PARCC LITERACY STRATEGIES
Teaching Students to Read and
Analyze Court Opinions
Start with why…
• Training for teachers on reading and
analyzing court opinions is scarce
• The perceived entry barriers are high
– Legal language
– Lack of context
– “Closed door” nature of proceedings
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Start With Why…
• Several standards directly reference “Court
Opinions”
– RSIT 9-10.4: Determine the meaning of words
and phrases as they are used in a text, including
figurative, connotative, and technical meanings;
analyze the cumulative impact of specific word
choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the
language of a court opinion differs from that of
a newspaper).
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Start With Why…
• Several standards directly reference “Court
Opinions”
– RSIT 11-12.8: Delineate and evaluate the
reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the
application of Constitutional principles and use
of legal reasoning (e.g., in U.S. Supreme Court
majority opinions and dissents) and the
premises, purposes, and arguments in works of
public advocacy (e.g., The Federalist, presidential
addresses).
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Start With Why…
• Several standards directly reference “Court
Opinions”
– RSIT 11-12.9: Draw evidence from literary or
informational texts to support analysis,
reflection, and research.
• Part B of the standard refers back to RSIT 11-12.8
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Start With Why…
• Several standards directly reference “Court
Opinions”
– AmGov 7: Constitutional government in the
United States has changed over time as a result
of amendments to the U.S. Constitution,
Supreme Court decisions, legislation, and
informal practices
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Start with why…
• These standards are merely a sample of
direct references.
• Many other standards apply to the practices
of reading a court opinion, but do not
overtly reference them.
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Start with why…
• Reading and writing tasks based on court
opinions make for great opportunities to
practice A LOT of standards
– This also makes them very appealing to test
writers!
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Start with why…
• By their nature, reading and interpreting a
court opinion requires students to:
– Cite evidence to support what a text says
explicitly or inferentially (RSIT 1)
– Determine the main idea or question posed
(RSIT 2)
– Analyze the relationships and interactions of
people, events, and ideas across a text (or
multiple texts). (RSIT 3)
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Start with why…
• By their nature, reading and interpreting a
court opinion requires students to:
– Determine the meaning of words and phrases as
used in a text (RSIT 4)
– Analyze the structure of a text (RSIT 5)
– Determine an author’s point of view (RSIT 6)
– Compare and contrast a text to a variety of
different media (RSIT 7)
• Easy if listening to oral arguments
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Start with why…
• By their nature, reading and interpreting a
court opinion requires students to:
– Consider the sufficiency of evidence to make a
claim (RSIT 8)
– Analyze how two or more authors write
different about a topic and interpret evidence
and ideas differently (RSIT 9)
– Reading complex texts (RSIT 10)
• Texts mainly fall in the “stretch” Lexile band
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Current Practice?
• How many teachers are currently
incorporating court opinions into their
classrooms?
– Which subjects?
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Samples from PARCC
• Pearson released a full length sample ELA
assessment this year for 10th grade.
– The PBA for non-fiction texts was based on
Tinker v. Des Moines a U.S. Supreme Court
Opinion involving students protesting the war in
Vietnam.
• Given the secretive nature of the
assessments, we do not know if a Court
opinion was on any of the exams given in NY
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What is the Supreme Court
Anyway?
• Although not essential to the PBA on the
exam, basic background knowledge helps
familiarize students with the content prior to
exposure on test day!
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The Role of the Supreme Court
• The Supreme Court of the United States is
an appellate court, meaning cases that they
decide have already been decided but are
now being appealed to the Court because
one or both parties was unhappy with the
result
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The Role of the Supreme Court
• There are very limited circumstances in
which the Supreme Court has original
jurisdiction (meaning they hear a case for
the first time)
– These circumstances are outlined in 28 U.S.C.
§1251
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The Role of the Supreme Court
• The Supreme Court is a “court of last
resort,” meaning their decisions are final.
There is no higher court you can appeal to.
– Except… if you are really unhappy with their
decision, you can lobby the legislature to change
the law. The court interprets law, but does not
make law.
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How does a case get to the
Court?
• Like all federal courts, the Supreme Court is
limited to hearing actual “cases and
controversies.”
– This means the Court cannot simply be asked
their opinion on an issue
– In order for a case to come before the Court,
there must be a plaintiff (or prosecutor) and
defendant.
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Case or controversy?
• To get around this requirement, many legal
advocacy groups employ the strategy of
“test cases,” in order to challenge the
Constitutionality of a law
– Test cases involve a legal group soliciting
potential plaintiffs, who are interviewed and
considered based on whether or not they would
be the best party to challenge an issue
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Case or controversy?
• Once the plaintiffs are chosen, they then
need to experience some perceived “harm”
which can be challenged in court.
– An example of this is the Perry v. Brown case,
which overturned California’s Proposition 8
(banning same-sex marriage).
• The attorneys interviewed potential plaintiffs, chose
4, had them go to their respective counties to apply
for marriage licenses (knowing they would be
denied) then sued the state for the denial.
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Discretionary Review
• The Supreme Court is not required to accept
a case for review (with some limited
exceptions).
– Of the more than 7,000 petitions for review the
Court receives each year, less than 1% are
accepted and heard by the Court.
– If the Court declines to hear a case, the lower
ruling stands, and the appellant has no further
recourse.
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Constitutional Issues
• Most (but not all) Supreme Court cases
involve some aspect of U.S. Constitutional
law.
– Sometimes the Court is asked to interpret a
statute similar to other statutes around the
country (especially when there’s a “circuit split.”
• Most of the cases likely to show up on
PARCC will be Constitutional cases, most
involving the Bill of Rights.
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Products of the Time
• Supreme Court cases, and to a certain
extent all court opinions, are products of the
time in which they are brought and decided.
• The Court has often used the phrase that
they are “reluctant to get ahead of the
nation” on certain issues
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Products of the Time
• For example…
– By the time Loving v. Virginia was decided, only
16 states still had anti-miscegenation laws.
– When Brown v. Board was decided, only 17 states
required public segregation, with 16 states
actively banning it and the remaining states
having no specific law either way.
– The Court hesitated to accept broad reaching
same-sex marriage cases until this year, at a
moment when 35 states have legalized same-sex
marriage.
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Products of the Time
• Other political factors sometimes play into
the Court’s decision
– In Brown v. Board, the United States was
experiencing political backlash from the
international community for continued
segregation after a UNESCO Declaration in 1950
called The Race Dilemma was signed. This came
at the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. was
especially wary of international public opinion.
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Breaking Down an Opinion
• Teaching students to read court opinions
breaks down into two main components
– Teaching them the format of a case (will vary
based on level of case)
– Teaching them the strategies for
identifying/analyzing components
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Format
• Court opinions are in a very specific format,
which students need to know about in order
to be able to read them
– The PARCC authors are unlikely to ask questions
about a lot of the format components, but for
students unfamiliar with the format they can trip
them up!
• Pearson is likely to excerpt and reformat the
case, so not all of these elements will be on
the PARCC exam
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Format
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Syllabus
• MOST Supreme Court cases include a case
syllabus in the beginning
– This syllabus is a quick summary of the legal
issues involved in the case, some background
information on the case, and the decision of the
court.
• Although Pearson is unlikely to include this
on the PARCC exam, it can be a useful place
for you to find information to set up context
for your students.
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Format
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Case History
Ordinarily, the case history information would be in the
Syllabus. For the sample assessment Pearson wrote their own
summary.
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Question Presented
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
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Question Presented
For the PARCC sample, Pearson excerpted the entire
beginning, leaving us with part II where the court addresses
the legal arguments in the case.
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Citation Format
Court opinions have a very specific way of citing their sources.
Students need to know how to navigate these.
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Question Presented
• Although it is unlikely PARCC will provide the
Court Syllabus, they will need to include text
from the opinion somewhere that explicitly
states what the Court is trying to decide.
– RSIT 2 – Determine main idea or question posed.
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Who agrees?
• In order for something to be the “opinion of
the Court” at least 5 of the Justices have to
agree.
– Sometimes there is a very complicated structure
of concurrences that creates a “plurality” rather
than a majority, but PARCC is unlikely to use
such an example and wouldn’t ask questions
about this if they did.
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Who agrees?
• Opinions often have many parts, which are
always numbered with roman numerals
• Usually the sectioning is used to distinguish
between different aspects of a case (e.g.
when there is more than one issue)
• Other times, the parts are used to separate
where the Justices have differences of
opinion.
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Who agrees?
• In the example below from the Hobby Lobby
case, the Justices have a slightly complicated
mix of agreement and disagreement
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Holding
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Holding
• The excerpt in the PARCC sample does not
fully articulate the holding, but does
conclude the question asked.
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Why does this matter?
• Remember, PARCC will most likely never ask
about any of these formatting issues.
• BUT… if students are unfamiliar with the
format, they are likely to be caught up by
these issues and distracted from the true
questions.
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IRAC analysis
• The simplest way to summarize a case is to
follow a method known as IRAC
– Issue
– Rule
– Application
– Conclusion
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Issue
• The issue is the same thing as the “question
presented”
• Essentially: what is the court being asked to
decide.
– The Opinion almost always states this very
clearly!
• The issue will usually be best articulated as a
question.
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Issue
• Examples
– Are a student’s First Amendment rights violated
when a school official stops them from
participating in a silent protest?
– Are teachers agents of the police when they are
talking with a student about suspected abuse?
– Can a school principal search an 18 year old
student’s backpack if they suspect they are in
possession of tobacco products?
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Rule
• This tells what the law is that will answer the
question.
• In the case, it is likely that the law won’t
clearly address the specifics of the case.
– Remember, if the law was clear in a case, the
Supreme Court wouldn’t be hearing the appeal!
• The Rule is almost never a straight citation
of a law (e.g. 28 U.S.C. §1251) but will instead
be a citation from a prior case that dealt
with the issue.
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Rules
• Examples:
– “Where there is no finding and no showing that
engaging in the forbidden conduct would
‘materially and substantially interfere with the
requirements of appropriate discipline in the
operation of the school,’ the prohibition cannot
be sustained.” (from Tinker v. Des Moines)
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Application
• How does the Court take the Rule and apply
it to the scenario in the case
• This is where most of the citations to other
cases will come in, as the Court considers
whether the situation is analogous
– E.g. currently the Court is grappling with
whether or not smart phones should be viewed
as telephones or computers for the purposes of
a search.
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Application
• In the Tinker case
– The administrators had no evidence that the
black armbands would cause any material
disturbance to school discipline. They provided
only evidence of fear that the armbands could
cause a disruption.
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Conclusion
• This is essentially the same thing as the
holding.
• How does the Court resolve the Issue after
applying the rule?
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Conclusion
• In the Tinker case
– Failing to show anything more than a base fear
of possible discomfort in response to the
conduct, the school did not have the ability to
abridge the students’ First Amendment right to
freedom of speech.
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Assessing the Task
• The EQuIP Student Work Protocol produced by
Achieve is a great way to evaluate lessons and
assessment tasks
– Although the stated goal of the framework is to
check alignment and make suggestions, using the
framework also gives the evaluator a good handle
on what the task actually asks of students
• We can use EQuIP to reverse engineer lessons
that would prepare students for specific tasks
they will see on the PARCC exam.
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EQuIP
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EQuIP
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EQuIP
What are the important action verbs in this task?
Where do those verbs fall in Bloom’s taxonomy?
- What lower level tasks are embedded within?
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EQuIP
How clear are the directions?
How would your students respond to these directions?
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EQuIP
What standards are explicitly being tested in this task?
What standards are implicitly being tested?
What standards ARE NOT being tested here?
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EQuIP
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EQuIP
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Break Down the Task
• Using the paper version of the test handed
out, we are going to break down the task,
and walk through the assessment.
• When doing this with our students, we want
to model the following:
– Close reading techniques
– Text annotation (possible digitally as well)
– Metacognition
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Graphic Organizer
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Classroom Applications
• Students will likely need practice doing this
more than once before they see it on the
exam
• Test writers recommend that something
similar to this kind of performance task is
happening at least twice per unit.
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Classroom Applications
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Other cases?
• When selecting texts for the PARCC exam,
Pearson likely looks at the following:
– Landmark case (implicating Bill of Rights)
– No controversy (no abortion, same-sex
marriage, etc.)
– Parallel structure of arguments (majority and
dissenting opinions roughly overlap)
– Low legal complexity
– Easy to excerpt
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Other Cases?
• Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier
– Similar to Tinker, Court ruled that a school
district could limit the content of school
newspapers only if the censorship is reasonably
related to legitimate pedagogical concerns
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Other Cases?
• Miranda v. Arizona
– Landmark case that created the famous
“Miranda Warning” that arresting officers must
read to inform arrestees of their Constitutional
rights when they are taken into custody.
• New Jersey v. TLO
– Case involving school searches of student
backpacks.
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Other Cases?
• Texas v. Johnson
– Case upholding the right of an individual to
protest through the burning of an American flag.
The Court was hotly divided in the case, finding
by a 5-4 vote that no matter how offensive the
speech is, symbolic speech is protected under
the First Amendment.
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Pairing Texts
• Many of the standards call for students to
compare and contrast texts, especially when
comparing two different types of media on
the same subject.
– Court opinion + Oral arguments
– Oral arguments + Newspaper article
– Court opinion + NPR interview (Nina Totenberg)
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Pairing Texts
• When pairing texts, give thought to the level
of complexity of each text
– PARCC recommends that the texts be of
different complexity levels to assess different
skills.
• Look especially for texts that expose
students to a concept that is reintroduced
and expanded in the second text
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Exposure to Words and
Concepts
• PARCC writers are especially interested in
seeing if students can apply meaning across
texts and discuss how the meaning expands
– E.g., Tinker introduces the “substantial
disruption” standard. Later cases like Kuhlmeier
expand upon this to also require “legitimate
pedagogical concerns.”
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Performance Tasks
• PARCC writers LOVE drag and drop activities!
– The exam writers put in red herrings!
• Drag and drop tasks could include:
– Group arguments by document in which they
appear
– Arrange arguments in the order required to
complete a logical chain
– Lay parallel arguments side by side
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Objective Summary
• Can students create a summary of
information that does not include any of
their own evaluation
– The essay task on the sample is essentially
asking this same question.
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Discussing Controversy
• Pair a reading of the texts with a discussion
of Controversial Issues.
• This gives students a chance to practice their
analytical and evaluative skills
• Also demands that students go back to the
text to find evidence for their claims.
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Tips for Controversy
1.
2.
Choose an established model or
technique to start:
A.
Socratic Seminar
B.
Public Issues Model
C.
Civil Conversation
D.
Philosophical Chairs
Identify a clear purpose for the discussion
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Tips for Controversy
3.
Provide a common basis of
understanding.
4.
Establish clear ground rules.
5.
Serve as an active facilitator.
6.
Remain neutral for as long as is possible
in the discussion.
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Questions?
Evaluations and Feedback
• Please complete the evaluation forms
provided
• Feel free to contact me with any follow-up
questions or for more information about
OCLRE and our programs
– rsuskey@oclre.org
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