Just the Right Mentor Text: Bringing the CCSS to Life

As I wrote last week, we changed our novel reading unit into a fantasy unit in order to more neatly implement the Common Core Reading Standards. We are now about half way through it, and I am noticing something big: my kids are finding the ideas in the more rigorous standards to be understandable and applicable to their own novels. Whew! In fact, they are kind-of looking at me like, "What's the big deal?"

Which brought me to another realization: With the right mentor text, complex ideas become comprehensible. OK, this idea is not entirely new to me, but as I venture into these new standards that I have to wrestle with first before I can expect my eighth graders to grasp, having the right text in hand has made a huge difference. 

cover from Amazon.com

We are using Rodman Philbrick's The Last Book in the Universe as our mentor text. Originally, I chose it because: 1) I'd read it a couple of years before and remembered that I enjoyed it, 2) it is a fairly slim novel compared to most YA fantasy and dystopian books these days, and 3) the chapters are short-- between 3 and 6 pages usually, which makes for about a 10-minute read aloud. Then I reread it once we had planned out the revised unit, and all of a sudden, examples of the standards were popping out everywhere! As long as the students found the story engaging, I thought I was golden.

The first chapters of the book take a lot of work. This surprised me because it is leveled at a guided reading level W and a Lexile of 740-- for our kids, this indicated a pretty easy read. But what neither of those levels reflect is all the contextualizing students have to do with both setting and dialect. Told from the main character, Spaz's, first person point of view, Philbrick uses a lot of slang terms as he describes his dystopian world: he lives in the "Urb" which is ruled by "Bangers" and people escape from reality by "probing", but there is another utopian place called "Eden" where the "prooves" live. Hoo boy! Fortunately, Philbrick is very good about explaining new words through context or direct definitions. And fortunately for teaching the CCSS literature and language standards, this is the exact kind of work we need to be doing: analyzing the author's use of word choice, including connotations, allusions, and figurative language, to create meaning and tone.

The Last Book in the Universe focuses on two main characters: Spaz, a 14-year-old homeless orphan living under the protection of one of the ruling gangs, and Ryter, an old "gummy" who lives near "the Edge" and owns nothing but a stack of papers that constitute the book he is writing. They strike a classic friendship of mentor and mentee as they go on a quest to visit Spaz's foster sister before she dies. Philbrick writes the dialogue for these two characters in contrasting ways; while Spaz uses a lot of street slang and short sentences, Ryter uses complete, complex sentences with academic words and literary allusions. This is perfect for the CCSS standard for examining how dialogue reveals characters, moves the plot forward, and provokes decisions. Their roles and the plot structure also fit nicely into the standard that examines how contemporary literature uses archetypes from traditional literature and "renders them new." We had a lively discussion yesterday about who the hero, mentor, innocent youth, and villain were in the story, as well as the archetype of situations such as The Fall and The Quest. 

But the best part of using this book as the mentor text? "Are we going to have read aloud today, Ms. Pohl?" "Can we gather in the reading corner?" "Will we finish this book? Please?" And when my answer is "Yes" to any and all of those, I hear a resounding, "Yessssssss!!!" back. 

Despite my interruptions for think alouds and turn-and-talks, my students are hanging on every word, analyzing as well as enjoying, empathizing for the characters and making predictions. Through modeling and active engagement using The Last Book in the Universe, students are seeing how the abstract ideas of purposeful author's craft and language analysis work, and then they apply them to their own fantasy novels. Having just the right mentor text has brought the standards to life!

Re-visioning the Novel Unit for CCSS Implementation

We are implementing the Common Core Reading Standards this year, which has caused some major revision of units—and not just revision as in add a bit of this here and a bit of that there, but re-vision as in totally re-thinking how to approach our units. We rewrote our novel unit so that it shifted from a social justice theme inquiry to a fantasy genre focus. We are basing the fantasy unit on the Teacher’s College Grade 8 Reading Units of Study from 2011 (still hoping new reading units will come out for middle school this year).

There are some major shifts in our new unit because of the CCSS Reading standards, many more shifts than we had to make in our writing units last year. Here are a few that stand out and how we dealt with them.

R.8.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

            We decided to keep the social justice thematic questions from the previous unit, because they work with fantasy as well: 

• To what extent does power or the lack of power affect an individual? 
• When should an individual stand up for what s/he believes in and what is the best way to do this? 
• How do subtle issues of gender, race, class, and power function in society? 

These questions analyzing “power and resistance” became the theme to track. We introduced a new technology tool, Lucidcharts, as a way to track characters, setting, and plot across the book. Lucidcharts is part of the Google suite of applications, so the flowcharts and other graphic organizers that students develop can be shared with others in their Book Club. As the group moves through the book, they can collaboratively add on to their Charts and use them as talking points during their discussions.

R.8.5 Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.

R.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.

image from amazon.com

image from Gareth Hines wesbiste

            We are working with these two standards together. Fantasy novels, including science fiction dystopian stories, draw upon a long literary tradition. We are using a model text, The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick, to introduce these ideas. This book has classic literary character types: hero, mentor, sidekick, damsel in distress, as well as structure: a quest. We will have students look for similar character types and plot structures in their books. The model text also draws upon The Odyssey for some of its plot events: people who escape into a dream world (Lotus Eaters), a character who is “blinded” in his one “eye” (Cyclops), a band of boys who act like animals (Circe’s Island), a gang of beautiful women who are merciless (the Furies), a journey via a Pipe that used to carry water (Odysseus’ journey across the sea).  Over the course of the unit, we will present other traditional stories, such as Hercules, and ask students to compare their stories to the characters and structures of the traditional ones. Rich discussions in Book Clubs will bring forth the analysis portions of these standards as students make connections between their book and the traditional tales.

R.8.7 Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

            This seems like a “stand-alone” standard to me, and I question why the authors of the CCSS deemed this important enough to include in its “top 10” reading standards. All of the other reading standards are applicable to a variety of texts and genres, and in multiple units and  lessons. I supposed it’s a nod to the importance of media literacy in the 21st century; however, it still seems like a “one off” lesson to me.  Nevertheless, it is a reading standard and so we must address it. While planning, I drew heavily upon Christy Rush-Levine's article on the Choice Literacy site, "Embracing Standards in Creative Ways."

movie produced by Learning Corporation of America, 1982

Since our novel unit uses a Book Club structure, we have six different books going, and not all of them have a film version. Neither does our model text, so we needed to approach this one a little differently (see—one-off!). We decided to linger with the model text we used in our recently completed Literary Essay unit: “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. Fortunately, there was an old film version of the story made in the 1980s. It deviated quite a bit from the plot of the original story, including extending the ending, which shifted the theme. Before watching the film, we did a quick look at some of the “director’s choices” available while making a film. Using A Quick Guide for Beginners: Movie Aesthetics by StopMo Wiki, we went over some film-making moves like focus, frame, flux, and sound, and thought about how authors also try to use those same moves but with words. Next, students made a quick t-chart with Same and Different so they could take notes as they watched the movie. They also pulled out the story so it was in front of them.

As we watched the movie, I stopped at the end of the exposition--which was very different, and we discussed why the directed added so many school scenes and whether the essence of the story was still coming through.  I stopped at the climax, and we discussed how the addition of a character allowed for the main character to say all that “inner thinking” aloud. And at the end, I asked whether students felt the film version, which was very different than the written version, stayed true to the story and why.

It was a rich lesson, and fun for the students. And now I can “tick” it off my standards list.

The other five reading standards are also being addressed, but they didn't take too much shifting. Of course we are asking for text evidence to support their interpretations. Of course we are looking at author's craft and noticing things like allusions, irony, and suspense. Of course we are noticing how dialogue and plot events move the story forward. These are things that we addressed, maybe not to this level or specificity, in past reading units. But the four above took a lot of thinking and rewriting to incorporate into our novel unit. The unit is more rigorous because of these, and it is exciting to read fantasy with new eyes. 

Does anyone else think the text vs. film standard is a stand-alone standard? Are there good resources to draw on for explaining "themes, patterns of events, or character types" from traditional literature? I'm in new territory here, and any suggestions are welcome!

How can I help at home? Parental Support Suggestions

I just finished meeting with 44 out of my 46 families during the two-day parent-student-teacher conferences last week. It was a marathon! Twenty-seven 15-minute conferences on one day, and 17 the next. Whew! Although exhausting, I was continuously impressed with the commitment shown by the parents to be involved in their child's education. 

image from room206lce.wikispaces.com website

One question kept coming up: How can I help at home? It's a tricky question for eighth graders. Most 13-year-olds do not want their parent hovering over their shoulder, "helping" them with homework. They know they can do it on their own, although some do need help with organization and time management. For those kids, we had a good chat together about structuring time, using organizational tools, and balancing homework and down time. Parents came away with some strategies to help their children with those needs.

What about the rest? And what about academics? Here are a few things I suggested:

• Help your child read by keeping books in his/her hands. This could mean giving time to get to the library, buying books at the bookstore or for e-readers, or suggesting books off of the family bookshelves.  
• Talk about what they are reading, not just summary, but questions about characters, author's craft, or theme. Compare this book to others: Do any of the characters remind you of any other characters in other books? If this is a book by an author you've read before, do you see a pattern emerging (is it formulaic)?
• Discuss the social studies content your child is learning. By "teaching" family members, students process and remember information longer. Asking clarifying questions, watching videos connected to the content, and looking at maps or other resources together enriches and deepens the information.
• Encourage authentic writing at home. I found this great chart that places best practices for teaching writing along side suggestions for teen writers (from Fleischer, Cathy and Kimberly Coupe Pavlock. 2012. "Inviting Parents In: Expanding Our Community Base to Support Writing." English Journal 101 (4): 29-36.). Here's an excerpt:

 

Parents want what is best for their kids, and they want to do what they can to help. Giving them tools that show them appropriate and authentic ways to support their children is a win-win situation. What other suggestions do you give to parents?

Scaffolding too much?

Last spring, literacy consultant Stevi Quate came to our school to work with our secondary English Language Arts teachers. While here, she did a couple of demo lessons in middle school classrooms, and then we MS teachers gathered to debrief with her. At one point in the conversation, she said something like, "I scaffolded too much." I thought that was a curious thing to say, because I certainly didn't think she supported the kids too much, and in fact, I thought she supported them less than I would have. But our time was short and I didn't have time to explore this idea with her.

image from Steve Wheeler on flickr

Since then, I have run across this question of "too much support" again. This article by Terry Thompson of Choice Literacy, "Are You Scaffolding or Rescuing?", got me thinking about the difference between planned scaffolds based on identified student need vs. "an overall pattern of teaching that included an impulsive need to sweep in and help at the slightest moment of difficulty". Thomson argues that rescuing takes away a student's agency as a learner and encourages the pattern of learned helplessness. On the other hand, scaffolding provides only enough support so that the learner can get to the answer themselves. A key question becomes: Who is doing the most work? If it's the teacher, most likely s/he's in a rescue situation. If there is an equal work load, or more on the student, then it is more likely it's a scaffolding situation. This article has really kept me on my toes as I conference with students, and made me watch my modeling, questioning, and level of "work" so I don't cross the line into rescuing.

"Too much support" also came up in Dorothy Barnhouse and Vicki Vinton's book, What Readers Really Do: Teaching the Process of Meaning Making (Heinemann, 2012), which I read recently. They advocate for a constructivist approach to learning, pushing the "Who is doing the work?" idea even further than Thompson. They suggest that teachers ask students to try something, notice and name what they are doing using immediate student work as models, and construct the teaching point from the student's work. Although both are former Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project Staff, they are turning the workshop model on its head. They contend that when the teacher does all the modeling first, students are passively learning the strategies instead of constructing the strategies based on their own application, trial and error, and/or struggle. Suddenly, teacher modeling during the minilesson has become "too much support." 

Barnhouse and Vinton also warn against pushing our own ideas onto kids' reading interpretation. They have noticed many teachers (I am guilty of this too) who hear students veering off in a different direction in their reading comprehension than the teacher's understanding, or ignoring "vital" pieces of text that "should" be attended to, and those teachers jump in, asking a million leading questions so that the students "get back on track"--in other words, the students are led to the teacher's interpretation. The authors suggest that this teaches students that reading has one right answer, and the teacher holds the key. If they know the teacher will lead them to it, why should they do any interpretation work themselves? They can just wait it out, until the teacher rescues them. Instead, Barnhouse and Vinton recommend going with the students' interpretation, scaffolding only enough to ensure they can support that interpretation with textual evidence and inferred thinking, and if they can't, then scaffolding their work to revise their interpretation to something that can be supported. They call this the difference between scaffolding and prompting. Prompting is a series of questions that lead students to the teacher's understanding of the text, whereas scaffolding leads students to notice and name strategies, and use those strategies to deepen their own understanding of the text.

With all this scaffolding vs. rescuing vs. prompting swirling around in my head, Stevi Quate returned to our school last week. Since she is the one who got me going on this line of inquiry in the first place, I asked her to help me understand its implications for my teaching. She did this through a focused observation of my (last period of the day on the last day of the week!) lesson. She transcribed my minilesson, and then interviewed the kids about what I do as a teacher that supports them as a learner. She shared that with me later and we talked about it. Here are some take-aways from that conversation:

• I still have questions about this idea of how much support is the right amount. Stevi even threw in the idea that kids need an appropriate amount of struggle-- another angle that bears investigation.
• Some concepts really don't need scaffolding, or maybe just a touch. In my minilesson, I threw in a quick strategy and had students practice it for a minute because I knew from their notebooks that they were ready (and very close). When I told them the strategy, their faces said, "Yeah, of course", and when they turned and talked, they could apply it easily. Without the quick minilesson, however, they wouldn't have done it. I didn't need to model it, or say my thinking aloud as I did the work, or even write the strategy on the anchor chart because it was so easily within their grasp.
• Some concepts are so new that without the scaffolding and modeling and thinking aloud, students would flail around in a confused manner. Perhaps some would get there eventually, but who has time for that? In my minilesson, I knew my second strategy would be one of those more complex and new strategies, so I took more time with it. I walked them through my process, I modeled, I included active engagement, I got some formative feedback. 
• The feedback from the kids is that almost all of them feel like the models and examples and conferences and charts are very helpful to lifting their level. They feel supported and comfortable in the work they are doing when trying new things in their reading and writing. Except for the one student who really wants more direction (rescuing? prompting? specific directions like, "Put two pieces of evidence in each 5-sentence paragraph"?), the overwhelming majority think the level of support is good.

Over the course of the semester, I am going to watch my "prompting" so that I don't lead my readers to my own interpretations. I am going to watch who is doing the work in my conferences, and back off if it seems like I am doing most of it. I am going to read up on the idea of struggle as a necessary learning force (but when is there too much struggle? Can't it go the other way?). The bottom line is for all students to grow and learn, and it's my job to help them do that.

Ancient Civilizations of the Americas: a Historical Inquiry Project

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my learning about the shifts needed for disciplinary literacy vs. content literacy in Social Studies. Since I am a firm believer in adapt and adopt, I decided to use the historian's process in our first content unit on Native Americans. I had found a lot of great (free!) units on the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) website during the Improving Historical Reading and Writing MOOC this summer, so I turned to the experts to see what was available and how they organize an inquiry-based "Document-Based Question" (DBQ-- I see I am talking in alphabet soup today).

Most of the SHEG DBQ units focused on the interaction between Native American groups and European invaders. Although this is important historically, I wanted to start earlier, and study the ancient civilizations of the Americas as they were before European contact. I did some searching and found a "Mini-Q" (shorter DBQ) unit on the Maya from The DBQ Project: "The Maya: What Was Their Most Remarkable Achievement?" The Maya were one of the six civilizations I wanted students to study (the others are Inca, Aztec, and groups from the Mississippian, Eastern Woodlands, and Southwest cultural regions), and this Mini-Q was set up in the inquiry-based structure I was after. I decided to use the Maya unit as my teacher model, and write my own Mini-Qs for the other civilizations. 

However, "Most Remarkable Achievement" wasn't where I wanted to focus. I wanted students to study the groups as legitimate ancient civilizations, as established and successful as Mesopotamia, ancient China, or Greece, validating their contribution to world history. Instead of achievements, I chose this question as our Mini-Q focus: Which elements were most essential for the ______ (ancient civ.) to thrive?

I divided the class into six groups of 3-4 students each: Inca, Aztec, Cherokee (Mississippian), Iroquois (Eastern Woodland), Pueblo (Southwest), and Huron (also Eastern Woodland, but important to distinguish from Iroquois for future history lessons). Each group got a packet set up in the same inquiry-based Mini-Q structure, but with information and artifacts related to their ancient civilization:

1. Cover: Question, Graphic Organizer naming 8 elements of civilization (Government & Law, Religion, Writing & Numbers, Trade & Economy, Architecture & Engineering, Art, Technology & Inventions, and Human-Environment Interaction), a quick overview, and a list of the 4 documents they will be studying.
2. Hook Exercise: What does it mean to thrive? Students were given a series of familiar scenarios which they rated from 1 (not at all thriving) to 5 (extremely thriving). They then picked one scenario and justified their reasoning for why it showed the most thriving. This exercise helped students distinguish between "surviving" and "thriving" so that their investigation would stay focused on those factors.
3. Background essay: Students had little to no background knowledge about their civilization, so before going any further, they had a short essay to read highlighting distinguishing characteristics. The essay also included a map to locate them in the Americas, and a photo showing one of the characteristics. Students answered some basic comprehension questions that held them accountable for the information.
4. Understanding the Question and "Pre-Bucketing": Students identified terms in the question that needed definition, and then re-wrote the question in their own words. This helped them process what the question was asking, giving them a better focus as they moved into the documents. Next, based on the list of documents and the information in the background essay, students predicted which three of the elements of civilization would emerge as most essential to thriving. This prediction gave them a "clothesline" to "hang" their new learning on, either confirming or re-adjusting their initial thinking.
5. The 4 documents: Each document included the name of the document (usually an artifact), a picture of the artifact, and a short write-up about the artifact and/or information related to it. Students went through the historical thinking process for each one: Check the source for reliability, access background knowledge related to the document, do close reading that names details (What do I see?) and considers their meaning (What does it mean?) and implications (Why does it matter?), and corroborate between documents (including the background essay). I then asked them to connect the document to two elements of civilization (I gave them the elements to look at-- it's early in the year, and there's a lot of new thinking happening on this page). 
6. Bucketing and Thesis: Once all four primary source documents had been analyzed, students made their final decision independently. They chose 3 elements most essential to thrive, and named the documents that provided evidence to support their decision. They then turned that into a "boxes and bullets" outline: the thesis is written in the box as the answer to the question, and the bullets are the elements with evidence (their reasons). I asked them to do this part independently because everything else had been done in a group, with a lot of support and scaffolding for struggling students. I wanted to see what they chose based on what they got out of working with the documents, not what their group members (especially the more vocal ones) thought.
7. Decision-making matrix: Group members shared their boxes and bullets, and then as a group
   rated the 8 elements of civilization for how influential they were for helping the ancient civ. to thrive. Members had to justify their thinking using evidence from the documents. This was a very high-level discussion, with students arguing their point, negotiating ratings, and compromising based on the strength of the evidence. By the end, they picked the three that the group ranked the highest, and justified them with evidence from the documents.
   
8. Reporting out: The group next made an 8-slide slideshow to report out their findings. Each student was responsible to explain one of the elements or the summarizing conclusion (groups of 4 = one "meaty" informational slide each), and one "thin" slide: The Question, the answer (thesis), bibliography of images, and group members. I did a mini-lesson with The Worst Slideshow in the World, to highlight tips for making good slides. Since students would be presenting the information orally, they did not need to put a lot of information on the slides themselves. The assessment rubric included multimedia, informational, mechanics, and oral presentation criteria. As students presented their slideshows, the audience took notes and asked questions at the end.
9. Synthesis question: When all student groups finished presenting, I asked them to answer the Mini-Q question as a generality based on their notes. I wanted to see if they could identify one- to three elements that repeated across several civilizations, and if they could explain why that element is so important for any civilization to thrive. By moving from specific (their own civilization) to a generality, students show they have built concepts.

I did a variation on this project in previous years. Students had to do their own research on two of the elements, take notes, and then share out to their group before doing the decision-making matrix (jigsaw). Yes, there is value in teaching research skills, and structuring the project with self-directed research did help hone those skills. However, I found that this year students' presentations were much more substantial and informational than in the past, where they were rather hit-or-miss. Having the whole group discussion focused on all four artifacts throughout the project, using the historical thinking and close reading skills during the process, and emphasizing again and again the need to show evidence, all contributed to more knowledgeable explanations. Although the students struggled through the document analysis, needing more modeling and reteaching than I'd anticipated, the struggle was worth it in the critical thinking work I saw happening with each group. I am pleased with the results, and looking forward to our next unit!