1. Setting a Purpose and Backwards Design: Structuring a Content Area Reading/Thinking Lesson
EDC448
Dr. Julie Coiro

2. Past Topics for Discussion
What do good readers do? (M&MDAAVISS)
How do good readers make sense of challenging texts? (wondering, inquiry)
Do texts in each discipline require specific strategies?
How skilled are adolescent readers?
How can I make my thinking visible?
How do issues of text complexity and instruction influence rigor & accessibility?

3. Agenda Diverse Text Set – Due Thurs, March 26
ELL Interview – Due Tues, March 31
Lesson Plan Interviews – Coming Up!
Activity: Setting Your Purpose
Activity: Designing Your Learning Goals
Review Lesson Plan Assignment

4. Diverse Text Set
10 Texts around a theme/topic – select to make more accessible and maintain rigor
Examples are on the wikispace
Questions?
Optional reading: Laura Robb’s Text Sets article

5. Interview with English Language Learner
Part 1. Interview
Part 2. Reflection Paper
Part 3. Seminar Discussion
Questions?

6. Today’s Learning Objectives
Understand the importance of setting a clear and relevant purpose for reading & learning
Understand how to plan a lesson using Backwards Design principles
Connect the main components of a good content literacy lesson (before, during, and after) to your lesson plan assignment
Craft a learning objective about reading in your content area that is clear, precise, and measurable

7. Why Am I Reading This? Tovani, Chapter 5
Defining Purposes for Reading – What is essential for students to know?
What two places may cause difficulty?
What will you model to help students negotiate the difficult parts?
What do they need to DO with the information once they finish reading?
How will you hold their thinking while they read?
ACTIVITY 1
Text complexity
Think-Aloud
ACTIVITY 2
Annotations, Reading Guides,
Graphic Organizers, Two Column-Journals

8. Activity 1 Purpose is Everything! Circle what you think is important.
Underline places in the text a robber would find important.
Squiggly line under places that a prospective home buyer might think are important.
Which time was the hardest? Why?
Purpose is Everything!

9. Linking Lessons to the Standards
Be explicit about your purpose - Kids have a right to know!

10. Working Backwards… to design a good lesson

11. Sign up to meet with Dr. Coiro for your lesson plan meeting

12. Designing An Educational Trip to France
OBJECTIVE: (poorly written) Students will learn more about culture, geography, history, and language by visiting Paris for 2 weeks.
Groups 1: List the educational activities you will plan for students.
Groups 2: List what you hope students will understand and be able to do when they return from their trip.

13. Learning Objectives for Paris Trip
Educational Activities
Have a conversation with someone in French
Go to a play Les Miserables
Order food at a restaurant in French
See a French festival
Go to a museum
Measure the trusses and angles on the Eiffel Tower
What will students know, understand, and be able to do?
Know basic language communication skills (simple commands)
Travel abroad by yourself (keep passports, navigate airports)
Important historical events that affected country or world
Recognize popular cultural icons (e.g., art)
Identify France on a map

14. Why Backwards Design? (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005)
“Twin-sins” of traditional lesson design
“Hands-on without being minds-on”: engaging experiences that lead only accidentally, if at all, to insight & achievement
“Coverage”: marching through the text and/or curriculum to cover as many facts as possible

15. Understanding by Design
To understand:
To wisely and effectively USE (transfer) what we know in a certain context
To APPLY knowledge & skill effectively
What are your desired results?
Start your lesson design with these results…not with your instructional methods and activities
Communicate your desired results with clear purposes and explicit performance goals (“Understanding by design”)

16. Understanding by Design
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction: What are the most appropriate instructional activities that students will need to equip them with the needed knowledge and skills?
1. Identify desired results: What should students know, understand, and be able to do? How does this connect with your standards?
2. Determine acceptable evidence: How will you know if students have achieved the desired results? What will you accept as evidence of proficiency?

17. Supporting Reading/Thinking in this process
1. Think of your content-specific learning objective and desired result (know, understand, be able to do)?
2. What will be most difficult for students in order to accomplish your desired results (in terms of new content, reading complex texts, and thinking rigorously)?
3. Set THIS desired reading/thinking result as your literacy objective - What instructional supports can you offer to ensure success?

18. Lesson Plan Outline (Your handout – Complete for meeting with me)
CONTENT LEARNING
OBJECTIVE?
(know, understand, and
be able to do)
ACCEPTABLE
EVIDENCE?
What CONTENT will
you TEACH?
READING/THINKING
OBJECTIVE?
(know, understand, and
be able to do)
ACCEPTABLE
EVIDENCE?
What CONTENT will
you TEACH?
THINK M&MDAAVISS

19. Working Backwards to Design Opportunities for Understanding
CONTENT LEARNING
OBJECTIVE?
(know, understand, and
be able to do)
ACCEPTABLE
EVIDENCE?
What CONTENT will
you TEACH?
Where are students likely to struggle most?
(prerequisite content knowledge? Complex texts? higher level thinking?)
READING/THINKING
OBJECTIVE
EVIDENCE students can accomplish these reading/thinking processes?
(and be successful with the content learning objective?)
What PROCESSES will you
TEACH/Model to foster success?

20. Understanding the Main Components of Your Lesson Plan Assignment (Start to think about a topic, text, and a lesson objective)

21. Elements of Your Content Literacy Lesson Plan Assignment
Context of the Lesson
Objectives and Standards
Opportunities to Learn – address matchup gaps
Instructional Procedures (pre, during, closure) – ** Explicit modeling is critical
Assessment
Reflection
Frontloading
Modeling;
Engaging
with Support
Consolidating Learning
Connect these pieces Buehl’s three parts = (1) Frontloading learning, (2) guiding comprehension, and (3) consolidating learning
SEE LESSON PLAN EXAMPLES

22. Promote Strategy Use and Independence by Gradually Releasing Responsibility
Model, think-aloud, and SCAFFOLD your strategy support; note Beuhl’s three phases of instruction in Ch. 2

23. Key Reading Strategies (M&M DAAVISS)
SYNTHESIZE
MAKE
CONNECTIONS
DETERMINE
IMPORTANT
IDEAS
SUMMARIZE
MONITOR
AND
CLARIFY
INFER
PREDICT
ASK QUESTIONS
VISUALIZE
ANALYZE

24. Lesson Plan Pieces to Hand In (Refer to this slide!)
Typed plan in lesson plan template (download from the wikispace)
Hard copy of your 2 texts with relevant think-aloud notes on text or stickies (mark up your text; explicit commentary of your thoughts about the strategy you are modeling)
Graphic organizer with title & directions
Assessment task with finished example
Your completed points sheet with questions
Your final reflection (after taught)

25. Writing Learning Objectives for your Lesson Plans

26. Three Criteria for a Learning Objective
Clear
Usually just one sentence
Precise
Precise verbs that reflect the thinking your students will be doing
Set a context (Given…; After…; Before…)
Measurable
How will you measure the “quality” (%age or criteria met)
Start with the top level and work backwards through average and below average

27. Writing Learning Objectives
Given _____, students will _____ (verb and specifics) with (measurable) ____ % accuracy or to a certain level
Content: What will students know, understand and be able to do?
Reading Process: How will students think/interact/engage with this content material?
(see Common Core Standards in your discipline and narrative or informational text)

28. Link reading/thinking strategy objectives to your content…
The student will
Set a purpose for reading …
Predict and confirm…
Summarize the key words…
Monitor their understanding of…
Ask questions/reflect …
Show the relationship between concepts …
Make inferences and support with evidence…
Draw conclusions…
Make connections between…
Visualize…
As a means of
supporting content development
and building understanding (by design)

29. Some examples - English
CONTENT: Given a set of quotes, students will write a dialogue poem with high-level descriptive verbs to relate to the main character in Speak.
READING/THINKING: Given a graphic organizer, students will make inferences and connections from their quote set to examine the advantages and disadvantages of being an outcast in society.

30. Example - History
CONTENT: Students will summarize the main points to two sides of the argument about whether or not Japanese American internment camps were necessary.
READING/THINKING: Students will write an essay that compares and contrasts the prisoners’ views and the government’s views of the internment camps.

31. Example - Science
CONTENT: Given a graphic organizer, students will identify three differences between human and marine animal sound reception and three structures used by marine animals for sound reception with 80% accuracy.
READING/THINKING: Given graphic organizers and a guided note outline, students will organize main concepts on sound reception in Ch. 6, while identifying supporting ideas and identifying relationships between different anatomical sound receptors in marine animals with 80% accuracy.

32. Example - Math
CONTENT: Students will solve for a single variable involving two-step equations to 85% accuracy.
READING/THINKING PROCESS Students will recognize key phrases that correspond to an equation and formulate the correct equation from a given word problem involving a two-step equation to 85% accuracy.

33. Example: Foreign Language
CONTENT: Students will work collaboratively to create a French menu that shows their understanding of the French culture, new vocabulary, and creativity.
READING/THINKING: Given a sample restaurant dialogue in a French restaurant, students will interpret the meaning of key vocabulary in context and categorize the term as either food, verbs you would use in a restaurant, or items you would find in a restaurant.

34. Introducing/Contextualizing your lesson:
How do you “hook” your students?
Images, discrepant events, interactive websites, videos, picture books, current events, anticipation guides
Contextualize your lesson in this and RETURN to it at the end of your lesson to tie it all up and connect to their world!

35. Today’s Learning Objectives
Connect the main components of a good content literacy lesson to your lesson plan assignment
Begin planning your lesson using Backwards Design principles
Craft learning objectives about reading in your content area that are clear, precise, and measurable
Remember/Use ideas in your Buehl A & B book! Don’t have to start from scratch!

36. FYI: More ELL ideas on March 31, Seminar on April 2