Text Set training for HS ELA
Amy Rudat
David Abel
Part 1: Why Build Knowledge
and Vocabulary ?
Reminder…
• Extensive research supports the necessity for
reading on grade level in early elementary grades,
with the consequences being directly related to HS
graduation rates
• The achievement gap grows the longer students are
in school
• The gap is not caused by lack of critical thinking,
failure to use comprehension strategies, failure to
master “standards”
• Knowledge and vocabulary are directly
related to reading
Five Essential Studies
• Hernandez 2011, “Double Jeopardy”
• Lesnick et al 2010, “Reading on Grade Level in
Third Grade: How Is it Related to High School
Performance and College Enrollment?”
• Fletcher and Lyon 1998, 74% of 3rd graders who
read poorly will still be struggling in 9th grade.
• Snow et al 1998, “A person who is not at least a
modestly skilled reader by the end of third grade
is quite unlikely to graduate from high school.”
• Juel 1988, 1st grade reading scores are a “reliable
predictor of later reading scores.”
The Baseball Study
Recht & Leslie (1988)
• Compared reading comprehension for four
categories of students:
High reading ability
High knowledge of
baseball
High reading ability
Low knowledge of
baseball
Low reading ability
High knowledge of
baseball
Low reading ability
Low knowledge of
baseball
Measure of Comprehension
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
high reading
ability & high
knowledge
low reading
ability & high
knowledge
high reading
ability & low
knowledge
low reading
ability & low
knowledge
Findings
• Knowledge of the topic had a MUCH
bigger impact on comprehension than
generalized reading ability did (pg. 18)
• With sufficient prior knowledge “low
ability” students performed similarly to
higher ability students. (pg. 19) The
difference in their performance was not
statistically significant.
The Causes
What they are NOT
• Lack of critical thinking
• Failure to know or use
comprehension
strategies
• Failure to master the
standards
What they ARE
• Vocabulary: Failure to
grow sufficient
vocabulary
• Knowledge: Failure to
develop wide
background knowledge
• Fluency: Failure to
become a fluent reader
WHAT THIS MEANS:
Students now have an extremely small window to graduate
high school with the knowledge, vocabulary, and skills
necessary to navigate successfully in college and/or career.
PAGE 8
Imagine what it’s like to be a student with a
vocabulary and knowledge deficit on test day…
What To Do About Vocabulary
and Knowledge
“Building knowledge
systematically in
English language arts is
like giving children
various pieces of a
puzzle in each grade
that, over time, will form
one big picture…”
2014 and 1/2015 ELA CC Regents Exam
Topics & Tasks
Carl Sagan,
Broca’s Brain
Wang Anyi, The
Song of
Everlasting
Sorrow
Stephen Hawking
& Leonard
Mlodinow, “The
(Elusive) Theory of
Everything”
Consumer
privacy
The economics
of hosting the
Olympic
Games
Ethics of Deextinction
Anna Howard
Shaw, Women’s
Suffrage, 1915
Red Jacket, Chief
of the Seneca
Nation, Speech to
US War Dept,
1801
Henry D. Thoreau
, Walden, 1910
The HS ELA
standards are built off
a foundation in the
preceding grades
This foundation includes:
reading of grade-level
complex
literary and informational
texts independently and
proficiently.
What To Do About Vocabulary and
Knowledge
• In the HS grades, addressing vocabulary and
knowledge gaps is akin to emergency
triage—but it is still necessary!


Building habits of mind, exposing
students to a volume of non-fiction texts,
making interdisciplinary connections
Enhancing understanding of Literary
texts, including contemporary relevance
Connection between Volume of Reading,
Knowledge, and Vocabulary
• Research by Landauer and Dumais into
vocabulary acquisition shows that
students acquire vocabulary up to
four times faster when they read a
series of related texts.
• Reading a number of texts within a
topic grows knowledge and vocabulary
far faster than any other approach
How Does Volume of Reading
Complement Close Reading?
Part 2: Text Sets and
Expert Packs
Volume of Reading and Texts Sets
Text sets focus on
• volume of reading;
• gaining knowledge about a topic
through reading a range of
complexities;
• light teacher support;
• student-driven/ independence
• Clear and repetitive practice for
accountability from pre-existing choice
What is a Text Set?
• A text set is a set of “texts” around
a similar topic, theme, or idea.
• Strong text sets share common
vocabulary, which helps bolster
students’ vocabulary knowledge
through repeated readings.
• Strong text sets also provide
students with repeated readings
about similar ideas, which allow
them to build knowledge.
Strong Whole-Class Text Set, Grade 7
• Anchor: A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
(Literary, non-leveled or adapted version)
• “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry (Literary, Appendix
B Exemplar)
• “The Treasure of Lemon Brown,” Walter Dean Myers
(Literary)
• Reader’s Theatre version of A Christmas Carol
(SCOPE Magazine, Scholastic) (Literary)
• “Charles Dickens: Six Things He Gave the Modern
World,” Alex Hudson (BBC News) (Informational)
• Live drama/film of A Christmas Carol EXCERPT
• Original Manuscript of A Christmas Carol with
Dickens’ revisions (New York Times)
Text Set as Mini-Assessment
Grade 9
The Manhattan Project Texts
Based on a series of texts about the
Manhattan Project and President Truman’s
communication to Joseph Stalin regarding the
United States’ development of an atomic bomb.
Questions may address several standards within the same question;
complex texts tend to yield rich assessment questions that call for
deep analysis.
In this mini-assessment there are eleven selected-response or
Additionally, there is an optional writing prompt, which is aligned to
both the Reading Standards for Informational Texts and the Writing
Standards.
Systems that Must be in Place
• Cross Content
Communication
• Shared
understanding of
knowledge and
vocabulary
process and
deficits
• Cross Service
Communication:
ELL, AIS, SWD,
ELA
ELL
AIS
Content
SWD
ELA
An Expert Pack Text Set
• Collection of resources organized for students to build
knowledge about a specific topic; ideally related to a
topic in general education classroom
• Glossary of terms to help students access challenging
vocabulary
• Suggested activities to help students capture and
express their learning
• As independent as possible: in this process the bulk of
the teacher work is pre-loaded.
Expert Pack Resources
• Text broadly defined: text, graphic novel/text, free
articles (readworks), art, infographic, interactive
graphics and text, interviews, audio, etc.
• Text sequenced generally beginning with lower
reading levels (quantitative and qualitative) and
moving to more complex levels.
• Support students’ ability to read the next selection
(mostly) independently or in pairs.
• Students develop expertise on the topic.
• Topics ideally connected in some way to a content
area curriculum .
Expert Pack Development of Steps
• Text Selection (between 8 and 10 texts)
• Vocabulary Selection (teacher identifies anticipated
vocabulary within each text)
• Suggested Activities: Learning worth remembering for
specific texts and developing conversation across text
includes:

Summary: table where students record text, their
central learning, and how this learning builds
on/adds to learning from previous text

Vocabulary “sensational six:” students select
vocabulary that they think is critical to
understanding text, locate definition, and use it in a
sentence specifically about the text
Expert Pack Development of Steps
• Student accountability – is this work worth doing?
• “light touch approach” for teachers and students.
Can this be done easily and mostly independently?
•
Picture of knowledge (students record something
they read that was interesting, taught you
something new, made you want to learn more, and
is still confusing)
•
Quizmaker – students develop questions for other
students for reading of text, that require the text to
develop the answer.
•
Wonderings: I am still confused about/ This made
me wonder
•
Using vocabulary in discussion of text
Of Mice and Men and text set
• What kind of text set?
Assessment? Expert Pack?
Extension?
• What topic could I concentrate on that would
support student understanding of the central text
and provide background that does not give students
answers to the central questions that we will be
exploring in the module, but provides a foundation
that may benefit students in knowledge and
vocabulary as they tackle the text?
• Dust bowl and migrant workers? To what extent?
You Try: OMAM Expert Pack-in-progress
• Read the sample OMAM expert pack
and think about the following:





What knowledge about the world and
words does this text provide?
How can this knowledge benefit
students as they read Of Mice and Men?
How can this knowledge benefit students
in other texts and topics they may
encounter in ELA or other subject area
classes?
Sequence of texts
Where texts work or don’t work for this
purpose
You Try: OMAM Expert Pack-in-progress
Keep in mind the function
of the expert pack is ideally
supporting struggling
students with the goal of
building knowledge and
vocabulary within a topic
Learn more!
The training materials for SAP’s text Set Project, as well as
the completed text sets are housed in an Edmodo group.
Follow these steps for access:
1. Make a teacher account at http://www.edmodo.com.
2. On the left side of home screen, it will say "Groups" under
your name and picture. Click on the "+" next to "Groups" and
choose "Join".
3. Type in the group code: sma265
4. Now, from your home screen, you should see "Text Set
Project" listed under "Groups". Click on this tab.
5. Choose "Folders" from the left side of your screen, and, here,
you will find all of the materials.