Danforth School Inclusive Humanities Initiative 09/28/07

1. Danforth School Inclusive Humanities Initiative09/28/07 Kathleen Hinchman Kelly Chandler-Olcott Syracuse University Danforth Humanities Team

2. Research-based definition of literacy Literacy is the communicative competence (e.g., reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, representing ideas across media, etc.) associated with success in various communities both in and out of school.

3. Students will: • Choose to read and write in and out of school • Construct and comprehend a wide range of multimodal texts • Use literacy for various purposes including information and understanding, literary response and expression, critical analysis and evaluation, and social interaction • Develop academic literacy skills to achieve on tests and in contexts beyond school • Be confident and motivated enough to graduate from high school

4. What might be getting in the way? • Unpredictable school routines • Unresponsive activities-based teaching • Narrowly focused purchased programs or overemphasis on test preparation • School reading at instructional or frustration levels, with too little scaffolding for student independence; limited scope in out of school reading • Students lack strategies for reading and writing extended text with fluency and sophistication

5. School wide literacy team with full staff support Calendar of events Elimination of disruptions Teaching of expected behaviors in class and hallways Collaborative professional development for teachers Collaborative professional development for administrators Community literacy projects Needed school climate

6. Purpose of Our Project • Collaborative formative experiment • Team of SU staff & school-based volunteers • Team-taught “inclusive” humanities class, including guided reading, workshops, & genre study • Assessment-based differentiated reading & writing instruction, with gradual release of responsibility • Qualitative data collection to identify & respond to development needs, & track changing perspectives • Goals include increasing NYS ELA & social studies performance, as well as more qualitative indicators of competence (e.g., oral rdg, spell, wrtng, retelling)

7. Organizing Danforth/SU Collaboration Non-negotiables: • Inclusion of ELL & special needs students • Collaboration of 2 humanities teachers • Acceleration through strategy instruction & reading of increasingly complex text • Focus on social studies themes, tied to students’ interests & community resources • Interruption of whole class instruction • School-wide language for & emphasis on literacy

8. Costs • Instructional staff for daily 110-minute block • Teacher & administrative planning time • Leveled authentic humanities texts • Kathy, Kelly, and other staff for building & classroom planning, study groups, observations, student diagnosis, research start up

9. Targeted intervention for differentiated acceleration

10. Heterogeneous & homogeneous groups, including ELL & all special needs Integration of ELA & social studies content Reading, special ed, ELL, ELA & history teachers together Daily extended reading & strategy instruction Multiple levels & genre Daily writing & strategies multiple modes Limited whole class Limited but critical test prep Daily 110 minutes humanities

11. Structure for humanities block

12. Yearlong Humanities Essential Question: What multiple perspectives inform American history, and why does it matter to me?

13. Formal Previous NYS ELA Acuity School psychologist Informal Oral reading samples Writing samples tied to EQ Bear et al spelling inventory Ongoing diagnostic data-gathering & analysis

14. Teachers will. . . • Participate in study groups to learn more about research-based approaches to literacy instruction pertinent to their particular context • Examine student data to plan for acceleration • Experiment with and evaluate new instructional approaches with support from peer coaching • Send representatives to school-wide literacy teams and advisory board

15. Early Points of Negotiation • Roles, within & between schools • Scheduling, within & between schools • Managing productive group work • Required contact for students with special needs • Time on assessment • Identifying needs of all students • Which initiative to take first? Which student needs?

16. Humanities homework • 20 minutes instructional level reading or writing daily, with reward systems • Requirement of four nights per week, with one night to read aloud to someone else • Contract grade for amount of reading, not quality of text or interpretation

17. Literacy across the curriculum • Multi-leveled texts available to students and used in instruction • Students read and write daily in each class • Teachers model reading and writing subject-specific texts • Peer problem-solving talk occurs daily

18. Predict from headings Graphic organizers Think alouds re importance Partner reading Word walls Tickets out the door Chunking text Writing genre mini lessons Vocabulary usage mini lessons Determine meaning from context Literacy across the curriculum menu

19. School-wide literacy teams will. . . • Develop a building plan for building a more literate culture that attends to adolescent development and motivation • Develop a building plan for study groups and peer coaching • Develop an evolving list of classroom “look-fors” • Monitor student progress, with a particular focus on acceleration

20. Families will. . . • Develop strategies to support their children’s literacy development and school achievement • Help develop initiatives that develop family involvement in literacy in school • Be involved centrally in building-level decision making • Participate in the advisory board

21. Community leaders will. . . • Ensure that students are healthy, safe, and prepared to learn • Provide volunteers and tutors to support school-based literacy initiatives • Serve as authentic audiences for student work • Create a community presence in the schools • Support families’ participation in the schools