Setting a Purpose and Backwards Design: Structuring a Content Area Reading/Thinking Lesson

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Setting a Purpose and Backwards Design
Structuring a Content Area Reading/Thinking Lesson

• EDC448
• Dr. Julie Coiro

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Agenda

• Diverse Text Set Questions?
• Activity Setting Your Purpose
• Activity Designing Your Goals
• Review Lesson Plan Assignment
• Looking ahead on syllabus and previewing homework
  

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Diverse Text Set

• 10 Texts around a theme/topic select to make
  more accessible and maintain rigor
• Examples are on the wikispace
• Questions?
• Optional reading Laura Robbs Text Sets article

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Past Topics for Discussion

• What do good readers do? (MMDAAVISS)
• How do good readers make sense of challenging
  texts? (wondering, inquiry)
• Do texts in each discipline require specific
  strategies?
• How skilled are adolescent readers?
• How can I make my thinking visible?
• How do issues of text complexity and instruction
  influence rigor accessibility?

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Todays Learning Objectives

• Understand the importance of setting a clear and
  relevant purpose for reading learning
• Understand how to plan a lesson using Backwards
  Design principles
• Connect the main components of a good content
  literacy lesson (before, during, and after) to
  your lesson plan assignment
• Craft a learning objective about reading in your
  content area that is clear, precise, and
  measurable

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Why Am I Reading This?Tovani, Chapter 5

• Defining Purposes for Reading What is essential
  for students to know?
• What two places may cause difficulty?
• What will you model to help students negotiate
  the difficult parts?
• What do they need to DO with the information once
  they finish reading?
• How will you hold their thinking while they read?

ACTIVITY 1
Text complexity
Think-Aloud
ACTIVITY 2
Annotations, Reading Guides, Graphic Organizers,
Two Column-Journals
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Activity 1

• Purpose is Everything
• Circle what you think is important.
• Underline places in the text a robber would find
  important.
• Squiggly line under places that a prospective
  home buyer might think are important.
• Which time was the hardest? Why?

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Working Backwardsto design a good lesson
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Designing An Educational Trip to France

• OBJECTIVE (poorly written) Students will learn
  more about culture, geography, history, and
  language by visiting Paris for 2 weeks.
• Groups 1 List the educational activities you
  will plan for students.
• Groups 2 List what you hope students will
  understand when they return from their trip.

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Learning Objectives for Paris Trip

• Educational Activities
• Check out famous sites (Eiffel Tower, Arc du
  Triumphe)
• Take a tour of Versailles palace with
  questionnaire to compile learning of relevant
  content
• Go to Louvre questionnaire discover artists
  and paintings
• Nightlife Go see traditional/authentic play and
  learn culture and go to dinner (authentic
  cuisine)
• Practice speaking the language guided by speaking
  packet
• What will students understand?
• Experience real world use (colloquialism, slang
  words)
• Identify geographical features of certain
  historical events and identify where these events
  took place on a map
• Understand role of religion in culture
• Hands-on interaction with historical sites
  connect to prior knowledge and real-life
  experiences
• Identify food, art, and interactions with locals
  to examine reflect on French peoples social
  networks and daily lives

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Why Backwards Design? (Wiggins McTighe, 2005)

• Twin-sins of traditional lesson design
• Hands-on without being minds-on engaging
  experiences that lead only accidentally, if at
  all, to insight achievement
• Coverage marching through the text and/or
  curriculum to cover as many facts as possible

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Understanding by Design

• To understand
• To wisely and effectively USE (transfer) what we
  know in a certain context
• To APPLY knowledge skill effectively
• What are your desired results?
• Start your lesson design with these resultsnot
  with your instructional methods and activities
• Communicate your desired results with clear
  purposes and explicit performance goals

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Understanding by Design

• 1. Identify desired results
• What should students know, understand, and be
  able to do? How does this connect with your
  standards?
• 2. Determine acceptable evidence
• How will you know if students have achieved the
  desired results? What will you accept as
  evidence of proficiency?
• 3. Plan learning experiences and instruction
• What are the most appropriate instructional
  activities that students will need to equip them
  with the needed knowledge and skills?

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Understanding the Main Components of Your Lesson
Plan Assignment(Start to think about a topic,
text, and a lesson objective)
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Elements of Your Content Literacy Lesson Plan
Assignment

• Context of the Lesson
• Objectives and Standards
• Opportunities to Learn
• Instructional Procedures (pre, during, and
  closure) - Explicit modeling is critical
• Assessment
• Reflection

Connect these pieces Buehls three parts (1)
Frontloading learning, (2) guiding comprehension,
and (3) consolidating learning
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Promote Strategy Use and Independence by
Gradually Releasing Responsibility
Model, think-aloud, and SCAFFOLD your strategy
support note Beuhls three phases of instruction
in Ch. 2
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Key Reading Strategies(MM DAVIS)
SYNTHESIZE
MAKE CONNECTIONS
DETERMINE IMPORTANT IDEAS
SUMMARIZE
MONITOR AND CLARIFY
INFER PREDICT
ASK QUESTIONS
VISUALIZE
ANALYZE
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Lesson Plan Pieces to Hand In (Refer to this
slide!)

• Typed plan in lesson plan template (download from
  the wikispace)
• Hard copy of your 2 texts with relevant
  think-aloud notes on text or stickies (mark up
  your text explicit commentary of your thoughts
  about the strategy you are modeling)
• Graphic organizer with title directions
• Assessment task with finished example
• Your completed points sheet with questions
• Your final reflection (after taught)

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Introducing/Contextualizing your lesson

• How do you hook your students?
• Images, discrepant events, interactive websites,
  videos, picture books, current events,
  anticipation guides
• Contextualize your lesson in this and RETURN to
  it at the end of your lesson to tie it all up and
  connect to their world!

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Linking Lessons to the Standards

• Be explicit - Kids have a right to know!

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Writing Learning Objectives for your Lesson
Plans
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Three Criteria for a Learning Objective

• Clear
• Usually just one sentence
• Precise
• Precise verbs that reflect the thinking your
  students will be doing
• Set a context (Given After Before)
• Measurable
• How will you measure the quality (age or
  criteria met)
• Start with the top level and work backwards
  through average and below average

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Writing Learning Objectives

• Given _____, students will _____ (verb and
  specifics) with (measurable) ____ accuracy or
  to a certain level
• Content What will students learn?
• Reading Process How will students
  think/interact/engage with this content material?
  
• (see Common Core Standards in your discipline
  and narrative or informational text)

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Link reading/thinking strategy objectives to your
content

• The student will
• Set a purpose for reading
• Predict and confirm
• Summarize the key words
• Monitor their understanding of
• Ask questions/reflect
• Show the relationship between concepts
• Make inferences and support with evidence
• Draw conclusions
• Make connections between
• Visualize

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Some examples - English

• CONTENT Given a set of quotes, students will
  write a dialogue poem with high-level descriptive
  verbs to relate to the main character in Speak.
• READING/THINKING Given a graphic organizer,
  students will make inferences and connections
  from their quote set to examine the advantages
  and disadvantages of being an outcast in society.
  

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Example - History

• CONTENT Students will summarize the main points
  to two sides of the argument about whether or not
  Japanese American internment camps were
  necessary.
• READING/THINKING Students will write an essay
  that compares and contrasts the prisoners views
  and the governments views of the internment
  camps.

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Example - Science

• CONTENT Given a graphic organizer, students will
  identify three differences between human and
  marine animal sound reception and three
  structures used by marine animals for sound
  reception with 80 accuracy.
• READING/THINKING Given graphic organizers and a
  guided note outline, students will organize main
  concepts on sound reception in Ch. 6, while
  identifying supporting ideas and identifying
  relationships between different anatomical sound
  receptors in marine animals with 80 accuracy.

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Example - Math

• CONTENT Students will solve for a single
  variable involving two-step equations to 85
  accuracy.
• READING/THINKING PROCESS Students will recognize
  key phrases that correspond to an equation and
  formulate the correct equation from a given word
  problem involving a two-step equation to 85
  accuracy.

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Example Foreign Language

• CONTENT Students will work collaboratively to
  create a French menu that shows their
  understanding of the French culture, new
  vocabulary, and creativity.
• READING/THINKING Given a sample restaurant
  dialogue in a French restaurant, students will
  interpret the meaning of key vocabulary in
  context and categorize the term as either food,
  verbs you would use in a restaurant, or items you
  would find in a restaurant.

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Questions about Lesson Plan?
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Todays Learning Objectives

• Review the lesson planning resources in your
  Strategy Guides text
• Connect the main components of a good content
  literacy lesson to your lesson plan assignment
• Begin planning your lesson using Backwards Design
  principles
• Craft a learning objective about reading in your
  content area that is clear, precise, and
  measurable