Transcript Text Dependent Questions

Text Dependent Questions
SOCIAL STUDIES AND SCIENCE
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP MS
DEC. 17, 2013
Agenda
 Check in on progress: Share your stories
 complex text, shifts, writing
 Text dependent questions
 Close reading
 Academic vocabulary
 PARCC items/example questions
 Goals moving forward
SELECTING A TEXT
Choose a text. The text should illuminate an
intriguing question of idea related to your
content area and curriculum. It should be
provocative or worthwhile.
Choose interesting primary and secondary
sources (aside from the textbook) that offer
realistic glimpses into the world and add
perspective to your content.
Big ideas
Determine what exactly it is that you
most want students to gain from the text.
In one to three sentences, write a note to
yourself about the most important ideas
from the document.
Literal to Higher Level
Begin with literal questions with answers
that can be found directly. Start small to
build confidence in finding answers to textbased questions. Move on towards more
inferential questions.
Key ideas-create a series of questions
structured to bring the reader to an
understanding of these.
Text Complexity- Qualitative Analysis
Find the sections of the text that will present the
greatest difficulty and craft questions that support
students in mastering these sections:
 Syntax- sentence structure
 Dense text
 Layout, text features
 Tricky transitions
 Multiple purposes
 Non-linear reading (charts, diagrams)
Qualitative Factors of Text Complexity
 Subtle and/or frequent transitions
 Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes
 Density of information
 Unfamiliar settings, topics or events
 Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences
 Complex sentences
 Uncommon vocabulary
 Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together
for the student
 Longer paragraphs
 Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures
 Use of passive voice
Genre Specific Focus
 Primary Source
Contextualize
 Source
 Informational Text (Secondary source)
 Main ideas
 Text structure/organization
 Key detail
 Argumentative Text
 Probe the claim
 Examine the evidence and reasoning

TEXT DIFFICULTY
Instead of asking yourself
“Will students be able to understand this
text?”
ask
“What can I do to help them practice the
skills of accessing difficult texts?”
Academic Vocabulary
 Locate the most powerful academic words in
the text and integrate questions and
discussions that explore their role in the
text.
 You can define words in margins for
students, but develop text-based questions
for powerful Tier II academic word
investigation.
3 Tiers of Vocabulary
– Highly specialized, subject-specific; low
occurrences in texts; lacking generalization
◦
E.g., lava, aorta, legislature, circumference
–Abstract, general academic (across
content areas); encountered in written language;
high utility across instructional areas
◦
E.g., vary, relative, innovation, accumulate, surface, layer
– Basic, concrete, encountered in
conversation/ oral vocabulary; words most student
will know at a particular grade level
CCSS Shift: Greater Emphasis on Teaching
Academic Vocabulary
The Common Core suggests that it’s important
to target specific instruction on Tier 2 and
Tier 3 vocabulary words to help students
develop deep understanding that often
cannot be acquired through independent
reading.
Tier III Words
Domain specific words” that are specifically tied to
content. (i.e. Constitution, lava) These are typically the
types of vocabulary words that are included in glossaries,
highlighted in textbooks and address by teachers. They
are considered difficult words important to understanding
content.
Tier 3 words, however, are often targeted in content
specific instruction. The words appear bolded in text and
they are featured in glossaries.
Tier II Words
Tier 2 words are particularly important and
challenging to identify and target since
they appear across all disciplines. The task
at hand, then, appears to be identifying
the Tier 2 words and finding effective
instructional strategies to dig deeper and
support acquisition of those words.
Why are “academic words” important?
 They are critical to understanding academic texts.
 They appear in all sorts of texts.
 They require deliberate effort to learn, unlike Tier 1
words.
 They are far more likely to appear in written texts
than in speech.
 They often represent subtle or precise ways to say
otherwise relatively simple things.
 They are seldom heavily scaffolded by authors or
teachers, unlike Tier 3 words.
Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, page 33
Criteria for selecting words to teach
 The word is central to understanding the text.
 The word choice and nuance are significant.
 Students are likely to see this word frequently.
 Students will be able to use this word when writing
in response to the text.
 It is a more mature or precise label for concepts
students already have under control.
 The word lends itself to teaching a web of words and
concepts around it.
Vocabulary Grabber
What is not included?
Also create questions that
deliberately get students to look at
the “white space.” Have them
examine not only the words/phrases
present but also what is missing and
why that might be so.
Questions that go beyond the text
Some guidelines advise not to ask questions that do not
have textual support (“How do you think the person might
have felt as they wrote this?” How can you relate the ideas
in this document to today?” “Have you been in this
situation?”)
Really??
We know these questions bring out personal responses to
text and are often higher level thinking. However, if
students haven’t investigated what the text says, will the
answers to these questions be as rich?
So it is a matter of when to ask these, not to avoid them.
Anticipate prompts to move students beyond
unsubstantiated answers
 And where in the text/what in the text leads you to
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
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that answer?
How do you know?
And how does that affect the author’s (point of view,
argument, problem, claim, etc.)?
Does any other part of the text seem to refute or
support this section/your answer? How? Where?
When the author says, “_________,” what is
he/she getting at?
Instructional Tips
 Explicitly teach students thinking skills- not just give
them a handout of text-dependent questions for seatwork
or homework
 Practice the art of think alouds. Model the process on
a small section. Show them the “how” and the “why” to
your thinking
 Fight the urge to give the correct answer. Direct
students back to the text to do the thinking. “That’s
an interesting thought. Let’s go back to paragraph 2 and
see if we can find evidence to back that up or refute it.”
 Elicit questions from students too.
Instructional Tips
 Plan for multiple re-readings: Student silent,
read out loud, ask questions, back to text silently,
etc.
 Number lines for critical areas of close reading to
make re-reading and citing textual evidence easier
 Scaffold: Help students productively struggle
through difficult sections, not replace actually
reading it. Some students will need more
scaffolding, but we should be continually assessing
and adjusting
Video Examples
 Close Reading Social Studies: The Olympians 6th
grade
 Current Events in Science: Speaking, Listening, Text
Dependent questions
Websites for Help in Developing
Text Dependent Questions
 CoreTaskProject- Nevada
 Science and Literacy- Boston Public Schools
 PARCC Released items
Alignment of the Disciplinary CCSS and NGSS
Link to Appendix M
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind- Science Text
Harness the Power of Reading
Excerpt from Prologue
TedTalk
Wired online article
Moving Windmills short film
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.9 Compare and contrast the information gained from
experiments, simulations, video, or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a
text on the same topic.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.7 Integrate information presented in different media or formats
(e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a
topic or issue.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.9 Compare and contrast one author’s presentation of events with
that of another (e.g., a memoir written by and a biography on the same person).