential connections is fundamental to increasing the value of this resource.

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Increasing the Value of Graphic Organizers

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The visual guides work best when learning goals drive the design and students are engaged in their creation.

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Although this video focuses on teaching comprehension strategies in an elementary setting, Dr. Anita Archer provides advice that high school teachers can apply to their students. This podcast touches on general comprehension approaches for before, during, and after reading activities.

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There are various ways to teach reading comprehension to students. Finding the best strategy can take time and patience, especially when you do not know where to start. The author of this book lists methods teachers can use to teach and assess reading comprehension.

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Camille Blachowicz, PhD, is Professor of Education at National-Louis University, where she also directs the Reading Program and the Reading Center. She is the author of several books and numerous chapters, monographs, and articles on vocabulary and comprehension instruction and on working with at-risk readers. Dr. Blachowicz was a Fulbright Fellow to Italy and is active in professional organizations and staff development nationally and internationally. She is codirector of the Literacy Partners: Advanced Reading Development Demonstration Project (ARDDP), a project on coaching and school literacy improvement, in the Chicago Public Schools. In 2003 she was named to the roster of Outstanding Teacher Educators in Reading by the International Reading Association.

Donna Ogle, EdD, is Professor of Education at National-Louis University, a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, and a past president of the International Reading Association (2001-2002). She currently is directing two multischool projects in the Chicago Public Schools: Project ALL (Advancing Literacy for Learning) and the Transitional Adolescent Literacy Leadership (TALL) Project. She is also Senior Consultant to the Chicago Striving Readers Research Study. Dr. Ogle is the author of many publications related to the topic of comprehension development and has particular interest in informational reading and learning. She works internationally in professional development projects and is an editorial reviewer for Lectura y Vida, the Spanish-language journal of the International Reading Association.

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This practical resource and widely used text presents a wealth of research-based approaches to comprehension instruction. The authors offer specific classroom practices that help K-9 students compare and evaluate print and online sources, develop vocabulary, build study and test-taking skills, and become motivated readers.

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This website is a great resource for graphic organizers. Many of the worksheets provide in-depth questions, encouraging students to dig deep within their responses.

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This online dictionary provides teachers and students with a communication resource when language barriers occur. This website translates words in English, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean. Since this resource is a dictionary, students can research unfamiliar vocabulary terms.

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE

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Longman English Dictionary - the leading dictionary for learners of English of all levels: definitions, idioms, examples and more.

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If students do not understand the words in a text, they will probably not understand what the text is trying to communicate. Teachers can use this article as an introductory guide to teaching students root words. If students can make sense of vocabulary, they have a better chance at achieving reading comprehension.

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Traditional vocabulary instruction used to rely on pre-made lists of words and dictionaries; however, contemporary educators have transitioned away from this approach. Rekindling student interest helps increase the possibility of students connecting and remembering the new terms. This article covers vocabulary instruction strategies that engage students.

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Memorizing the definitions of new terms does not mean that students will remember the terms in the future. In the video, Ms. Wessling has students write different versions of a word down on paint chips. Afterward, she has her students use the words in a sentence to model their understanding. This resource is valuable because it shows engaging strategies for vocabulary instruction.

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Investigating the Promise of Flipped Classrooms

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Investigating the Promise of Flipped Classrooms

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This article explores the implications of flipped classrooms. Many teachers choose to break away from traditional classroom settings and devote class time to helping answer student questions. Instead of teaching students a lesson in class then assigning homework, teachers who "flip their classrooms" have students use technology to learn the content at home, which frees up class time for questions and scaffolding.

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Ways to Use Technology Effectively in an English/Language Arts Class

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Ways to Use Technology Effectively in an English/Language Arts Class

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In this article, Larry Ferlazzo discusses how ELA teachers can integrate technology into their classrooms. Finding creative ways to use technology will help increase student engagement in activities. For example, teachers can have students message their favorite authors through social media.

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective ways to use tech in English classes?
There are lots of English classes in schools and there are sure a lot of ed-tech possibilities out there.

This series will explore if there are any useful connections that can be made between them.

This is part of a series considering tech tools for different content classes (you can see posts on tech in math classes here and on tech in social studies classes here).

Today's column features responses from Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jenny Vo, Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry, Ingrid Nelson, and Stephanie Affinito. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jennifer, Jenny, and Maggie on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also be interested in The "All-Time" Best Web Tools For English Language Learners and The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An "Authentic Audience."
Response From Jennifer Casa-Todd The temptation to have students use a Chromebook or tablet to write and peer edit papers is great, but there is so much more to using tech in English. Don't get me wrong; using collaborative tools to get feedback on a student's writing (text or audio) can be very powerful, but technology and social media allow for powerful storytelling and transformational learning experiences in English classes. Here are a few examples: and have your kids reach out to the authors with their questions or comments. -Use your own social-media connections to find another class reading the same book and connect with them by sharing questions and feelings about the book on Google Hangouts or Webroom (if in the same time zone), or Padlet or Flipgrid (if synchronous meetings are not possible). -Have students join the Global Read Aloud, created by Pernille Ripp, and use the Twitter hashtags to talk about what resonates. OR create a slow chat (from a class account if students are under 13) and invite others to respond to your students' questions. with resources to get started. for students to synthesize what they know about a story or create an alternative ending. ) to create scavenger hunts or BreakoutEDU style challenges for vocabulary or content sharing. -Have kids post a review on Amazon or Goodreads for the book they are reading in class or Rotten Tomatoes for a film they are watching (class account for younger kids). Help them to construct a review and teach them how to respond positively and critically to other reviews with which they either agree or disagree. This not only provides an authentic audience, but it also teaches students how to comment appropriately to others. -Create a Twitter poem using a maximum of 280 characters. and the power of Google Earth to create an interactive map of the setting and moments that resonate from the novel or story they are reading. for novels, stories, and nonfiction units. Hyperdocs reinforce the 4Cs, are multimodal and therefore allow for a variety of entry points, and provide students with the opportunity to work at their own pace. Most importantly, ask your students-what are they writing, reading, creating? Students lead rich digital lives outside the classroom. Use these ideas flexibly to meet your curriculum needs; this will reinforce their own literate behaviors and help them to feel valued in the classroom. Response From Jenny Vo
Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has been teaching for 22 years and is currently an ESL ISST in the Katy Independent school district in Katy, Texas:
In this digital age where technology is everywhere, it behooves us as educators to embrace it and use it to our benefit and for the benefit of our students. Why not integrate technology into your instruction to enhance the learning experiences of your students? The goal is not to substitute technology for quality teacher instruction but to integrate it seamlessly so that it supports your teaching and provides the students with interactive, meaningful lessons that will engage both their attention and their brains. With so many programs and Apps available, however, teachers need to make wise choices about which ones to use and how to use them. What are some effective ways you can use technology in the classroom?

1. Use technology to develop the language skills of your students, especially your English-language learners
. There are great programs and Apps that help the students with their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Flipgrid is a great online discussion tool where students can record themselves responding to questions posted by the teacher and then listen and respond to other students' replies. Use this to activate background knowledge, share experiences, book discussions, etc. Poplet is a powerful mind-mapping tool that allows students to think and learn visually. They use words and pictures to show relationships between ideas. Use this to teach vocabulary, main idea/details, plan for writing, plan out presentations, etc. EPIC and ReadWorks are online libraries of books and nonfiction and literary articles. Teachers can assign students books to read during independent reading time or at home. Students may also choose books themselves. They both have quizzes and assessments that teachers can use to track their students' reading progress.

2. Use technology to give your students opportunities to share their learning and show off their work.
Have students create presentations using PowerPoint or Google Slides. With TeleStory, students can create their own movies. Students can write stories using StoryJumper. These are great to use at the end of the unit when you want students to summarize what they have learned. Not only will the students feel great about sharing their work, you can also use the finished products as an assessment tool and to share with parents what their children have learned.

3. Use technology to enhance your lessons and for assessments. Teachers can use technology to create and deliver lessons and to assess student learning. My school started using Nearpod last year. Nearpod has been a game changer in helping to create engaging and interactive lessons for our students. You can create your own lessons or import lessons from the lesson bank and customize them to your needs. You can add interactive features such as 3D objects, polls, open-ended questions where students can type in answers or draw their answers, virtual field trips, quizzes, etc. It is a great tool for formative assessment during your lesson. Reports can be printed out and used to determine which students mastered the concepts and who needs reteaching. Kahoot! is a game-based technology tool that can be used for pre- and formative assessment. Use it to check for background knowledge, check for understanding midunit, or as a review before an assessment. Teachers can add questions and polls, along with images and videos to their quizzes. Like Nearpod, Kahoot! also has a bank of quizzes that teachers can access and customize.

Technology will only get more advanced as time goes by. Why not embrace it and allow it to support our instruction? Our students will benefit from the fun, interactive lessons and will think we are so cool because we know how to use technology. It's a win-win situation! Response From Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry & Ingrid Nelson

Maggie Verdoia and Sarah Acosta Landry are teachers at Raymond J. Fisher Middle School in the Los Gatos Union school district in Los Gatos, Calif. Ingrid Nelson is a teacher at John Sloat Elementary School in the Sacramento City Unified school district. They are members of the Instructional Leadership Corps, a collaboration among the California Teachers Association, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and the National Board Resource Center at Stanford:
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the tech tools available for the English classroom. As teachers, even though tech is engaging for students, we know that arbitrarily choosing a tool is not going to raise content mastery-it has to be the right tool, for the right purpose, at the right time. In designing 21st-century instruction for an English class, we seek tech tools that promote three key areas: inquiry, reasoning (or critical thinking), and authenticity. When tech allows students to inquire effectively and safely, think critically about the world around them, and do so in authentic ways, we know it's a good integration. (reliability-authenticity-purpose) works well to help them evaluate websites and determine credibility. . , a virtual bulletin board that can be used in a multitude of ways. For inquiry, students use Padlet to post questions (for example, either as part of a K-W-L activity or in response to student presentations), or to post answers to other students' questions. When it comes to authenticity, we want students sharing their work with real audiences, and Padlet works well as a place where students can share their writing (via the Google Doc link) and then comment on each other's pieces using Padlet's comment feature.
A cool tool to get those brains thinking critically is EdPuzzle to publish their thinking in small groups (think Literature Circles) by posting thoughts and commenting on the thoughts of others. And if we want to share with a wider audience (the entire school or beyond), we use Google Sites We challenge you to choose a tool and implement it with your students! They'll thank you! Response From Stephanie Affinito to publish student work. We use Google Sites for literature circles, reciprocal lessons, book reviews, and student portfolios. Our conceptualization of literacy is ever evolving. It includes attention to new, digital, and multimodal literacies and acknowledges that these literacies change our habits as readers. Therefore, literacy teachers must reimagine instruction to ensure students authentically create, communicate, collaborate, and learn together through technology. Based on my work in teacher learning communities, I have found technology can be particularly effective to build connected literacy communities, engage teachers during professional development, and support personalized learning, lessons easily transferred to the English classroom: Build a connected literacy community. Engage students during literacy instruction. Support personalized learning. Above all, pedagogy must lead technology. We must intentionally choose digital tools for the classroom using our knowledge of the learners in front of us. If we focus on how technology can amplify student voice and provide authentic audiences for student work, we harness the power of literacy, empowering students to share their voices with the world and leave their mark on it. Flip your classroom with technology! Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach where individual reflection precedes group collaboration and discussion to create an active and engaged learning space. Create resources for students to guide their own learning: collections of texts and videos, tutorials for skills and strategies, and options for student choice. Connect individually with students to support their journeys and share their voice with others. Innovate your literacy teaching by using technology to spice up lessons and increase student engagement. Survey students before a new unit of study using Google Forms to inform your planning and instruction. Create attractive slides and memes to spark thinking using Canva or Adobe Spark during lessons. Encourage interaction through QR Codes and ThingLink. Engage students by creating backchannels for discussion through Recap or Today's Meet. Technology has the potential to connect readers and writers together. Students can use digital tools such as Padlet and Flipgrid to share books they are reading and begin literate conversations. Students can use Google Docs to easily share their writing with others for feedback and celebration. While these connections might begin in the classroom, they can be continued outside of them, blurring the boundaries of learning. Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. Look for Part Two in a few days.
. There's no denying kids love watching videos online. With EdPuzzle, you can take YouTube videos and make them interactive for students. Teachers import the YouTube video, either use the audio given or record your own, and embed critical-thinking questions for students to answer. Students can also create EdPuzzle videos to demonstrate their own thinking about a text (digital or traditional) and teach others!

Stephanie Affinito, a former classroom teacher and literacy specialist, is a literacy teacher educator at the University of Albany. She has a deep love for literacy coaching and supporting teachers' learning through technology and presents nationally on this topic. You can find her online at stephanieaffinito.com and on Twitter at @AffinitoLit:

Thanks to Jennifer, Jenny, Maggie, Sarah, and Stephanie for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Response: Ways to Use Tech Effectively in English Classes (Opinion)

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Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jenny Vo, Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry, Ingrid Nelson, and Stephanie Affinito share suggestions on how to use tech in English classes.

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Digital storytelling is a relatively new concept. Essentially, it is a form of narrative that occurs through a multimedia approach. By creating a digital story, students can tap into their creative capacities while sharing a story personal to them.

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Why Teachers Need to Embrace Digital Storytelling | Resilient Educator

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Digital storytelling projects allow teachers to put their students’ love of technology to good use, firing their creativity and boosting their language skills.