Rigor in a Powerful Literacy Block

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Rigor in a Powerful Literacy Block

• Summer Institute 2008
• By Andrea Frasier

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Session Objectives

• Participants will
• Deepen their understanding of Rigor.
• Experience what it feels like to read respond
  to a complex piece of literature.
• Discover ways to incorporate rigor into the
  literacy block Crafting, composing, reflection
  in reading and writing.

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Rigor is
the goal of helping students develop the
capacity to understand content that is complex,
ambiguous, provocative, and personally or
emotionally challenging.
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Rigor is not

• A special program or curriculum for select
  students
• About severity or hardship
• A measure of the quantity of content to be covered

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3 Characteristics of Rigor

• Rigor is a curriculum goal
• It requires that students regularly work with
  difficult texts and ideas
• Content can become rigorous in many ways

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Content Becomes Rigorous When it isC.A.P.E

• Complex-composed of interacting and overlapping
  ideas
• Ambiguous-packed with multiple meanings
• Provocative-dealing with dilemmas
• Emotionally/personally challenging -challenge us
  and our sense of the way the world works

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Rigorous Reading and Content

• Demand attention
• Help us to handle uncertainty
• Increases flexibility in thinking
• Develops perseverance, intellectual modesty, and
  tolerance
• Creates self-confidence

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The Life of the Mind

• When we work hard to understand any concept or
  idea- we are building intellectual muscle
• Gratification comes from struggling with an idea
  until we understand it
• When we truly understand a concept, we are able
  to remember it, revise it, and reapply it
• When we reuse it in a new context, we create new
  knowledge

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• Curiosity becomes insatiable, seeking to
  understand becomes intoxicating, and we find the
  life of the mind deeply pleasurable. We want
  more. The cycle repeats
• -Ellin Keene

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Intellectual Engagement

• Think of the most memorable educational
  experience when you
• Received gratification from an internal source,
  not an external reward?
• Came to understand a complex issue desired to
  know more?
• Felt intellectually capable -capable of deep
  understanding?

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Students are speaking. Are we listening?

• 47 said classes were boring
• 69 said they were not motivated or inspired to
  work
• 2/3 said they would have worked harder if more
  was demanded
• 70 were confident they could have graduated if
  they had tried.
• 3000 STUDENTS DROP OUT OF SCHOOL EVERY DAY!

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Quote from a student
For people who dont understand as muchthey
should be in higher level classes to understand
more because if they already dont know much,
you dont want to teach them to not know much
over and over
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1964
TIME
1984
CONTENT
2004
Knowledge EXPLOSION
Adapted from Billie Donegan
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When we say were working to raise student
achievement or narrow the achievement gap, does
that mean we are trying to raise test scores, or
does it mean were working to ensure that
students really learn -retain and reapply-
important concepts? - Ellin Keene
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Discussion A Key to Implementing Rigor

• Among teachers
• Among students
• Between teacher students

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Engaging in Discourse

• When engaged in rigorous discourse about ideas,
  we find we have more to say then we thought!
• Consider perspectives of others challenge them
• Deepen clarify our own thinking and that of
  others

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What Does it Feel Like?

• To know rigor is to experience it, get the
  sensation.
• Lets Give it a Try!
• Adult Learning Experience Man at the Well

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When we engage in dialogue about ideas, we are
creating new knowledge. The volley between two
minds with mutual interest isnt limited to
sharing the known when people engage in
discourse, they are inventing new meaning, new
interpretations that add a layer to earlier
ideas. - Ellin Keene
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What do you teach?The craft of good readers and
writers
Balanced Literacy Six Cueing Systems

• Surface Structure Systems
• Lexical- Recognition of known words
• Grapho-phonic- Use of letter/sound relationships.
• Syntactic- Structure of language and grammar.

• Deep Structure Systems
• Semantic- Meaning of words, phrases, sentences.
• Schematic- Prior knowledge and related
  comprehension strategies
• Pragmatic- Interacting with the text text has
  meaning for student.

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Literacy Block Based on the Cornerstone Framework
an uninterrupted block of time during
which children participate in 1. Crafting 2.
Composing Meaning -Invitational Groups
-Conferences - Book Clubs/Literature
Discussions 3. Reflecting
Reflection 10 minutes
Crafting 5-20 minutes
Students Composing Meaning 30-45 minutes
Teacher Invitational Groups or Conferences
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Crafting

• Use direct instruction to teach children how to
  think about what they are thinking
• Model, model, model show the children what we
  want them to learn rather than tell them
• Use quality childrens literature

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Crafting

• Re-read and re-read the same texts many times
  delve deeply into each text
• Teach with quality rather than quantity
• Plan and teach a balanced literacy curriculum

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Composing Meaning

• A process in which readers and writers work
  independently to apply what has been taught in
  the Crafting session.
• Teachers confer with individuals and occasionally
  conduct Invitational Groups.
• Students occasionally work in pairs, trios, meet
  in book clubs and/or share their work in progress
  with peers during Composing sessions.

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Reflecting

• A time in which a few children share successful
  attempts at a recently taught strategy.
• Teachers model ways in which readers share and
  extend insights gained during composing.
• During this time, students assume responsibility
  for teaching their peers about the Learning
  Outcomes they have recently applied.

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What Does it Look Like?

• Video Clip- Determining Importance in Reading
  Workshop
• Focus Page for Lesson Observation

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Reflect/Debrief
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What Now?

• How is this like/unlike what you are currently
  doing?
• What are our next steps?
• What support will you need to implement a
  rigorous Literacy Block?