With the new standards come high expectations for both students and educators alike. The necessity to effectively teach to a set of standards is now more important than ever.
To meet the expectations of the new standards, consider ways to embed the following strategies and practices into your instructional plan.
- Close Reading: Many people are surprised to learn that close reading is NOT a standard. It is a method of reading deeply to note not just a theme or main idea, but to recognize how vocabulary and language structures within the text support meaning and the author’s point of view. As Brown and Kappes put it in their primer on Close Reading of Text, “The Common Core expects—and equity demands—that all students have the chance to productively struggle with complex texts. Especially for students with lower reading skills and gaps in background knowledge, Close Reading can be an important strategy to accelerate and deepen their own learning.” Here are some helpful hints and techniques to help you embed close reading into your instruction.
- Any text may be used for close reading
- Helpful hint: Close reading is best used with brief texts or specific portions of longer texts
- Instruction of the Language standards (Grammar & Usage, Conventions, and Vocabulary) can be embedded in close reading activities
- Close reading requires students to question the text. Ben Johnson lists several of these questions in his article Do Your Students Read Critically? on Edutopia. I’ve listed some of them below (be sure to read the article for more great information on close reading):
- “Do I believe what I am reading?”
- “Does it make sense?”
- “Is the argument compelling?”
- “Is the evidence provided sufficient and credible?”
- Any text may be used for close reading
- Citing Text Evidence: Students are expected to cite text evidence to support their understanding of text. Citing text evidence involves reading texts and using written or oral language to respond to prompts or questions about the text. Students may cite text evidence in a variety of ways:
- Highlighting words, phrases, or sentences from the text that support understanding
- Paraphrasing ideas from the text
- Quoting from the text
- Using formal end notes and reference lists
- Text Dependent Questions: Students must respond to questions that require them to return to the text to provide an answer. This requires thoughtful development of the questions.
- Questions are specific, not general (e.g., Rather than asking, “What is the theme of the passage?” you may ask, “How does Jennifer’s actions at the end of the passage support the theme of greed?”
- Answering text dependent questions often requires students to cite text evidence
- Be sure to reinforce the difference between a guess and an answer that can be supported with text evidence.
- Text dependent questions often direct students to a specific line, sentence, or paragraph of a text.
- Text dependent questions may be literal or inferential.
- Literal: the answer is presented explicitly in the text
- Inferential: the students must have a deep understanding of a specific part of the text in order to use their own understanding to respond.
- Writing exercises that explore writing for different audiences and purposes, including the three main writing genres:
- Opinion (K-5) and Argument (6-12) Writing
- Informative-Explanatory Writing
- Narrative Writing
Trying to implement all of these strategies and practices on your own can be difficult. The educators here at Standards Plus understand that and are doing our best to make it easier on you! We’ve developed a 34-week supplemental instructional program that has these practices and strategies (plus more!) embedded in the short, direct instruction lessons. The program also includes performance tasks and integrated projects with examples of how to use the materials in project based learning.
If you’re not ready to take the plunge with our supplemental program, we also provide free resources for K-8. Every month, we post new vocabulary, writing, and mathematical practice problems for you to download: no strings attached, we promise!
How do you implement strategies and practices into your instruction? We would love to hear from you!