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Beers, Kylene, and Robert E. Probst. “Where Does Rigor Fit? .” Notice and Note Strategies for Close Reading, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 2013, pp. 20–23.

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Buehl, Doug. “Chapter 3: Questioning for Understanding Through Text Frames .” Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, Stenhouse Publishers, Portsmouth, 2020.

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Overall, these texts all discuss a common problem with our school system. Textbooks and lesson plans introduce students to an overwhelming amount of information. When presented with this information, students either become bored and give up, or skim through the texts and try to remember as many facts as possible. The focus shifts from learning for the sake of learning to memorizing information for tests and good grades. In order to create a rigorous classroom environment where students are engaged in critical thinking and synthesizing information, teachers must organize their lessons around enduring understandings. What do we want our students to know after they graduate high school? Through strategies like mental modeling, annotation, and scaffolding, educators can ensure their class is actively involved in the learning process and that they'll remember the lessons for years to come, not just until the next exam.

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Like the Beers and Probst reading, this text discusses the real meaning of rigor. According to Tovani, rigor is about a student's engagement with the content, not the difficulty of the book (Tovani). Additionally, I thought it was interesting that this reading emphasized that rigor depends on the reader (Tovani). For example, I'm not proficient in math. For me, a simple algebra problem would be a rigorous text. However, for an experienced student in a higher-level math course like calculus, an algebra equation would not be rigorous. With proper support from teachers, any student can read a rigorous text, but teachers cannot throw a difficult concept at their students and expect them to understand it immediately. Students must slowly improve their reading comprehension and work up to difficult texts.

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I thought this text was interesting because it emphasized the importance of reading in all subject areas. As a Secondary Language Arts major, I usually think of literacy as it relates to English, but reading is involved in every class. For example, in math, students need to learn to read equations. However, math-readers comprehend an equation differently than someone reading a book. For example, math teachers "read the entire problem all the way through, and then try to see how that problem relates to something in the real world. Then they look to see what information is given and what is required. They see what their variables are and what their unknown variables are" (Tovani). According to the text, teachers in different subject areas read differently (Tovani). The text also emphasizes that, because teachers are experts in their content areas, they implement these strategies unconsciously (Tovani). However, students come into high school classes not knowing how to read a math problem or comprehend a difficult novel. It's our job to teach them effective strategies for reading in our content area.

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The idea that stood out to me from this reading was that traditional teaching methods don't emphasize enduring understandings. Textbooks give students an "overwhelming onslaught of factual information that is never sorted into anything useful or worth remembering." Students skim readings and memorize facts for tests but they don't synthesize these facts into a larger meaning. According to the text, "At the end of a passage, students may have accumulated a mass of disorganized information for which they have little use. They have not engaged in the critical comprehension processes of determining importance and synthesizing understanding" (Buehl).

This is a phenomenon that I have experienced throughout my k-12 experience. In English classes, we read books and took quizzes over them. However, the quizzes included basic, factual questions like, what did this character say to this character in chapter 2? This encouraged my classmates and I to take notes on anything in the book that we thought was vaguely important. I memorized tons of facts for these quizzes, but when the quizzes were done, I completely forgot everything I'd learned. This is a challenge that I will have to overcome as a teacher. How do I ensure that my lesson plans and tests promote enduring understandings?

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When I was in high school, some of my teachers seemed to assume that just because a text was hard, it was rigorous. One of my science teachers assigned long, difficult readings that I struggled to comprehend. This led to a lot of frustration, I would read pages and pages of the textbook but I could barely understand any of the words. According to the text, this is the opposite of rigorous. Rigorous reading involves grappling with deep themes, asking higher-level questions, thinking about implications, and generating new ideas (Beers). Classrooms that include rigor make readings engaging and relevant to their students. Any text can be rigorous, even a low-grade text. Similarly, academically "difficult" texts can lack rigor. "Rigor, in other words, lies in the transaction between the reader and the text and then among readers. The essence of rigor is engagement and commitment. A classroom that respects what the students bring to it, what they are capable of and interested in, and that welcomes them into an active intellectual community is more likely to achieve that rigor" (Beers).

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How Will I Teach For Enduring Understandings? 

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How Will I Teach For Enduring Understandings? 

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This reading suggests several strategies to guide student's thinking as they read. One strategy I want to include in my classroom is the essential question. Essential questions encourage students to think deeply about a topic. Rather than memorizing useless facts and cramming for tests, students consider the importance of what they're learning. According to the text, "Instruction organized around essential questions considers the transcendent, overarching ideas that position students to examine critical connections or relationships within a topic area: Why exactly are we studying this? How can this be applied in the larger world? What couldn’t we do if we didn’t understand this? What ideas is the author exploring in this story? What is worth remembering, after time has passed, about this topic, unit, novel, or experiment?" (Buehl). Including essential questions increases the likelihood that students will remember the lesson after they graduate.

One way to teach essential questions in my classroom would be to use a fact pyramid. The fact pyramid puts essential knowledge at the top of the pyramid. Essential knowledge is achieved through asking essential questions, and it's the information I hope my students will remember after they graduate. The short-term information is below the essential knowledge, it includes necessary facts that may be forgotten over time. Background information is at the base of the pyramid, these details are usually provided to students through front-loading (Buehl).

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Tovani, Cris. “Chapter 3, Parallel Experiences: Tapping the Mother Lode .” Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?, Hawker Brownlow Education, Moorabbin, Victoria, 2015, pp. 23–35.

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This reading suggests many strategies for creating rigor in the classroom, regardless of a student's reading abilities. For example, if a student cannot understand a specific text, teachers can provide the student with an alternative text that is easier to understand, while still retaining the same themes. According to the reading, alternative texts are important because "If we don't begin to find accessible text for all adolescent readers, they will continue to fail, only to become someone else's problem the following year. More
students will become turned off to the content we love" (Tovani).

This reminds me of my experiences tutoring in an elementary classroom. The students all had varied reading abilities and the teacher couldn't assign them all the same text, so we split them into reading groups. Each group read a different text based on their reading abilities. I agree that providing students with alternative texts can be beneficial, however, I think there are some problems with this strategy. Students may feel singled out if they have to read a different book than their peers. After implementing this strategy in my elementary classroom, I noticed that some students had decreased self-efficacy. They saw that their classmates were reading more "advanced" texts and labeled themselves as "bad readers." These students developed a fixed mindset about their abilities and struggled to advance their reading skills.

I wonder how I can include alternative texts in my classroom without affecting my student's belief in their reading abilities. Maybe I can teach alternative texts alongside difficult classics to scaffold my students' understanding.

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The reading introduced me to the concept of mental modeling. I can use mental modeling to teach my students how to read difficult books. To use this strategy, I must put myself in my student's shoes to understand what they're struggling with. Then, I can think about the strategies that I use to understand a complex text and give these strategies to my students.

When I read difficult texts, I annotate and ask questions to help myself understand. To demonstrate this to my class, I can read part of a passage aloud and have them share any important thoughts, questions, or ideas that come to mind as I read. Then, I will have them read the rest of the passage individually or in groups. I will ask them to write down any confusing moments or questions. After they're done, the class will reconvene and discuss their questions. This will ensure that all my students have a base understanding of the text and it will increase their engagement with the text.

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How Will I Make My Classroom Rigorous?  

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How Will I Make My Classroom Rigorous?  

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This reading made me wonder how I can achieve this rigor in my classroom. One way to do this would be to scaffold difficult content. I've noticed my host teacher at Battle doing this whenever he introduces his class to a complex topic. For example, in his creative writing class, he introduced students to the topic of magical realism. Initially, the students seemed confused about the genre. To help the class with this difficult subject, my teacher used front loading to provide the class with adequate background knowledge. To do this he played a short video of an author explaining the history of magical realism and the relevant texts. Then, he read aloud a story and helped the students pick out which elements made it "magical realism." Finally, he had the students write their own stories in the genre. By gradually reducing support, he increased the class's self-efficacy, thus increasing their ability to understand the subject. As the student's confidence increased, I noticed that they engaged with the subject in a deeper way. They asked critical questions about magically realistic stories. They thought deeply about the themes presented in these texts and its relevance to their lives. They were engaging with this initially confusing topic in a rigorous way.

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For example, I read Animal Farm in high school. To teach this book to my students, I can include a front-loading activity to ensure they have adequate background knowledge. This knowledge will include key vocabulary, information about communism in Russia, and historical figures from that era. I can then ask them an essential question that goes along with the novel. For example, I may ask my students, how does power corrupt individuals? From there, the class can annotate the book and find evidence that supports their thinking. As they read, my students will learn short-term information like the characters' names and specific plot points. However, they won't be focused on remembering every single detail for an exam. Instead, they will consider these details as they relate to the larger theme of power. This would lead to an enduring understanding of corruption that reflects real-life issues.

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Tovani, Cris. “Chapter 4, Connecting Students With Accessible Text .” Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?: Content Comprehension Years 7-12, Hawker Brownlow Education, Moorabbin, Victoria, 2015, pp. 37–49.