Rigor and Relevance in the Secondary Classroom

1. Rigor and Relevance in the Secondary Classroom Learning that Engages, Inspires, and Intrigues Karen Powell, Prattville High School-English 10 karen.powell@acboe.net

2. What does a rigorous secondary classroom look like? • Classroom- • Role of the Teacher- • Students- • Content- • Assessment- Think-Pair-Share: Think about what rigor means for each of these domains. Pair and share your ideas with a partner.

3. How Does ACT QualityCore define Rigor and Relevance in the Classroom?

4. What is Rigor? • “An approach to learning… that challenges the student to continuously meet and exceed both the school’s and his or her own academic expectations.” • “…the content, instruction, and assessment collectively support, deepen, and improve students’ learning.”

5. What are relevant assignments? • Assignments that emphasize real-world connections • Work that calls on students to make choices about what they will study and how they will demonstrate mastery • Assignments that call on students to make connections to their individual lives

6. Rigor and Relevance “Buzz” Words • Close Reading • High Quality Assignments • Making assertions • Supporting evidence • Student Choice • Construction of Knowledge • Creating tasks • Exploring new ideas • Scaffolding instruction • Layering instruction • Making connections

7. As educators, we should be teaching in what Lev Vygotsky termed the Zone of Proximal Development

8. The ZPD and the Teacher’s Role • Because the zone of proximal development refers to prospective learning, learning that students can potentially achieve with guidance, teachers must design learning experiences that encourage students to wrestle with challenging texts and engage in meaningful interaction with peers. • This mutual effort to achieve understanding enables them to construct knowledge they can use to generate additional understandings.

9. According to Carol Jago, language arts teacher and author of With Rigor for All, such rigorous engagement with difficult texts, “poses intellectual challenges” that invite students to “stretch and grow.”

10. Three Key Shifts in Implementing Common Core Standards:

11. Knowledge is built through content-rich nonfiction and informational text. • Speeches • Biographies-excerpts or full texts • Autobiographies-excerpts or full texts • Documents • Political cartoons • Articles • Essays

12. 2. All claims in writing, speaking, and reading activities should be grounded in evidence. Students should… • Back up claims! • Use quotes!

13. 3. Students should be challenged to grapple with complex texts. • English: literary terms, rhetorical devices used to analyze texts • Social Studies: rhetorical elements to analyze primary sources; identify main idea, purpose, audience, etc. • Science: controversial and argumentative texts • Math: statistical analysis of data; problem-solving

14. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge • Level 1- Recall: who, what, when, where, why, find, tell, state, draw Example: What characteristics, according to Crevecoeur, does the new, emerging American of the late eighteenth century possess? • Level 2- Skills/Concepts: organize, group, show, predict, compare, infer Examples: What is the tone of Hurston’s essay? What words and phrases convey the tone? What persona does Franklin create in the excerpt from his Autobiography?

15. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge • Level 3- Strategic thinking: construct, explain, investigate, edit or change, reason, generalize Example: To what extent is Franklin the quintessential American according to Crevecoeur’s observations of the eighteenth-century American? • Level 4- Extended learning: analyze and synthesize complex ideas in their writing, crafting writing assignments and design projects: create, connect Example: Create an accordion book analyzing Frederick Douglass’s stages of growth throughout his autobiography.

16. The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

17. Teach Close Reading of Texts • Teach students how to annotate. • Use graphic organizers to boost comprehension and teach complex concepts. • Move students beyond recall and recitation of facts; students should analyze, generalize, and support assertions with evidence. • Give students ownership of discussions. • Teach academic language for your content area.

18. Strategies to increase rigor: • Reflective Writing • Self and Peer Evaluation • Grading Rubrics • Multi-genre projects • Annotating texts • Jigsaw • Carousel Discussion • Socratic Circle • Collaborative Learning • Project-based Learning • Writing responses Empowerment Engagement

19. Example: Reading and Writing Response: Chapter 14 of Billy Budd Reread chapter 14, noting Melville’s commentary on the power of envy and the power of thought and perception in motivating a response from Claggart to the spilling of the soup. Note also Melville’s discussion of hate and conscience and why Claggart’s retaliation was a necessary and even unavoidable response for him. Write an interpretive response of Melville’s commentary on how intense passions can prompt action from the slightest provocations. Include in your response discussion on the power of envy and hate, and the role of conscience in Claggart’s life. Include quoted words and phrases to support your answer.

20. Analyzing Passages from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson Assignment: Read each passage carefully. Analyze the grammatical structures in these passages by identifying the modifying phrases, the subject and verb- the main clause, and any figures of speech that will help you decipher the meaning of these passages.

21. Excerpt from Nature • “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Almost I fear to think how glad I am. In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life is always a child.”

22. Assignment: Analyze the grammatical structures of the first sentence. Identify the participial phrase and identify the noun it modifies. How does Emerson use this dangling modifier to convey his philosophy of Transcendentalism? Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the current of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

23. Rigorous Assessment Teachers incorporate a variety of formative and summative assessments to drive instruction: • Tests • Student reflections • Informal assessments • Creative forms of assessment

24. JIGSAW

25. Essay vs. Objective Tests • Questions that prompt students to construct knowledge as opposed to repeating and restating knowledge. • Essay questions that challenge students to relate a text that has been studied to a new text.

26. Consider Alternative Assessments • Essay Question: Although the characters in Billy Budd are archetypes, characters that appear over and over in literature, movies, and plays, they display some character traits that real people possess. Choose a character in the novel with whom you most identify because you possess, to some degree, characteristics of this character. Write a well-developed paragraph explaining how you are like the character you chose. Be sure to cite specific details that convey an accurate understanding of this character. • What makes this question a rigorous assignment?

27. Compare and Contrast Question • Carefully read the excerpt from Obama’s “Second Inaugural Address,” writing annotations as you read. Compare and contrast Obama’s view of the role of government with Thoreau’s view. Explain the similarities and differences in their concept of man’s civic duty, the role of the individual in society, and the ultimate responsibility of government. Write a multi-paragraph essay organized around specific claims. Use textual evidence to support each claim. How is this question rigorous and relevant?

28. Involve Students by Inviting Response • Ask students for feedback on an activity. • Give them an opportunity to “rate” one activity or topic over another. • Ask them for suggestions to improve the activity.

29. Your Turn! Assignment: Read Sojourner Truth’s speech “And Ain’t I a Woman?” As you read, use your annotation guide to mark the text, writing thinking notes in the margins. Put a star beside each rebuttal she makes against the objections to women’s right to vote. Place a check mark beside rhetorical strategies used for effect. Advanced: Identify rhetorical appeals.

30. Skills-based Testing Take the multiple-choice test. Share your answers with a partner. Identify the level of each question.

31. Scaffolding Instruction • Background information about the Women’s Rights Movement • Rhetorical Appeals: Ethos, Logos, Pathos • Rhetorical Triangle • Literary Terms: Tone, Persona • Rhetorical Strategies: rhetorical question, repetition, rebuttal, loaded diction, appeals

32. Using Tableau as a Reading Strategy CCRS Standards: 6, 31, 33, and 34 QC Standards: • D. 2. b • D. 2. c • D. 2. g Strategic Learning Standards-driven Instruction

33. Caveman the Text Verbs Numbers Key Terms

34. Performance of Tableau

35. APPLAUSE!!!

36. “After” Strategy: Frayer Model

37. Alternative “After” Strategy 3-2-1 3-Things you learned 2-Two strategies you can implement 1-Question you still have