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Authors Jeff Anderson, Travis Leech, and Melinda Clark lead a vibrant approach to grammar instruction in Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language. Here, young, emergent writers are invited to notice the conventions of the English language and build off them in this inquiry-based approach to instructional grammar. The book comes with standards-aligned lessons that can be incorporated in just 10 minutes a day. Patterns of Power's responsive, invitational approach puts students in an involved role and has them explore and discuss the purpose and meaning of what they read. Students study short, authentic texts and are asked to share their findings out loud, engaging in rich conversations to make meaning. Inside you'll find:

Ready-to-use lesson plan sets that include excerpts from authentic and diverse mentor texts curated for grades 6-8

Real-life classroom examples, tips, and Power Notes gleaned from the authors' experiences that can be applied to any level of writer

Resources, including a Patterns of Power Planning Guide and musical soundtracks, to use in classroom instruction or as handouts for student literacy notebooks

Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8 provides a simple classroom routine that is structured in length and approach, but provides teachers flexibility in choosing the texts, allowing for numerous, diverse voices in the classroom. The practice helps students build cognitive recognition and provides a formative assessment for teachers on student progress. With these short lessons, students will gain confidence and move beyond limitation to produce effortless writing in your class and beyond. The Patterns of Power series also includes Patterns of Power, Grades 1-5: Inviting Young Writers into the Conventions of Language; Patterns of Power en Español, Grades 1-5: Inviting Bilingual Writers into the Conventions of Spanish; Patterns of Power, Grades 9-12: Teaching Grammar Through Reading and Writing; and Patterns of Wonder, Grades PreK-1: Inviting Emergent Writers to Play with the Conventions of Language.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Wired to Be Inspired
Part 1: Getting Started with the Patterns of Power Process
1. Into Planning: What Do You Need to Do Before Teaching the Invitations?

2. Into the Classroom: How Do You Teach Conventions with the Invitation Process?

3. Into Application: How Do You Nudge Writers to Apply Conventions?
Part 2: Into the Lessons with the Patterns of Power Process
4. How Do Writers and Readers Use SENTENCES?

5. Why Do Writers and Readers Need COMPOUND

6. How Do Writers and Readers Use COMPLEX SENTENCES?

7. How Do Writers and Readers Use PHRASES and CLAUSES?

8. What Does the MOOD of a VERB Do for Writers and Readers?

9. How Do Writers and Readers Use VERBALS?

10. What Does PUNCTUATION Do for Writers and Readers?

11. What Do PRONOUNS Do for Writers and Readers?

12. How Do Writers and Readers Continue Using CAPITALIZATION?

13. What Other Amazing Things Can Writers and Readers Do?

Conclusion: Connection over Correction

Appendix A: The Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8 Soundtrack

Appendix B: Patterns of Power Instruction in Remote Learning Environments

Professional Bibliography

Young Adult Literature Bibliography

Index

Biography

For over thirty years, Jeff Anderson has inspired writers and teachers of grades K-8 with the power and joy of the writing and grammar. He has written eight books for Stenhouse Publishers. He also writes middle-grade novels.

Travis Leech, coauthor of Patterns of Power: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language, is currently a middle school instructional coach in Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, TX. He has thirteen years of experience in education, including teaching middle school English Language Arts and as a gifted and talented specialist. He has presented about engaging literacy practices and technology integration at the district, regional, and state levels.

Melinda Clark, coauthor of Patterns of Power: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language, is currently the Academic Program Coordinator at John Jay High School in San Antonio, Texas. She has 31 years experience in education, including teaching middle school and high school English Language Arts, instructional coaching, independent consulting, and presenting at the district, regional, and state levels.

"For years, students have been handed sets of "I said so" rules as the standard means of learning language conventions. Patterns of Power moves beyond prescriptive rules to offer a series of steps that, instead, help students to recognize and internalize language conventions in a way that makes them better readers, writers, listeners, and speakers. Notice the patterns in sentences. Compare them with others. Try them yourself. Apply them. Edit them. I love how this book teaches students to really think about language."

- Kelly Gallagher

"Patterns of Power will free you from the tyranny of old school grammar instruction and show you a process to guide adolescents toward joyful exploration and experimentation of crafting, creating, and conveying meaning. Whether you're a grammar "phobe" or an expert sentence diagrammer, you will love this book."

- Cris Tovani

"In a Patterns of Power classroom, the conventions of language become possibilities. Here, rules are replaced by invitations as our "wired to be inspired" middle school learners engage in honest inquiry, asking themselves and each other What can this convention do for me as a writer?"

- Lisa Thibodeaux, Director of Secondary Curriculum, TX

"Jeff Anderson is going to make me return to teaching middle school English Language Arts. This is the kind of book that would have made me feel like I could provide concrete, meaningful writing instruction to my students. I am grateful, however, that as an administrator I have the power to put this tool in the hands of all my teachers and allow the work of these authors to reach thousands of students."

- Chad Everett, Middle School Principal

"Patterns of Power, 6-8 is a must-have for every teacher who longs to get their adolescents hooked on grammar. It gives middle grade teachers a simple, student-centered process that showcases what grammatical patterns do for readers and writers and how they lead to stellar writing."

- Jodi Ramos, Middle School Teacher, Department Chair, and New York Times education contributor

"Jeff Anderson, Travis Leech, and Melinda Clark have crafted a gift for middle school literacy teachers and their students. Patterns of Power, 6-8 provides abundant lesson ideas for engaging student readers and writers in ways that improve comprehension, communication and self-expression, as well as a deeper look at why this approach works. Through students' observations of authentic texts and focused exploration of writers' craft and language use, you can increase their reading and writing confidence and skill. Clear, empowering, and effective!"

- Donalyn Miller, Texas educator and author

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Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language

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Authors Jeff Anderson, Travis Leech, and Melinda Clark lead a vibrant approach to grammar instruction in Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language. Here, young, emergent writers are invited to notice the conventions of the English language and build off them in this inquiry-based approach to instructional grammar.

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Grades K-12, including AP

Resources for multiple content areas

MS Language Arts & Literacy components

Includes instructional model

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K-8 includes knowledge building + word recognition + writing

Centered around engaging with complex, grade level trade books

free, available on Open Up Resources (also where Bookworms is accessed)

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K-12, knowledge building/comprehension + writing ONLY--need a separate word recognition and morphology program, includes writing

free, originally created for a group of charter schools and then they created a non-for-profit to give access to all

Better version, Fishtank Plus has a fee

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Grades 3-12 (there is K-2 but need to explore G5+ is still being finalized?)

Core instruction for reading comprehension + writing

Built-in partnership with The Writing Revolution

Texts chosen because they're considered "authentic and complex, exposing students to layers of meaning and diverse perspectives appropriate for the grade level. "

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Research tells us that the following ingredients are crucial in students’ ability and intrinsic desire to read well:

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Research tells us that the following ingredients are crucial in students’ ability and intrinsic desire to read well:

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Coherently building knowledge of words and the world.

Teaching students to read through systematic foundational skills instruction until word recognition is automatic and students are fully fluent.

Affording every student access to focused, close communal reading of content-rich complex texts.

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Morpheme Magic – Lessons to Build Morphological Awareness

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Teachers and students alike, will become captivated by words as they explore together the world of language and morphology, and build awareness of morphemes, the meaningful parts in words.

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essentials questions instructional model - connections: literature middle school - literacy - middle school

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Essentials Questions Instructional Model - Connections: Literature Middle School - Literacy - Middle School | Perfection Learning

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Essentials Questions Instructional Model - Connections: Literature Middle School - Literacy - Middle School

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It's AND/BOTH when it comes to Knowledge+Strategies

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It's AND/BOTH when it comes to Knowledge+Strategies

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"Scientific research evidence doesn’t say don’t teach comprehension skills and strategies explicitly; it says don’t only teach comprehension skills and strategies explicitly."

My favorite quote:
“[K]nowledge & skills are a false dichotomy. Ingredients and cakes are also a false dichotomy! You can’t be pro-cake and anti-ingredient!! If we accept that knowledge and skills are a false dichotomy, then we should also accept that knowledge and skills are NOT on a pendulum. The pendulum is the wrong metaphor. The right metaphor is a pathway, a ladder or a journey.”

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As greater consensus has been reached about how to teach children to decode and read words fluently, the focus of discussion among practitioners and researchers has shifted to reading comprehension. Some of this discussion has centred on the utility of teaching comprehension skills and strategies explicitly as awareness of the central role of background knowledge in reading comprehension has grown ( Smith et al., 2021). The arguments against teaching comprehension skills and strategies are often framed in these ways:

Comprehension skills/strategies are not generic, transferable competencies ... so it is a waste of time to teach them explicitly;

Reading comprehension is highly dependent on background knowledge ... so an evidence-based approach to reading comprehension is to always embed instruction in a knowledge-building context.

These two statements are only partly true. Comprehension skills and strategies are not generic; they are used differently by the reader depending on the text and the task ( Catts & Kamhi, 2014). However, they are transferable to the extent that students need to know how to use them appropriately for different purposes. The Scientific Advisory Committee for the Knowledge Matters Campaign (2023) describes these processes as "strategies for sense-making" (para. 14). Research on classroom instruction has shown that it is a waste of time to over-teach skills and strategies (otherwise known as a dosage effect - more is not always better), but not a waste of time to teach them explicitly to beginning and struggling readers at all. And, while reading comprehension is highly dependent on knowledge of the topic of the text, for beginning readers there is so far limited but promising evidence that embedded or integrated comprehension instruction is effective.

Scientific research evidence doesn't say don't teach comprehension skills and strategies explicitly; it says don't only teach comprehension skills and strategies explicitly.

Some authors differentiate between comprehension skills and comprehension strategies rather than considering them as a single set of cognitive or 'procedural' processes as Grissmer et al., (2023) do. However, different authors categorise them in different ways. Such (2021) says that 'explaining the main idea', 'summarising', 'making inferences', and 'making predictions' are skills, whereas 'comprehension monitoring' (which can include summarising parts of the text) is a strategy. 'Knowledge of text structures', 'vocabulary', and 'background knowledge' don't fit into either of Such's categories. Smith et al. (2021) add 'finding literal information' and 'drawing conclusions' to comprehension skills, and put 'summarising' in the strategy category along with 're-reading', 'self-questioning' and 'visualising'. Shanahan (2018) adds 'recognising supporting details', 'comparing and contrasting', 'evaluating critically', 'vocabulary', and 'sequencing events' to comprehension skills, and expands the strategies list to include 'text structure' and 'making connections to prior knowledge'. Swain (2023) suggests teaching three comprehension strategies - 'monitoring', 'prediction' and 'summarising' - and makes the salient point that 'finding the main idea' and 'summarising' are essentially the same thing.

All of these authors agree, however, that comprehension strategy instruction is useful (to a point) but comprehension skill instruction is not. Their rule of thumb is that skills are just ways that students demonstrate comprehension and can't be taught, whereas strategies are meta-cognitive activities that facilitate comprehension and can be taught. While this sounds neat, the interconnected nature of the components of reading comprehension defies making clear distinctions between them, hence the differences in opinion about which is which.

Making inferences is an example of a skill that can be developed through teaching strategies. Deriving inferred meaning from text - going beyond the literal text - is an essential aspect of reading comprehension ( Tunmer & Hoover, 2019). Making inferences is a non-generic skill that depends on other factors such as understanding of syntax, anaphoric connectives (e.g., pronoun referents) and background knowledge, as well as memory, and is therefore a product of these elements rather than a single skill that can be taught and applied to any text. However, it is also true that almost all texts require some level of inference, and that not all students know what an inference is, or when they need to make inferences to understand a text. So, although the types of inferences students make, and the information they draw on to make them will depend on the text and the task, there is still something called an 'inference'. Strategies like comprehension monitoring and knowledge of text types can help students to develop their ability to make inferences. There may not be one type of inference, or a singular way to teach it, and there may be no utility in doing weeks of repetitive 'inference' questions, but the concept of inferencing, and how to apply it, can and should be taught ( Catts, 2021/22). Interventions aimed at improving inference making by helping students to know when and how to utilise their background knowledge and vocabulary, and to make connections, have been shown to be effective at improving inferences and have also improved reading comprehension (see Oakhill et al., 2014).

Much criticism of teaching comprehension skills and strategies has arisen because there are extreme versions of instruction in which the skill or strategy itself is viewed as the final product and therefore is the focus. This is the wrong way around. Comprehension skills and strategies are part of the process and not the product. In an evidence-based approach to comprehension instruction, skills and strategies are taught explicitly and cumulatively, and gradually integrated ( Oakhill et al., 2014, 2023). The objective of teaching comprehension strategies explicitly is to make them metacognitively transparent and understandable to children so they can apply them in their reading, and then go on to use them implicitly.

Phonics instruction provides an analogy. Some children work out the alphabetic code and don't need a lot of systematic explicit phonics instruction. Others work it out over time with minimal guidance, albeit more slowly than with explicit instruction. But a significant proportion will not learn to decode without explicit instruction. Since we don't know in advance which children will be in which category, the most efficient course of action is to teach all children explicitly rather than take a wait-to-fail approach. Teaching the alphabetic code in a transparent and explicit way for a limited time at the right time gives students insight into written language that they then go on to use automatically and mostly unconsciously.

Likewise, some children will move fluidly from decoding to comprehension. However, for other children this is not a given. Comprehension involves the construction of a mental model of a text. This requires knowledge (background knowledge, vocabulary, text structures), as well as skills (retrieving and connecting background knowledge and vocabulary, making inferences, understanding grammar and syntax) and strategies (comprehension monitoring). Not all children know how to do these things. And those that do know how, don't always use them.

Given that research tells us that poor comprehenders have difficulties with certain skills and strategies, and can improve them with explicit instruction (Peng et al., 2023), it makes sense to include them in Tier 1 instruction. Explicit instruction in comprehension strategies for a limited time at the right time has a strong and large experimental research base collected over several decades. Done properly, it is scientifically evidence-based practice. Petscher et al. (2020) include comprehension strategies among the set of practices that have "compelling evidence in the science of reading" for younger and older students (p. 5).

As stated by Smith et al. (2023),

"[T]here is a significant evidence base related to reading comprehension instruction in middle-to-late elementary years that states that skills that contribute to comprehension need to be explicitly taught to students and that, particularly for less advanced readers, teachers cannot rely on incidental exposure and implicit coverage of skills as methods of teaching reading." (pp. 10-11)

Teaching reading comprehension explicitly

Teaching comprehension explicitly involves systematic instruction in the sub-skills involved. Explicit and systematic instruction requires skills to be taught in a somewhat decontextualised way, at least at first. The skill being taught needs to be explained and many examples need to be provided. Students need to practise using the skill they have learned. This necessarily involves the use of text. This text can be drawn from a larger unit of study and/or can be selected specifically to demonstrate this concept and skill. Taking it from a larger unit of study is a good idea if possible, but if a relatively small amount of time is spent on explicitly teaching the strategy, the source of the text is not make or break. The strategy being taught should then subsequently be applied and integrated with other strategies in studying larger units of work (either literature or other knowledge-building content). This will allow students to develop their skills as they acquire knowledge, and vice versa.

The stage of reading development is critical. Willingham (2006/07) says that comprehension strategy instruction isn't likely to be effective before third or fourth grade - not because of available evidence that content-embedded comprehension instruction (or any other comprehension instruction) was more effective, but rather because of an assumption that students are still learning to read accurately and fluently before Grade 3 so reading comprehension strategy instruction will be beyond their abilities. Hirsch (2016) makes the same assumptions in his recommendations. However, students who have had an explicit and systematic reading instruction program in Kindergarten and Year 1 are typically reading text at a level that does allow them to focus on comprehension in Year 2, so Willingham's and Hirsch's advice should be adjusted to reflect reading ability rather than grade level.

Embedding comprehension instruction in a content-rich curriculum - what is the evidence?

The evidence showing that background knowledge is a strong contributor to comprehension (and vice versa) is strong and not contested ( Hwang et al., 2022b). And a knowledge-rich curriculum has value that exceeds its contribution to reading comprehension. Knowledge is important in its own right.

However, when it comes to reading comprehension instruction in K-2, scientific reading research does not reject explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and does not yet provide strong support for the contention that comprehension instruction must always be embedded in a knowledge-building curriculum. Yes, students in those years should have a content-rich curriculum. No question at all. But when it comes to the way that content is integrated and combined with comprehension instruction for beginning readers, the best way to do this is yet to be established.

There is mixed research evidence demonstrating embedded or integrated comprehension instruction is an effective approach for beginning readers, that is, from K to 2. It is appealing and makes sense in many ways; however, at the moment, the evidence supporting it is promising but not uniformly strong and most studies are quite recent. It is also not always clear what such instruction looks like, with resultant misunderstandings of the process.

According to Cabell and Hwang (2020), "the testing of integrated literacy and knowledge-building approaches is a growing area of inquiry, and there have been relatively few experimental studies in K-2 settings and even fewer that have tested content-rich [English Language Arts] instruction".

Cabell and Hwang (2020) describe two randomised control trials with Kindergarten students who had the Core Knowledge Curriculum. The trials resulted in large effect sizes for proximal (i.e., taught) vocabulary, science knowledge, and social studies knowledge; small effect sizes for standardised assessments of expressive vocabulary and science knowledge; and no effect for standardised receptive vocabulary, linguistic comprehension, or social studies knowledge. The study is continuing with first grade students but published results are not yet available.

Smith et al. (2021) looked at the relationship between knowledge and reading in upper-middle primary school but didn't review studies of embedded instruction. They conclude that knowledge partially compensates for reading skill deficiencies.

Hwang et al. (2022) published a meta-analysis of content-integrated reading instruction. There was a wide range of effect sizes for measures of vocabulary and comprehension, from small negative and small positive to large negative and large positive. The most positive effects were for researcher-developed, proximal assessments rather than standardised assessments, which is typical but means that they need to be interpreted carefully. Fifteen studies included students in K-2. It is not clear which if any studies involving older students were measuring the effects of instruction in K-2.

Grissmer et al. (2023) found that students attending schools that implemented a knowledge-building curriculum (Core Knowledge) from Kindergarten to Grade 6 had significantly higher literacy (combined comprehension and writing) scores in Grades 3 to 6 than students who attended schools using a variety of other undescribed methods of reading instruction. The assessment was specifically designed to measure learning of the Common Core standards. Participating students were mostly from high-to-middle income families. Students in the one low income school had even stronger results.

It is worth reading the studies of content-embedded comprehension instruction in full but the evidence can be summarised as follows. Two publications in the list below are of the Core Knowledge Curriculum, which is often described as content-embedded reading comprehension instruction; however, as described in more detail in the next section, this is not necessarily an accurate description for this curriculum in K-2.

How does the Core Knowledge Curriculum teach and develop reading comprehension?

The elementary/primary school Core Knowledge Curriculum is a set of lesson plans to be delivered sequentially in each year level from Kindergarten to Grade 6. It covers Language Arts (i.e., literacy), Mathematics, Science, History and Geography, Visual Arts, and Music ( Core Knowledge, 2023). There are teaching manuals, student reading materials and whiteboard slides for all units of work. Teaching materials are written by a variety of authors. All materials are free to download but there are substantial costs for schools associated with printing them.

The method of teaching reading and knowledge-building with the Core Knowledge Language Arts Curriculum changes from Kindergarten to Grade 6. In Kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2, there are two separate, parallel instructional components - 'Reading' (print awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, word analysis, and fluency) and 'Read-alouds'. The rationale for Read-alouds is to expose beginning readers to language and information that exceeds what they would be able to access through reading. There is little expectation that reading will be the vehicle for knowledge acquisition at this point. The texts used for Read-alouds - both fiction and non-fiction - are suggested in the Core Knowledge Sequence for that year, and teachers are encouraged to use texts focused on a single topic for a sustained period of time - about two weeks. During Read-alouds, students do not see the written text but instead are provided with pictures that illustrate aspects of the text. The Read-aloud is followed by a structured whole class discussion that encourages the literal and analytical skills that enable comprehension. These include summarising, predicting, making global and text-based connections, activating prior knowledge, and making inferences. These skills and strategies are gradually introduced to the 'Reading' component using texts specifically chosen for these activities, which are not necessarily on topics linked to the Read-aloud texts, but do follow a broad theme (e.g., animals) over a number of weeks.

From Grade 3, these two components are linked, with the topic content in the domain units being incorporated into the Reading and Writing components. From Grades 4 to 6, literacy skill development in reading comprehension and writing is integrated with the domain units and novel studies.

This developmental trajectory is important to note because it shows that reading instruction in the early years involves explicit instruction in both phonic decoding and the so-called 'procedural skills' associated with reading comprehension. The knowledge-building component is largely oral at first and gradually introduced to print and independent reading. Although Grissmer et al. (2023) describe "integration and focus across all grades and subjects" (p. 42), the two elements are not integrated in the early grades, and not until students have developed sufficient reading fluency to engage with written texts in a way that builds reading proficiency and knowledge in a reciprocal way.

What is the take home message?

The take-home message is not that comprehension instruction embedded in a sequential knowledge-building curricula is a bad idea or doesn't work. It's a terrific idea for many reasons and is almost certainly the best approach for middle-to-upper primary ( McKeown et al., 2009). It's logical, persuasive and very appealing to embed reading comprehension instruction in interesting and useful content as soon as students are able. Right now, however, scientific research evidence doesn't yet specify that it is the only or most scientifically evidence-based approach to reading comprehension instruction for younger students and should therefore replace other approaches. Petscher et al. (2020) describe content-embedded reading comprehension instruction as "promising but not (yet) compelling" (p. 7). It's still OK to teach comprehension skills and strategies explicitly and quickly and build knowledge, initially side-by-side and then increasingly together.

Grissmer et al. (2023) form this conclusion from their research on the Core Knowledge Curriculum:

"The results of this study would suggest that there are two separate but complementary, cognitive processes involved in development and learning: 'skill building' and 'knowledge accumulation'. Perhaps the phrases that better capture cognitive development would be - 'skill begets skill; knowledge begets knowledge; and almost certainly - skill x knowledge begets skill x knowledge'." (p. 11)

Similarly, Christodoulou (2023), a long-time proponent of knowledge-rich curricula, says,

"[K]nowledge & skills are a false dichotomy. Ingredients and cakes are also a false dichotomy! You can't be pro-cake and anti-ingredient!! If we accept that knowledge and skills are a false dichotomy, then we should also accept that knowledge and skills are NOT on a pendulum. The pendulum is the wrong metaphor. The right metaphor is a pathway, a ladder or a journey." (para. 4)

Responsible teachers, curriculum developers and program publishers that have a commitment to the Science of Reading need to rely on the existing evidence while keeping an eye on the emerging evidence. The emerging evidence base around content-embedded instruction should be monitored and incorporated as appropriate.

In the meantime, as Duke et al. (2021) write,

"Scientific research has revealed many individual instructional practices and combinations of practices that foster reading comprehension development. Some conversations about reading comprehension engage an either/or approach, such as these two statements, respectively: (1) Don't teach strategies; build knowledge. (2) Don't focus on comprehension; focus on word reading. This tendency does not reflect research findings and does not maximize the likelihood that we will meet the needs of all developing readers... As a field, we can advocate for particular research-supported instructional practices without denigrating other research-supported instructional practices." (p. 664)

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Don't discard comprehension strategies - Five from Five

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Share this post Dr Jennifer Buckingham, 23 June 2023 As greater consensus has been reached about how to teach children to decode and read words fluently, the focus of discussion among practitioners and researchers has shifted to reading comprehension. Some of this discussion has centred on the utility of teaching comprehension skills and strategies explicitly [...]

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1 60 minute lesson per day for comprehension + writing + vocabulary

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A Guide for Evaluating K-8 ELA Curriculum

Designed by literacy experts for evaluating K-8 ELA curriculum, the Knowledge Matters Review Tool is a resource to determine if an ELA curriculum is truly "content-rich" and aligned to research on reading comprehension.

About the Knowledge Matters Review Tool

We've developed the Knowledge Matters Review Tool to help educators understand how key research insights and practices should be translated into curriculum design for K-8 ELA. It is intended for use by states, districts, and schools when evaluating ELA curriculum.

The Review Tool is designed to be used in addition to, not instead of, other instruments to ensure that "knowledge building," and by extension reading comprehension, is appropriately addressed.

Our team of experts has identified 26 separate criteria across eight dimensions of high-quality, content-rich ELA curriculum. The more evidence these criteria are present in a curriculum, the better.

Access the review tool

We offer a PDF version for downloading as well as a Google Doc version that can be used when collaborating with colleagues. Both versions can be edited and adapted as needed.

VIEW GOOGLE DOC DOWNLOAD PDF

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Knowledge Matters Review Tool - Knowledge Matters Campaign

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Designed by literacy experts for evaluating K-8 ELA curriculum, the Knowledge Matters Review Tool is a resource to determine if an ELA curriculum is truly "content-rich" and aligned to research on reading comprehension. We've developed the Knowledge Matters Review Tool to help educators understand how key research insights and practices should be translated into curriculum design for K-8 ELA.

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6th Grade ELA | Challenging Authority: The Giver

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Download free, ready-to-teach 6th grade lesson plans that explore the concept of coming-of-age through reading and writing about The Giver.

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Review pgs 14-23 especially

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Lessons are 60-90 minutes in length

Can be taught over the course of one or two class periods, depending on:

students’ needs

class schedules

selected activities

In a lesson, students engage with one or more unit texts to build the knowledge and skills they will need for the unit assessments.

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"Nearly all of our most important goals for education—greater reading comprehension, the ability to think critically
and solve problems, even higher test scores—are a function of the depth and breadth of our knowledge. Although current events and technology are constantly changing, there is a body of lasting knowledge and skills that form the core of a strong Preschool through Grade 8 curriculum. Explicit identification of what children should learn at each grade level ensures a coherent approach to building knowledge across all grade levels, making efficient and effective use of instructional time. Every child should learn the fundamentals of science, basic principles of government, important events in history, essential elements of mathematics, widely acknowledged masterpieces of art and music from around the world, and stories and poems passed down from generation to generation."

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Units included: Steve Jobs, Hatchet, Out of the Dust, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and If Stones Could Speak