High School Literacy
Classroom Environment for High School
Objectives
● Know: states the knowledge we want students to build
● Understand: states what students should understand about the content
● Be Able To: states how students will demonstrate understanding of the knowledge
Classroom Setup for Explicit Instruction
● has today’s date posted and visible
● has the day’s Agenda for Literacy Instruction posted and visible
● has the KUB objective posted and visible (to be communicated to the students throughout
the lesson)
● has the Central Question posted and visible
● includes a designated area to post Academic Vocabulary
● includes a designated area to post Sentence Stems
● is organized and instructional resources are readily available for student use
● has a system for storing and easily accessing student resources
● includes student seating which supports collaboration
● has the physical space designed to facilitate student task transitions
Odell Instructional Materials
● is the only resource used for all texts in English I-IV
● uses ancillary materials from the Odell Literacy Toolbox
Word Wall
● includes both Tier 2 and Tier 3 words from the current unit (content based)
● is accessible to students and/or visible from various places in the classroom
● includes cognates and students L1 where applicable
● includes word, picture/symbol, definition, sentence taken from text, can be student
generated
● includes explicit instruction on Morphology Greek roots and word parts, as appropriate
Anchor Charts and Sentence Stems
● are content-based and aligned with current unit
● are visually accessible to students and contain a balance of visuals and words
● are co-created with teachers and students, as appropriate
● are grade-appropriate and student writing is included on anchor charts or post its
● use of sentence stems (including complex sentence stems) and other tools are posted to
support student use of academic language
Student Work
● should be related to the current unit is on display, including exemplar writing tasks