Text InSPECtion on the Core: Close Reading Strategies for Uncovering Informational Text

By Anthony J Fitzpatrick

Transform Your Students into Text InSPECtors! Every student can uncover and discover concepts, content, and context in thoughtful and engaging ways! Inspired by Sherlock Holmes and developed by Anthony Fitzpatrick; these classroom strategies will empower students to activate and enhance their close reading abilities. Features of the book include: •

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inedvation Programs
• Release date: Mar 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9780986437724

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor. One of my favorite quotes from Stephen Sondheim’s musical "Into the Woods". It’s a wonderfully succinct quote that encapsulates how I embrace challenge. As a young teacher, facing the challenge of engaging my students in meaningful social studies instruction; I saw opportunity beyond frustration; opportunity to try new things while confronting the fear of failure. In the educational world; we face a host of new challenges that include the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, PARCC assessment, Smarter and Balanced assessment, Race to the Top, and a host of other components that thrive under the banner of reform.

This is not a time to put up walls against these initiatives. It IS a time to thoroughly engage with them to derive opportunity and meaning. Regardless of where our individual or collective opinions reside on these matters; if there are good ideas, even in part, it is our opportunity to reflect on and refine our strategies and practices to capitalize on them. The shift in academic standards is an opportunity to engage students in more rigorous study; and is attainable without reverting to simple test-prep strategies.

The strategies in this book represent an opportunity for me to reflect and refine how I’ve shared practices from my classroom. Each chapter reflects a teaching strategy, activity or lesson planning structure. Most focus on an opportunity to engage and reengage with text in a manner that elicits students’ close reading abilities. They will be supported by opportunities for you to engage with the strategies. There will also be worksheets and graphic organizers present throughout the chapters.

I combine opportunity with another thought that guides my planning and teaching. I have never met a historian that became one because they loved to memorize facts from a lecture. I HAVE met wonderful historians that first found a love in uncovering and discovering the past. They thrive amidst the complications of cause and effect. Allow this resource to be an opportunity to visit my classroom. My hope is that there are things in this book that will affirm, enhance, or renew the great work going on in your classrooms.

Notes on Text Selection

Each text selected for this book has been aligned to the PARCC using their selection criteria. The following is a brief summary of their methodology. The Smarter and Balanced Assessment similarly uses the same Lexile bands, but also utilizes the Flesh-Kincaid grade level rating in its methodology. Both assessment consortia also use qualitative measures to determine complexity within a grade level to better describe proper student performance. In attempting to promote consistency and brevity, the PARCC criteria will be highlighted in this publication. For a text to be placed in a particular grade-level band for PARCC, it must find agreement in two out of the three measurements below. This publication will utilize the same methodology. Of note, the Source Rater tool has changed its name and the way it expresses its results. This publication will utilize the new format under the name ETS Text Evaluator. The PARCC publications do not reflect the change in name or measurement.

Quantitative Measures used for Text Selection

The indicator looks like this:

The PARCC Assessment also delineates within grade level by assigning an additional complexity band. Student expectations differ for texts at various levels.

The C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards:

While this book’s strategies are correlated to the Common Core State Standards, I would be remiss in not referencing the C3 Framework. The strategies in this book touch upon many if the dimensions and indicators in that document. Most notably Dimensions 2 and 3.

The full framework can be found at:

http://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/c3/C3-Framework-for-Social-Studies.pdf

1 TEXT INSPECTOR

I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection.

Sherlock Holmes -The Sign of Four

As interesting as we believe documents, content, artifact and social studies are, they often need to be presented to students in a way that assuages intimidation, elicits interest and sparks curiosity. That is no small feat in light of a world that is increasingly pre-occupied with itself and the present. It forces us to ask ourselves, How are we inviting students into the craft of history and social studies, and the exploration of informational text in other disciplines such as language arts? In many cases, we’ve fallen into the trap of mere content delivery. The false notion that is we say everything that needs to be said; we’ve covered it. We are better than that. Much better! In fact, our students are better than that too.

Picture it. You’re the Modern World History teacher charged with the task of teaching to the Present. Um. Gulp. But. There is no way to succeed if our aim is to cover everything. It’s so hard to give up that control, but you’ll need to. You have to recognize that there is value in empowering your students to successfully navigate content that you haven’t said, will never say . . . and hasn’t even happened yet!

The first strategy in this book is the initial step to doing just that. It was a go-to strategy. One that could expand and integrate with all of the other ones in this book. It is simply allowing your students to be InSPECtors. InSPECTors of the past, of documents, of artifacts of political cartoons, or literature. InSPECtors!

Social, Political, Economic and Cultural inSPECtors!

The strategy isn’t new or earth shattering. It was inspired by an organizational structure picked up as a first year A.P. European History teacher. At our summer institute we learned about G.P.E.R.S.I.A. [Geographic, Political, Economic, Religious, Social, Intellectual, Artistic]. I LOVED it but had a hard time seeing how it could be introduced into other courses. Then the solution presented itself. Opportunity knocked! SPEC! Four broad categories that could weave into regularly used words in order to remind students of the various lenses to view social studies and informational text. Once the strategy was unlocked for the students, they began to