Sr. Mary Ann Jacobs, scc Fall 2012

 Read the Learning Goals from the course outline (page 1).  Determine with the following coding your current level of expertise with this goal: ◦ - I am expert at this ◦ ☺ - I can show examples of how I have done this ◦ = - I have heard about this ◦ ≠ - This is new to me

360 - Course Learning Goals Participants will: apply specific literacy-based strategies to accommodate the diverse learning needs of struggling and ESL learners in their specific content area. differentiate literacy lessons according to the varying needs of adolescent students for their specific content areas. create standards-based lessons that assess student literacy growth and progress. incorporate multiple resources into their literacy-based lessons that include multiple texts, a variety of teaching strategies, and technology. create and use graphic organizers to promote critical literacy acquisition in their specific content area. use technology to promote students’ reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills at a variety of levels for students with diverse interests and needs. use a variety of study skills designed to help students comprehend and relate to expository text.

I will read the article you have in front of you. Make any notes for yourself that will help you understand what you read. Take a few moments to read…

Being able to read complex text independently and proficiently is essential for high achievement in college and the workplace and important in numerous life tasks. Moreover, current trends suggest that if students cannot read challenging texts with understanding— if they have not developed the skill, concentration, and stamina to read such texts—they will read less in general. In particular, if students cannot read complex expository text to gain information, they will likely turn to text-free or text-light sources, such as video, podcasts, and tweets. These sources, while not without value, cannot capture the nuance, subtlety, depth, or breadth of ideas developed through complex text. As Adams (2009) puts it, “There may one day be modes and methods of information delivery that are as efficient and powerful as text, but for now there is no contest. To grow, our students must read lots, and more specifically they must read lots of ‘complex’ texts—texts that offer them new language, new knowledge, and new modes of thought” (p. 182).

In his important study Gary L. Williamson (2006) found a 350L (Lexile) gap between the difficulty of end-of-high school and college texts. Although legitimate questions can be raised about the tools used to measure text complexity (e.g., Mesmer, 2008), what is relevant in these numbers is the general, steady decline—over time, across grades, and substantiated by several sources—in the difficulty and likely also the sophistication of content of the texts students have been asked to read in school since This bodes ill for the ability of Americans to meet the demands placed upon them by citizenship in a democratic republic and the challenges of a highly competitive global marketplace of goods, services, and ideas. -Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects Appendix A:

 Turn to a partner to say what the text says…  Go back to the article. Underline words you do not know or words /phrases that are unclear. Limit your underlining to no more than 5 words or phrases.

Which high school learning skills best prepared you for success in college? Which other learning skills would have been helpful for you to succeed in college?

9 Shift 1Balancing Informational & Literary Text Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts. Shift 2Knowledge in the DisciplinesStudents build knowledge about the world (domains/ content areas) through TEXT rather than the teacher or activities Shift 3Staircase of ComplexityStudents read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered. Teachers are patient, create more time and space and support in the curriculum for close reading. Shift 4Text-based AnswersStudents engage in rich and rigorous evidence based conversations about text. Shift 5Writing from SourcesWriting emphasizes use of evidence from sources to inform or make an argument. Shift 6Academic VocabularyStudents constantly build the transferable vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. This can be done effectively by spiraling like content in increasingly complex texts.