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De'Monica, Crissie, and Carlethia

3: What: Collaborative conversations are when students prepare for and participate in collaborations with diverse partners, building on each other’s’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. According to Fisher and Frey, the talk occurs on grade level topics, texts, and issues. The features of collaborative discussions are different on every grade level; they align with CCSS’s and increase in rigor.
Why: Talk is essential to writing. Some students are able to express themselves better orally than written; for these students, talking sparks their ideas making it easier to translate to writing. To name a few, collaborative conversations or purposeful student talk allows students to reflect, receive valuable feedback from their peers and the teacher, question, activate prior knowledge, make connections, and discuss complex texts which helps with comprehension and production.
How: Purposeful student talk is facilitated by the teacher. Collaborative conversations is successful through teacher modeling, independent self-talk, collaboration, and guided instruction. Students compose orally in the company of their peers. Furthermore, the teacher can use different strategies to prompt collaborative conversations.

2: Important/to know ideas about collaborative conversations: (1) Allow students to engage in collaborations with diverse partners, building on each other’s ideas and expressing their own ideas clearly and persuasively. (2) Using collaborative learning to foster discussion and production of complex text such as conducting a gallery walk. During the gallery walk students work in teams circulating throughout the classroom composing answers and reflecting on other students’ comments.

1: Question or AHA about collaborative conversations: How does a teacher effectively facilitate student collaboration within a classroom when there are such varied Lexile Scores?

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3. Text complexity involves the qualitative evaluation of a text, the quantitative evaluation of a text, and matching reader to text and task. Qualitative is determined by levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands. Quantitative is determined by readability measures and other scores of text complexity. Finally, matching reader to text and task involves reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed). We evaluate texts in order to measure how easy or difficult a text is for our class or a particular student to read and understand.

2. Taking knowledge demands into account such as background knowledge, and cultural knowledge is vital.
Complexity of questions used to evaluate text can contribute to matching reader to task.

1. How do you create questions that require readers to close read within their level of thought?

Other resources:

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/standard-10-range-quality-complexity/measuring-text-complexity-three-factors/
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_A.pdf

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3: What: Annotation is any note or response written onto a text while reading it.  Why: annotating is the first draft before the first draft. How: By teaching/training students on specific short hand responses to the text. Teach them what to look for and then teach them what to do with it when they find it.
2. If you want to teach effective annotation, begin with the purpose. Students need to be able to USE their annotations for something bigger. (they shouldn't annotate because the teacher wants them to/just another HW assignment).
Teachers must train students how to express their responses...if they find a word/image that relates to one earlier in the text, what are they supposed to do with it?
1. The Power Point suggests using universal symbols/the same symbols every time for recording responses. Does this limit the range of responses/ideas they could have while reading? Does this do the opposite of what annotations should do? Annotations should be a CLEAR response to the reading. Does annotating turn readers off from reading?

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3.A. What? Qualitative text complexity essentially refers to measuring the difficulty of a piece of writing based on its characteristics: language/syntax, content, and structure, to name a few. Fisher and Frey link to a rubric that assists the educator in determining whether or not a text is appropriate given the student's current ability.

3.B. Why? If a text is too hard, students get frustrated and don't learn much. If a text is too easy, students don't stretch their ability and still don't learn much. To be effective, a text must challenge the student to a reasonable extent, using their existing knowledge base to expand their mastery of the English language.

3.C. How? Basically, the educator would analyze a text based on the criteria specified in the rubric. A point value is assigned for each attribute, with 3 points for each facet of the text that makes it extremely challenging, 2 points for those that are grade-level-appropriate, and 1 point if the attribute makes the text simpler or more "comfortable."

2.A. Fisher and Frey don't offer much in the way of directions on how to use the rubric, which is probably because measuring text complexity can be pretty subjective, even if we all follow the same criteria. This means that the educator must use their best judgment, lending itself to the practice of getting to know our students and staying abreast of their learning progress.

2.B. The categories are named "Stretch," "Grade Level," and "Comfortable," indicating the text's potential relationship with the students' knowledge. However, each category also has a bit of an accompanying description that suggest that the rubric should consider the purpose behind reading the text. For example, "Comfortable" is described as texts that "build background, fluency, and skills." This can assist the educator in determining the text's relevance or effectiveness.

1.A. What exactly does using this rubric look like? How much of the text should you analyze? Does the text belong to the category with the most points, or is it now that black and white? Should the student help determine text complexity?

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3; What is it?
Text dependent Questions are specifically related to the text. Students are not allowed to draw information from other resources. Students develop their own questions from the text while they are reading.
Why is it important?
Text Dependent Questions are important because it furthers assists students with their reading skills. Students are able to draw conclusions,  re-telling stories or information and allows for students to further their reading comprehension skills.
How to implement it?
Text Dependent Questions are implemented when students are reading and the questions students are formulating force them to refer back to the text. These questions also force students to support their claims with textual evidence.
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2 important to know items from this text are
1. make sure the questions are scaffolded ranging from general understandings and key ideas to inferences, opinions, arguments, and intertextual connections.
2. Sequencing information is also important when using text dependence for better comprehension and understanding of the text.
3.
The question that we have pondered over is, if students work in groups should each student note the information in their individual journals.

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http://nieonline.com/tbtimes/downloads/CCSS_reading.pdf

3 - What: Close Reading is  thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text's form, craft, meanings, etc.
Why: Part of CCSS.  Encourages students to find patterns, meanings and develop a deep understanding of the text.
How:  Close reading includes:  Using short passages and excerpts  Diving right into the text with limited pre-reading activities  Focusing on the text itself  Rereading deliberately  Reading with a pencil  Noticing things that are confusing  Discussing the text with others o Think-Pair Share or Turn and Talk frequently o Small groups and whole class  Responding to text-dependent questions

Steps: First Read- Key ideas and details.  Second read- Craft and structure.  Third read- integration of knowledge and ideas -- Have students journal a response to a Text Dependent Question.  Focus the discussion on text evidence.

2 - Close reading should leave you considering thought provoking messages that go beyond the text.

Students will not be able to do this automatically.  You'll need to scaffold with them to show them how and gradually let them take over (I do, you do, we do)

1 - When selecting a text, teachers need to consider the 3 components of text complexity: Qualitative, Quantitative, Reader and Task Consideration. Each of these are important when considering a text.

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http://today.io/1Qppf

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sY8Gua9BBY5JT8J2sgusDWTQsNc9LeadEh_9PM1u0pY/edit?usp=sharing