Professional development focus of informational texts

Something else is interesting in that article in education week that I've posted about recently. " New York City singled out informational text as this year's focus and it's work to get ready for the common core standards in English language arts.". I admire a single year-long focus like that. I think that you can get a lot of information discussed with single focus like that. "the district conducted professional development aimed at helping teachers think through how to create instructional units and tasks reflecting the shift in the standards. To support that work the 1.1 million students district set up a digital common core library that includes 13 bundles of sample activities lesson plans and other resources for instruction based on information text."

Five titles for 10th grade nonfiction

The teacher referred to in my previous post uses the nonfiction books in her 10th grade class.

Branded by Alissa Quart

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Blood Diamonds by Greg Campbell

Bitter Chocolate by carol Off

Geeks by Jon Katz

Rhetoric, not literary analysis becomes the new focus in English

The common core asks for more nonfiction texts, specifically "high quality complex information texts.". Education week ("Schools begin shift to information-text instruction" by Catherine Gewertz, march 14, 2012) addresses the need for new kinds of PD. ("Most teachers are to taught how to teach reading", the article quotes one NY school official.).

What is especially interesting to me is the picture of what teachers are doing with texts. The article begins, "In an English language arts classroom in Iowa 10th-graders are analyzing the rhetoric in books about computer geeks, fast food, teenage marketing, working poor, chocolate making, and diamond mining... Students are dissecting the sources, statistics, and anecdotes the authors use to make their arguments in books... And film documentaries.". The same teacher, sarah brown wessling, the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, says, "we spend a lot of time talking about attributes of nonfiction, like how to read an interview. Or how to tell the difference between fact and opinion."

This is rhetoric curriculum spread throughout the 4 high school years. I think that's a different thing than saying that teachers must teach more nonfiction. Instead, it means teaching rhetorical reading, reading for argument, for tone, for bias, and for author's purpose.

The article references an online teacher toolkit developed by the state of Oregon and NY's teacher resources which can be found in this issues links page at edweek.org/links.

Twitter in the classroom

Education Week picked up a Tribune article about two Glen Ellyn 1st grade teachers using Twitter in the classroom. In one classroom the end-of-day class meeting is a Twitter session where kids tweet. The teacher says that it keeps communication open with parents and helps children learn typing, spelling, and reading. Another teacher who has her kids blogging says that it's important because kids see this as a thing that adults do and that it's a way to teach young children that computers are not just about games.

ESpark founder David Vinci is quoted.

"twitter evolves as tool for little ones to tweet about class activities" by Michelle Manchir

Distracting e-books, Teacher Eval screw-up, lying "truth-o-meters"

Three articles published in the last couple days

“Find Your Book Interrupted… By the Tablet You Read it On” by Julie Bosman and Matt Richtel NYT 3.5.12

Teaser: “People who read e-books on tablets like the iPad are realizing that while a book in print or on a black-and-white Kindle is straightforward and immersive, a tablet offers a menu of distractions that can fragment the reading experience, or stop it in its tracks.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/business/media/e-books-on-tablets-fight-digital-distractions.html

“Hard-Working Teachers, Sabotaged When Student Test Scores Slip” by Michael Winerip (NYT in the “on Eduction” column) 3.5.12

This is about some unintended consequences involved with NY’s “value added” teacher evaluation system. Four teachers who seem to be doing a great job are all shown – by the test, at least – to have taken AWAY value from students. Learn about how “numbers lie” here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/nyregion/in-brooklyn-hard-working-teachers-sabotaged-when-student-test-scores-slip.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=hard-working%20teachers&st=cse

“True Lies: Media umpires confront the challenge of dishonest facts” by Eric Zorn Tribune 3.2.12

Interesting for all, but especially for rhetoric, AP Lang, expos… This article comments on the group of new “fact-checking” websites run by various media outlets. Things like Truth-O-Meter and PolitiFact and the Washington Posts “Pinocchio” awards (the cleverest of the bunch). Are these meters too dumbed-down?

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2012/03/truelies.html

What is Literature Good For?

What is Literature Good For?

Carol Jago, in her recent book With Rigor For All (Heineman), cites six contributions that the study of literature makes to student development:
1. intellectual curiosity as the content of great works of literature offers them teh ways and means of delving into stories, and through these stories, of having a vicarious experience of the human condition far greater than any of them could ever acquire on the basis of luck and firsthand encounters
2. cognitive skills through the study of literature that supports the critical reading of all texts, the precise use of language, and the creation of sound arguments
3. aesthetic sensitivity that helps them recognize and respond to art
4. an intra- and intercultural awareness by reading texts from both their own and other cultures
5. an ethical sensitivity that includes the ability to regulate conduct according to principles and the ability to deliberate about issues both in their own heads and in dialogue with others
6. an existential maturity that allows them to behave as civilized human beings in a world where others are not always so inclined.

Jago draws this list from Shaped by Stories: The Ethical Power of Narratives by Marshall Gregory (2009). According to Gregory, existential maturity “is more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is. It is not self-centeredness; it is not unkindness; it is not pettiness; it is not petulance; it is not callousness to the suffering of others; it is not back-biting or violent competitiveness; it is not mean-spiritedness; it is not dogmatism or fanaticism; it is not a lack of self-control; it is not the inability ever to be detached or ironic; it is not the refusal to engage in give-and-take learning from others; it is not the assumption that what we personally desire and value is what everyone else desires and values” (57)

What's Going to Be on the New Common Core Test??

I had the opportunity to chat with Carol Jago, past NCTE president and PARCC and NAEP member, last week over lunch. She’s sitting on the committee that’s currently figuring out what the yearly Common Core test will look like. As far as I can recall -- and I should say that there was a glass of wine or two involved over lunch -- there will be two tests: one at the end of the year (May/June) that will feel like an AP Language multiple-choice passage analysis test with a focus on challenging texts – and the examples she gave really were challenging. This one on computer, probably computer adaptive. Another test earlier in the spring (April) will be an "integrated reading and writing task," a writing test that asks kids to create an argument after reading multiple texts – again, it sounded like the “synthesis question” on the AP Language test. This essay test will likely be graded – at least partially – by computers. Again, she offered some pretty interesting examples that involve a range of text types, even paintings.

As far as I’m concerned all this is good news, a good focus on reading challenging texts, argument, analysis, and synthesis. OK… I’m a little concerned with the computer graded essays! But right now, with a couple pounds of essays to grade this weekend, I'm willing to see what those computers can do to provide feedback about things like focus, development, and organization.