I’m flying home from a Bureau of Indian Education meeting in Albuquerque. As the keynote speaker, I was to prepare an engaging research based presentation on the topic of “Best Practices in Schoolwide Comprehensive Literacy.” Drafting a speech supported with a respected research base was the easiest part of the task. However, taking the message of that speech and transforming it into an hour of full engagement was the challenge.

I opened the presentation with these three images: a classroom from the 1920s, one from the 1950s and one from the mid 2000s. Before you look at them, let me pose to you a question similar to that I asked of my audience. If these were to be the only three images of education found in a time capsule fifty or one-hundred years from now, what story would they tell about the 90 years of education seemingly captured?

I can’t know what you came up with, but I came up with limited fodder to build a story of much interest, at least about education. Of course I could write imaginative fictions about the people in the photos, but in relationship to education, the images fail to show any narrative progression. The primary change from era to era is superficial. Although the uniform or dress may change through time, within each era students dress quite similarly—perhaps because of a formalized dress code or perhaps out of the human sense of conformity. As the three images represent American classrooms, they tell a repetitious teacher-centered story of passive participation, of ordered learners neatly rowed to support independent working and thinking.

Don’t be defensive. I’m only making an observation. I know there are other pictures in other places, but Google classroom images yourself and see what you find. Walk through school today and see what you see. Prove me wrong. Prove that most classes in most schools are student centered places of collaborative learning. Prove that the dream Samuel Taylor Coleridge held for his own son has finally come to fruition for our sons and daughters: “that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes…:

My speech is over. The conference continues. School in classrooms around the country and around the globe are in session. I am 30,000 feet in the air publishing this blog. What’s wrong with this picture?

Teachers need time and support to read and analyze the standards, not just talk about them.

How are educators to do this? By first analyzing each standard across grade levels, beginning in kindergarten, determining or deconstructing the standards they ladder up learning from primary school to intermediate grades and high school. Once they understand what the foundations of the standards, then teachers can begin to build aligned units and daily lesson plans. I’ve said this in previous blogs, but I will say it again. Even high school teachers must look at primary and intermediate standards to understand their grade level standards. This is imperative because the standards spiral and do not repeat what might be an underlying feature of the College and Career Level Standard itself! The student responsibility for questioning does not appear in the standards after grade 3; however, self-questioning and teacher questioning (we all know) is imperative to reading comprehension and high level reading, i.e., critical literacy.

Let me provide an example:

CCSS RI.1.K.1 (Reading for Information.GradeK.Standard1)

1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Knowledge to be taught:

Some of my readers will post and say I haven’t done a thorough job of targeting this standard. Good—I look forward to that. But many more will read and think this is just too much work. Please, feel free to comment on my targeting—add to what you see that would also need to be taught in grade K to meet the expectations of this standard by the year’s end!! I’ll update as you post!

Unfortunately, the most frequent question I’m asked by teachers is whether they really need to do the deconstructing themselves or whether they can count on a textbook to target standards for them. My response: a textbook is not your curriculum but a tool that provides a vehicle for instruction of essential content knowledge and practice of the essential skills related to specific fields of study. Textbooks index skills and even provide pacing charts based on the text’s progression through listed skill study. Additionally, textbooks index content and resources to use in lesson design, including guided practice. However, textbooks do not deconstruct or target standards (although they indicate sometimes with accuracy what standard a lesson may fulfill). In order to deconstruct standards, educators must work together in determining what specific and essential skills underlie the generalized statement of what students should know and be able to do by the end of a specified instructional period.

By deconstructing or targeting standards within a group of school educators–teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators—schools can ensure that the needs of learners in their community with their specific issues under the tutelage of their professional staff are engaged in sequential learning. Yes, this is work—the work of professionals with university degrees who have been educated to know and understand the essential components of content disciplines (knowing and doing) and the pedagogies of instruction that appropriately challenge the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of learners.

How can this be achieved? The implementation of the CCSS requires efforts on the part of a community of stakeholders. The responsibility for moving CCS into the classroom is not only the work of the classroom teacher, but also of the school’s instructional leader and the state’s leadership. Working time for cadres of teachers to target or deconstruct standards needs to be allocated beyond the school day.

Teachers, need to be professional and make accommodations to their own schedules and be available to support colleagues in this endeavor. If each teacher is left to individually target standards, replication and omission within and between grades will be the result. Curriculum will be a hodgepodge. How to get started? Visit Turn on Your Brain for more ideas and resources.  Or call / email me! I’d love to visit your school! But know this, student success or failure to meet the expectations of the Common Core literacy standards will be the result of the learning objectives teachers eventually design. That is why it is imperative that teaching objectives correlate with the newly adopted expectations.

Look past the CCSS funding to determine their real value.

In an October article entitled “The Crocodile in the Common Core Standards,” Susan Ohanian writes that the room feel silent following David Coleman’s now infamous line: “[A]s you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think.” Some questioned whether he had really made such a remark, especially to that audience–educators gathered at the New York State Department of Education. But I can personally assure you that David Coleman made that statement not only in April during the New York speech, but also in July during an appearance in San Francisco of much smaller merit. I know this because I was among the thirty-five educators who exchanged glances upon hearing those words–students need to learn that “…people really don’t give a shit about what you feel….”

Ohanian describes the New York “hall as silent” following Coleman’s declaration and wonders if their silence was the result of “educrats who don’t know how to voice dissent” or symptomatic of shock. I suggest another alternative: the audience was quite because he said what many people already know. On the whole, people don’t give a shit about how teens feel–about a text, about a piece of knowledge, about a skill. However, teachers are smarter than David Coleman. We know how kids feel affects how and what they learn. When it comes to doing the job of teaching–a job Coleman has never held–teachers are better than the writer of the CCSS to deliver the goods.

I agree with Ohanian and the many others who take issue with the way the Common Core Standards were written, by whom they were written, and how that work was funded. But that is another issue. The CCSS as a document of expectations is not pernicious because of its origin just as an illegitimate child is not evil by virtue of birth. Educators need to conduct a close reading, look deeper into the standards, and determine what knowledge, skills, and practices are implicit in the document. Educators need to deconstruct the CCSS to understand that even if David Coleman doesn’t give a shit about what young people think or feel, embedded in his own writing of the standards are opportunities to inquire about personal reflection and experience. Let me provide a brief example.

Standard 1 (Literature & Informational Text) at grade 2 reads:

Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

The grade 2 standard implies that teachers will instruct, model, conduct ongoing assessment to measure student knowledge and application of all aspects of journalistic questioning: the 5Ws and the H. To deconstruct this standard, educators would need to look at further implications of the standard. Students would need to know what a question look likes, what a question sounds like, how a question is syntactically structured. Furthermore, the standard implies that students know the difference between significant or key details and insignificant details, that students know and can verbalize questions that demonstrate all aspects of the deconstructed standard. In both teaching and assessing whether students grasp the knowledge and skills explicit and implicit to the standard is room for questions and reflections both about the reader’s personal feeling. These are worthy who, what, when, where, why, and how questions:

• What emotion does the text evoke in a reader and how does the author evoke emotion in the reader?
• Who is the most sympathetic individual caught up in the series of events?
• Why does the author describe the person using these words: ____, ____, ____?
• When have you read or experienced a similar incident?
• Why does the author take that point of view about ____?
• How do the people involved in this experience feel? How do you know?

Standard 1 (Literature & Informational Text) at grade 5 reads:

Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Using close reading techniques, we can target the grade level 5 standard. The standard is based on a reader’s ability to make inferences and therefore implies that the readers distinguish between the literal, the figurative, the implicit and the explicit. Furthermore, since inference is a function of cognitive thought or reasoning, it requires that readers make connections between the referenced texts, personal experience, and background knowledge (the latter two which may include feelings). All of these terms and the cognitive skills that ground reasoning must be explicitly taught if all students or most of them are going to be proficient in this standard.

The grade 5 standard requires that readers think on their own, make a connection, and provide an inference that comes from how the mind puts literally stated or implied ideas together. Inferences are not made by the text. This standard could further be targeted or deconstructed by explicitly teaching the types of questions that result in inference making, such as an “If…then” question. And though I won’t belabor the point with further targets, I hope you see what I mean. In this blog alone, as a reader, you could use the very questions that are posed at grade 2 and reference quotations from this blog to support your responses. In so doing, you have an opportunity to express your feelings, analyze the feelings of others, and connect to text and to experience. For an excellent blog on how to deconstruct standards and resources to use, visit Christina Hank’s excellent blog. Brain

I’m not defending David Coleman. He is a big boy who chooses his own words. Perhaps he should be more thoughtful and consider the implications of his words–how those who are more sensitive feel about him and what he says. However, what I am proposing…or more strongly, what I am pleading with educators to do is to read the standards and determine what they mean for their instruction, their content, their students, and their schools. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Mangers of educational industries are no doubt ready to pounce on Illinois' $42 M

Yes, it’s been a long time waiting, but finally, Illinois will share in what is left of the Race to the Top funding and has been been awarded 100% of its most recent proposal and request for $42,818,707. Although this is not nearly the funding that we could have received had our earlier plans been awarded, we lead the nine states who were received the Federal nod for financial support.

No doubt, textbook publishers, testing companies (like ACT that already pockets more than $15 million annually for 11th grade testing) and overpriced consulting companies with overstated promises and inexperienced consultants are poised to plea for a share in this recent Federal allocation.

How does Illinois promise to spend this funding? The state has established three goals for the Race to the Top Phase 3 plan

1. create a group of “reform exemplars” among participating LEAs that will agree to meet a high bar for implementing a comprehensive set of reforms;
2. build systems and processes to continue and sustain improved student outcomes for all participating LEAs;
3. build State capacity to extend reforms statewide.

In particular, its Race to the Top Phase 3 award will be used to support or partially support the following activities:

•   Build State and LEA capacity by creating the Race to the Top Leadership and Implementation team, the Center for School Improvement, implementing the revised State Report Cards, and supporting participating LEAs’ use of integrated and comprehensive continuous improvement plans.
•   Support transition to the Common Core State Standards and high quality assessments by supporting participating LEAs in the delivery of standard-aligned instruction, creating P-20 STEM Programs of Study with STEM Learning Exchanges, and establishing LEA assessment systems.
•   Promote effective use of the Illinois Shared Learning Environment through regional and online LEA support networks and portable institutes.
•   Support the evaluation, placement, and support of educators by providing evaluation supports including an evaluator pre-qualification and training program, establishing partnerships with participating LEAs to support the placement of high quality teachers in schools with high poverty and high minority students, and developing induction and mentoring programs for beginning educators.

This plan will also have an impact on STEM education in the State by funding the establishment of a new, innovative public-private infrastructure to advance STEM Programs of Study; focusing standards implementation supports on mathematics and science integration into the curriculum; establishing a technology platform for the delivery of STEM resources; and providing induction and mentoring supports targeted to STEM educators.

My hope is that this money will be used wisely to provide needed professional development for teachers who are clamoring for guidance in Common Core implementation, support students in high poverty and low SES districts–rural and urban, and introduce methodologies and opportunities for the development of STEM programs articulating among business enterprise and schools. In light of my hope that this money really affects the classroom, I also hope it is not wasted on greedy profit and not-for-profit companies well-positioned and ready to pounce on any and all Federal funds.

Well-placed posts can support taut fencing for more than 80 years.

Because the integrity of a fence is judged by its ability to contain some things within its perimeter while preventing other things entrance, the fence line must be stretched tight, without slack. The creation of tension, a woven fence tautly drawn from post to post and firmly secured to a reliable post, ensures stability. Likewise, good teaching should be measured by the strength it offers learners over many years of usefulness. If teaching and learning can be analogous to fences and fencing, then effective learning should remain strong over time, provide learners with touchstones of intellectual stability and foster future growth in understanding. Good teaching like good fences provides security amidst the vagary and caprice of nature…mother nature and human nature.

The function of a fence is to contain and protect.

Deep, rich understandings are best achieved when ideas, facts, or steps in a process are connected to foundational structures, touchstones of conceptual essence, i.e., fence posts. Digging deep into the fundamental essence of concepts–conflict and war, expression and art, properties and mathematics–allow learners/thinkers the background to consider growingly complex and novel problems in light of existing models. The existing model–the post hole—has been firmly established. The new information or novel problem becomes the fencing—that which extends and stretches knowledge from post to post, year to year, process to process, concept to concept.

Shallow posts cannot support the weight of fencing or the whim of nature.

Scant or shallow knowledge does not provide learners sufficient support to build complex understandings or applications. For instance, in math, firm understanding of mathematical properties may seem at first to be tedious, rule burdened jargon. But more sophisticated math—matrix algebra, calculus, and complex statistics—requires conscious application of these essential mathematical fundamental rules. Similarly in poetry, full knowledge of sonnet forms allows close reading of poetry that grapples with quatrain and couplet forms, rhymed verse and blank verse, and varietal meters.

But post holes are not just about rules. Understandings of human nature, essentials of economics, development of political structures all bring stability and reason to the evolution of human histories. The integrity of intellect is judged by application and innovation—what one knows and how that knowledge can be used to extend and improve on the status quo—not the mere ability to score well on multiple choice tests. Having a firmly grounded understanding of the hows and whys, the origins and motivations, or the fundamentals within a discipline strengthens the knowledge core.

And yet events of nature and shifts of time readjust posts, misplacing them from once stable positions. Holes find their ways into fences as woven wire ages and time takes its toll. Like posts and fences, instruction and content needs to be revisited as shifts of time and thinking poke holes into human theories and beliefs, redirecting the line of the fence–the boundaries of the discipline, the expanse of the field. Just as the good farmer walks his fence line evaluating its direction, stability, and necessity, so the good teacher evaluates each lesson for strength in the corner post and fences of stability in understanding the field.

Indeed, how do the CCSS break down the College and Career Readiness anchors across grade levels to impart instructional meaning to practitioners or teachers? Below find grade level standards aligned to the anchor standard number 1 for grades K-4:

Grade K: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Grade 1: Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Grade 2: Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

Grade 3: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Grade 4: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. (Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, 2010, p. 13 & 14)

As you can see, the standards spiral one to the next–each standard builds on the one that precedes it. By the end of kindergarten, learners are expected to ask and answer questions about a text with teacher’s prompting; however, by the end of the first grade, those learners will be expected to ask and answer text dependent questions without teacher’s prompting. From where did that conclusion come? That is an inference made not by drawing on clues provided by the text, rather that inference is based on what the text did not say at all.

In my workshops, I lead teachers through a highlighting process, marking only the new expectations that are added in each grade level standard from year to year. While they highlight, I ask them to generate inferences based on the skill additions or omissions (as with the prompting). In colorful pen, they note what new skills the teacher will need to develop among learners–cognitive and affective, such as the confidence to ask an unprompted question.

Moving through the grade level standards, note that by the end of second grade, teachers are expected to have imparted on their students the value of journalistic questions: who, what, where, when, and why. We come to know this explicitly. However, never again are specific question types listed within the standards. Which causes my brain to question instruction that presumes the conditional: would, could, should. When are they to be taught?

While the Standards focus on what is most essential, they do not describe all that can or should be taught. A great deal is left to the discretion of teachers and curriculum developers. The aim of the Standards is to articulate the fundamentals, not to set out an exhaustive list or a set of restrictions that limits what can be taught beyond what is specified herein. (Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, 2010, p. 6)

In continuing our close reading of the standard, at grade 4 we clearly see no reference to questioning and if we were to read beyond grade 4 and through grade 12, we would see no further explicit references to questioning. However, as educators, we know that questioning is the very foundation of coming to learn and understand. Without questioning, there can be no wonder, no clarification, no inference. Questioning is the fundamental structure of coming to know.

The process of building up and correcting knowledge structures is driven by the questions we ask ourselves. (Schank, & Cleary, 1995, Engines for Education, p. 40).

Although explicit references to questioning drops out of the standards, the development of questioning skills is ever heightened. If I were to follow only the explicit direction of the standards, my students grow in deep-seated curiosity. Rather, I must instill what a call the “voice of the skeptical reader” in their heads–a voice that continually whispers: “Why does s/he say…?” “What does s/he really mean about…?” “Could this possibly be connected to…?”

Grade 5: Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Grade 6: Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Grade 7: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Grade 8: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Grade 9-10: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Grade 11-12: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining
where the text leaves matters uncertain.(Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, 2010, p. 14 & 39)

You may notice that after third grade and through eighth grade, the explicit emphasis of the Standard #1 shifts from asking and answering questions to self-generated analysis wherein the practice of questioning appears to have become so automatic that the reader naturally attends to that reading technique. Grades 4 through 12 guide learners through processes needed to bolster arguments, provide well-formed explanations, and extend understanding about important concepts, processes, and ideas. The reader begins to learn that general assertions need to be girded by text evidence and furthermore, effective evidence needs to be evaluated and carefully selected. Keep in mind that throughout this process, the readers are continuing to read more sophisticated or complex texts. The expectations of skills developed in grades K-4 are not abandoned, but are reinforced and polished to grade level standards.Standard #1, attending to Key Ideas and Detail must be the first standard because a thinker’s ability to use inductive and deductive thinking to distill main ideas from details is integral to understanding text, written or spoken. The standards not only spiral from grade to grade, but within themselves and this is yet another aspect of the standards that renders them “common.” They are built progressively and interdependently and simultaneously yet implicitly demand progressive and interdependence among teachers and disciplines to be successful.

What makes the Common Core Standards common? Not only are the standards applicable across grades and disciplines, they are required practice by thinking adults. The standards are common because they are commonly employed by successful readers and thinkers in their jobs and throughout their lives. My point here….the standards are not just another list of what needs to be taught to school-aged children and adolescents that we allow to be deconstructed or targeted or broken down into component parts by textbook publisher. As educators, we must systematically apply these standards in their own analysis. In order to understand the nuances of the anchor standards, educators must become close readers of grade level standards K-12; it is only through knowledge of each standard’s early iteration that a full understanding of the progressive iterations can be achieved.

Lately, being an educational consultant means sharing information about the Common Core Standards which have been adopted by forty-five states since the summer of 2010. I mention the number of states because I have spoken with teachers in at least six (Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Florida) of these states and few to none of these teachers have more than a passing recognition of what their state’s adoption of the standards means to their schools or their instruction. In this blog, I hope to shine a light on the structure of the Common Core State Literacy Standards (CCSS) as well as explain how I interpret the CCSS goals.

WHAT SCHOOL SUBJECTS DO THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ADDRESS?

As a standards framework for math and literacy, the CCSS address all academic and vocational disciplines typically using either lab or direct instructional models. The math standards develop an incremental (scaffolded) approach to math instruction that is self-explanatory; however, the literacy standards are a bit more complicated. I say this because the literacy standards are written for three distinct disciplines and a fourth broad category. The literacy standards address the subjects of English or language arts, social studies, and subjects under a pure science umbrella. The fourth broader category is labeled by the CCSS as “technical subjects.” Although this category is not definitively defined, a cursory glance at Appendix B of the CCSS indicates that “technical subjects” encompass math, business, vocational subjects and the like. Generally speaking, anything that isn’t ELA, social science or pure science.

Let me begin by setting a parameter around this discussion. Although The Standards address all areas of literacy—reading, writing, speaking and listening—in virtually all the courses a school could offer, for the purpose of illustrating the structure of the CCSS, I have narrowed further discussion to the reading standards. Because all of the literacy domains (my word, not theirs) follow a pattern very similar to that of the reading standards, I will discuss each of those in a future blog.

Each literacy domain has a corresponding set of College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS). For those of you familiar with ACT’s College and Career Readiness Standards know this: they are not one in the same. The CCSS readiness standards were first released in draft form in 2009 and are nothing like ACT’s standards of a similar name. The Reading Standards are guided by ten CCRS which are further organized under the headings of four strands and then subdivided and described through the grade level standards. Although this may seem somewhat complex, the structure is really a simple matrix. See the figure below:

WHAT MAKES THE COMMON CORE COMMON?

Understanding that structure, let’s begin consider what makes the Common Core State Standards “common.” Most believe the use of the adjective “common” is because nearly all states have adopted this set of expectations. However, I assert the commonality of the standards is established not only because of an interstate agreement of their validity, but also because the standards have an intrinsic commonality embedded across grade levels K-12. Regardless of grade level or content discipline, each of the College and Career Standards remain consistent across grades. The difference in the standard comes only in its description at each grade level. In other words, the guiding expectation or grade-level standard for CCRS #1 is somewhat different from grade 1 to grade 2 to grade 3 and so forth. However, regardless of grade or content class, the overarching standard remains the same. Standard #1, at all grade levels and across all content addresses a reader’s ability to find key ideas and details.

WHAT ARE THE TEN COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS STANDARDS?

The ten College and Career Reading Readiness Anchor Standards can be found on page ten of the Common Core State Standards document. However, for reading ease, I have posted them below.

Key Ideas and Details

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Craft and Structure

4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.*

8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity    

10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

One of my pet peeves is that although states have adopted these standards as the framework or foundation for literacy instruction across all grades and content areas, they have failed to provide a hard copy document to teachers. Nearly every teacher in every state I have visited voices the same complaint. States adopted the standards then placed them on their DOE website expecting teachers to print off their own hard copy. Granted, the expectation is not too high; however, if these are the standards for teaching and learning, I believe the state should be responsible for seeing that teachers receive a binder bound hard copy of the standards along with professional development that develops professional understanding of their implications. Continue to check back for further explanation regarding the CCSS or subscribe to my blog and be notified of future posts wherein I plan to explore the scaffolding nature of the standards and provide additional matrices of how the standards can be effectively used to inform instruction and learning.

Student: “I don’t get it”

Teacher: “What don’t you get?”

Student: “I don’t get the part about __________.”

Teacher: “What about _________ don’t you get?”

Honestly, can there be a teacher who hasn’t shared in a student’s inability to express themselves clearly about what they do and do not understand in reference to a skill, a piece of content knowledge, or reading comprehension? Why are so many students unable to verbalize clear questions concerning reading comprehension, domain knowledge or content processes? Probably because rather than having received instruction and opportunities to ask significant and appropriate questions, students have been designated the generator of answers not questions.

The Common Core State Standards recognizes the importance of students becoming questioners. As early as first grade, the standards expect readers to question text and by the end of second grade, the CCSS clearly expects readers to ask classic journalistic questions (5-Ws & the H) regarding explicit information in a text: “Ask and answer such questions as who, what,where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text” (p. 13). Explicit references to students as questioners continues through grade four, however, implicit in Standard 1 throughout all grades is the role of readers as generators of text questions. Moreover, by the end of fourth grade, the standard describes a reader who asks not only closed-ended questions but also open-ended questions that require inference skills and critical thinking: “Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. [RL & RI.4.1, p. 12 & 14). As students move from grades five through twelve, Standard 1 changes only in regard to textual citations readers use in generating and responding to questions. What the CCSS does not provide are guidelines for building this lifelong skill in learners.

How can we transform readers and learners from the respondent role to active role that waits for someone or something else (the test) to pose questions? By teaching our students to use the very techniques we have used as teachers in framing our own questions. The ability to ask good questions is not an art-form but it is a skill that can be taught and learned.

Question-Answer Relationship (QAR)

I like to begin with Taffey Raphael’s Question Answer Relationship (QAR, 1986). Using a think aloud modeling lesson that introduces students to the concept of question types. After students have demonstrated proficiency with distinguishing between question types, turn the generation of questions over to them. If you have a copy of Teaching Reading Sourcebook, check out pages 702-710. I find most teachers are familiar with QAR, but many don’t use it for its full value….which is not so much to evaluate questions thrown at the reader, but works to make the reader generate higher level thinking questions that result in using inferential skills.

My first encounter using this reversal of strategies was a positive, frankly enlightening experience that forever won me over as a proponent for student questions! We were reading poetic selections from Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience poetry of William Blake. Once the class had established the difference between question types, I put them in groups of four and five, each responsible for generating questions from a pair of assigned Blake poem. They were to generate one “Right There” question, two “Think and Search” questions, two or three “Author and Me” and one or two “On My Own” questions for each poem. I urged the students to develop questions that required consideration of both poems together and the biographical information that was available. The remainder of that class period was devoted to active reading, productive group discussion, and thoughtful writing of questions that were specific to the texts, another of Common Core Standards expectations.

The next day, the chart papers circulated the room as each group was responsible for answering the questions generated by their peers the day before AND labeling what type of question had been asked. Many of the questions were far deeper than I would have generated for a whole class discussion and the small groups were intense and text driven. BTW, this was a high school group. If you are familiar with the Common Core State Standards Appendix B, Blake’s “The Echoing Green” from Songs of Innocence is suggested as a grade 4-5 text. (p. 66 & 70).

Using QAR is just one way to start. Bloom’s taxonomy works just as well. First teach the relationship between question types and the various levels of Blooms to your students. Once they have achieved proficiency with that skill, provide them with a new text and have them generate questions that correspond to Remembering, Understanding, Applying, and so on.

Question Formulation Technique (QFT)

Question Formulation Technique (QFT) was recently shared in the article “Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions” published in the Harvard Education Letter. This strategy, funded by National Institutes of Health, was developed to meet the growing inability of adults to pose questions of health care practitioners. As a framework, the strategy has four points: produce questions, improve questions, prioritize questions, and use questions. However, within these four simple steps are integrated habits of mind and skills that require students to be open to others ideas, to distinguish between statements and questions, to change statements into questions, to know the difference between closed and open-ended questions, and to change closed-ended questions into open-ended questions. “When students know how to ask their own questions, they take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own” (Sept./Oct. 2011, para. 3).

The ability to ask a variety of cogent questions is among the characteristics of thinking and articulate adults; teaching readers to ask their own questions has value that extends far beyond the schoolhouse walls.

One of the greatest criticisms against American education is the foundational absence for critical thinking. The extension of this view is our nation’s current obsession with high stakes testing or standardized testing that seeks for its own sake to distinguish proficient learners from failures. This method of statistical  measurement typically understands knowledge as a measurable product and uses testing not to modify learning, but as Sara Freedman says, to “ensure it can be moved from classroom to classroom, or across state lines, and be recognized everywhere as the same set of ideas or facts” (“Teaching, gender, and curriculum,” 1998, p. 232).

Although I am not an proponent of standardized assessment to measure an individual’s intellectual worth, I am an adherent to the value of high stakes accountability–for everyone: teachers, parents, students, politicians, ministers, road workers and on and on.  I strive to be highly accountable in all that I do and I expect others to do the same. However, caught in the reality of human difference, I know the value of subjective descriptors for statistical measures are damaging for all. As categorical descriptors words not only reflect measured performance but predict or promote self-esteem. Exceed fosters false pride;  meets or proficient fosters mediocrity;  basic or below fosters demoralization. And yet, we describe our children, the weakest of our fold, with those labels and prescribe for them drills and practices that will hone appropriate cognitive skills and make them successful in a capitalistic society

It is out of this seemingly dichotomous paradigm–standards vs assessment–that I find faith in the offering of the Common Core State Standards. The diversity of the Common Core State Standards application both across content and across the domains of literacy suggest a multiplicity of measures that innovative educators and test-designers could use to measure skills, knowledge, and talent.

The Common Core Standards use foundational literacy and numeracy standards on which to build habits of mind like persistence and curiosity that nurture critical thinking.  You see, I wonder if critical thinking is an endangered classroom species not because of the nature of teachers and/or students, but because of the nature of humanity in general? On the whole, people are impatient; however, critical thinking demands patience because it is close work, like that of  needle threading. On the whole, people are kind; however, critical thinking demands a distancing that prohibits a preponderance of emotion as in hypothesis testing. On the whole, people are inclusive and want to belong; critical thinking demands setting aside conformity or group think in the search of the truth as is required in a search for  justice or pursuit of ethical behavior.

David Coleman charges teachers with aiding and abetting superficial thinking. He accuses us of telling students too much about a text before inviting them to wade into its depths. I plead guilty. On too many occasions I have spent more time preparing my students to read than offering them actual reading time. I have done this because of my human nature, wanting to make the road they travel less bumpy or more enticing. Or perhaps because I am impatient and want them to see my vision without traveling their own bumpy road. But Coleman suggests that in our eagerness to simplify we deny the reader the right to experience complex thinking.

Many charge high stakes accountability as the culprit in the narrowing of American curriculum. Most notably among these critics is Diane Ravitch:“Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education… Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure… Not everything that matters can be quantified” (Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education).

Although the Common Core Standards are designed for literacy and numeracy, the implications for the content by which these standards can be met through instruction, practice, and assessment are not limited to conventional views of readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic. One only needs to take a cursory look at the Common Core Appendix B to realize the breadth of content and depth of thinking the Common Core strives for students to attain. In grades 4 & 5, suggested literary texts include the works of William Blake (typically a senior high Brit lit study) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (9th grade anthologies) and read what the Common Core expects students to do with their knowledge and skill. By the way, this is not in the form of regurgitated knowledge, but as independent activities associated with independent reading.

• Students explain the relationship between time and clocks using specific information drawn from Bruce Koscielniak’s About Time: A First Look at Time and Clocks.
• Students determine the meaning of domain-specific words or phrases, such as crust, mantle, magma, and lava, and important general academic words and phrases that appear in Seymour Simon’s Volcanoes.
• Students compare and contrast a firsthand account of African American ballplayers in the Negro Leagues to a secondhand account of their treatment found in books such as Kadir Nelson’s We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, attending to the focus of each account and the information provided by each.   (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks, p. 76)

Expectations in the middle school become much more complex and diverse. Remember, again, these are not activities based in reflection of full class discussions–these are active discussions, written and spoken based on confident, independent reading.

• Students analyze Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” to uncover the poem’s analogies and allusions. They analyze the impact of specific word choices by Whitman, such as rack and grim, and determine how they contribute to the overall meaning and tone of the poem.
• Students trace the line of argument in Winston Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” address to Parliament and evaluate his specific claims and opinions in the text, distinguishing which claims are supported by facts, reasons, and evidence, and which are not.
• Students learn about fractal geometry by reading Ivars Peterson and Nancy Henderson’s Math Trek: Adventures in the Math Zone and then generate their own fractal geometric structure by following the multistep procedure for creating a Koch’s curve.
• Students integrate the quantitative or technical information expressed in the text of David Macaulay’s Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction with the information conveyed by the diagrams and models Macaulay provides, developing a deeper understanding of Gothic architecture.     (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects

Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks, p. 93 & 100)

The Common Core Standards set the bar high; however, the Common Core Standards “do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations. No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom” (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, p. 6). High stakes testing and professional accountability do not narrow curriculum; people do. Every law intended to bring fairness in education to children since Brown v. Board of Education (1954) has resulted in claims of inequity. Fair and equal are not the same.

Laws and tests do not limit the depth of critical thinking that is taught and fostered in America’s classrooms; only people limit what the classroom offers.

The President emphasizing his point: There's nothing wrong with our country, but there's plenty wrong with our politics.

What a day in Alpha, Illinois!! On Wednesday afternoon, my brother-in-law received a phone call on his cell while he was out picking cantaloupes from the melon patch saying “this is the White House calling….” He had the same reaction as you would probably have….”okay, who is this…REALLY?!” The conversation ended with his request for a follow-up email and when he left the melon patch to check his email, the caller was verified. The President of the United States had asked if Country Corner would be interested in hosting a Presidential visit to Henry County in Illinois.

The rest is history, or at least history for me! The White House announced their intention to visit Henry County in general and Country Corner specifically on Thursday night, but urged us to keep it “under wraps” until they issued a formal press release–which didn’t come for a couple of days. But in the meantime, we were busy developing an invitation list, polishing barns and buildings with a fresh coat of paint, cleaning up anything that distracted from the organic beauty of a roadside stand, calling dignitaries, friends, and neighbors while helping White House staffers and Secret Service envision a crowd of 400 to 600 people in the midst of a cornfield.

Although a couple of combines were brought in, staffers preferred the size of the antique tractor as a backdrop for the President, a machine that isn't overwhelming in size and power.

Country Corner offers schools educational tours teaching where our food really comes from...and that isn't the grocery store!

What was most surprising was the openness of the White House Advance Team and the Secret Service Advance, the White House Communications Team, the Health and Human Services team–all who had precise tasks to plan and orders to see carried out before the big day. They were interesting and diverse in their backgrounds, and instead of being pushy or condescending, they were conversational and curious. For many, this was the first long-term visit to a rural atmosphere and they seemed to relish in the opportunity to drive a tractor or tote a bale of hay.

Now don’t get me wrong; they didn’t do much of the physical labor.  A few were dressed for rural America, but for the most part, the men wore long-sleeved dress shirts and the women were in short dresses and high heels. The Washington officials are planners and troubleshooters–and for those roles, they dress the part. It is the host who acts as the coordinator of labor functions. And so, we were enlisted to assist in seeing to it that the President would remember his visit to Henry County and Country Corner.

In the end, I think it worked. The day was hot and the President didn’t arrive at the promised hour. Rather, he was over an hour late due to a side tour to nearby Galesburg, Illinois where he watched the football team practice under the guidance of their coach recently relocated from Southern Illinois.

But once the President arrived, most sweaty frustration evaporated into the overhead clouds and attention became focused on what he had to say to the crowd of 450 invited guests. The crowd was hushed as they listened to him speak. He took about ten questions alternating between boy and girl as the Service had told us was “his way.” He began the question/answer session by calling on an old friend of his from Illinois and the current President of the Illinois Farm Bureau, Phillip Nelson. He also called on Karen Urick, the wife of Henry County Farm Bureau President Kevin Urick. Although the crowd appreciated that he called on two young women around the age of 13, I was disappointed he didn’t go for more hard hitting questioners. His final question was asked by an Augustana College man whose preparation I believe surprised the President. His question focused on taxes, social security, and long-term safety for pension funds.

In total, the President spoke for about an hour, beginning with 15 minutes of opening remarks and concluding his question answer session with few additional remarks. Thereafter, he made his way along the fence of hay bales to shake hands. Although he declined to give autographs, I was lucky enough to get his signature on two inaugural newspapers a friend had brought for me, knowing I wouldn’t have the time or forethought to do so myself. Here, you see me speaking with the President, my face caught in the crook of his arm.

After the President had shaken hands, he removed himself to my brother-in-law’s office which had hastily been remodeled into a rendition of the Midwestern Oval Office, complete with secure phone lines and elegant photo backdrop draped in blue velvet sided by an American flag. There, President Obama met with the Governor of Illinois and some other “important” people and filmed his weekly address to the nation. While he worked, we dined on fresh ear corn drenched in butter, barbequed pork chops, sliced melons, sweet berries and homemade pies. The day was special, not only because our community shared in a Presidential visit, but because we put our personal interests and private demands away for a few hours and became a true community–not drawn together in hardship but glued together by a sense of familial spirit perhaps envisioned by our founding fathers. Watch the slide show if you want to see what I was able to capture of the day. More pictures will come as I collect the photos of friends and some will be removed as time allows for editing. Click to view slideshow.

Tagged: Alpha Illinois, Augustana College, Barack Obama, Illinois, Illinois Farm Bureau, President of the United States, United States, White House ]]> http://dconrad3.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/preparing-for-president-obama/feed/ 4 dconrad3 President Obama in Alpha Setting the Scene Farm Fresh Fun is what Country Corner is all about. Alpha Crowds Await the Presidential Arrival Curry Family with the President