1
What Does The Text
Say?:
A VETERAN TEACHER Develops
Closely and Critically
ELA Summer Literacy Academy 2014
Ronette Burnett
Creekside Intermediate School
Harris County Schools

2
Before CCGPS:
Sailing Through the Standards!

3
After CCGPS:
The Old Dog Realizes the need for Some New
Tricks

4
Ccgps ELA Instructional shifts
1. Balancing informational and literary text
2 . Literacy is a shared responsibility across all content areas.
3. Students are exposed to increasingly complex texts.
4. text-based response and close reading.
5. Writing from sources
6. Academic vocabulary

5
Shifts sounds Gentle
But It Actually felt more like -

6
THE REAL EQ
(Exasperating Question )
HOW DO I Change? (My classroom, my Teaching,
MYSELF)
What Do I
Need to Let
GO?
What DO I
Need to Grab
On TO?

7
The Essential Question
How Can I Help My Students read Complex Texts Critically with
The Level of Analysis Specified in our standards ?

8
Part One: Close
Reading

9
Close Reading Is Not-
You Might
Have Called it “Marking
My Book So
I won’t
Flunk Out!”
‘
Reading
NEW

10
CLOSE READING Is
NotEasy
Close reading is done with
Complex texts.

State Lexile Levels
Lag BEHIND CRCT
SCORES

Lexile Bands
Grade Band Current Lexile Band
K-1
22-3
4-5
6-8
9-10
11-CCR n/a
450L-725L
645L-845L
860L-1010L
960L-1115L
1070L-1220L
“Stretch” Lexile Band
N/A
450_790L
770-980L
955L-1155L
1080L-1305L
1215L-1355L
These “stretch” Lexile bands are the basis for determining at what text complexity level students should be reading—and at which grades—to make sure they are ultimately prepared for the reading demands of college and careers.
12

13
Close Reading Is Not
The Only Type of reading to use
Students
Need A variety of
Reading
Experiences.
Shared
Reading
Read
Aloud
Recreational reading
Guided
Reading
Close
Reading

14
Close Reading Is
A Skill Needed on The New GA Milestones ELA
Assessment
From Assessment Update: Georgia’s Changing Assessment Landscape, GA Dept. of Ed. June 2014
Georgia Milestones English Language Arts [CC Georgia Performance
Standards]
– will require close analytic reading to construct meaning, make inferences, draw conclusions, compare and contrast ideas, themes, etc., as well as synthesize ideas and concepts across multiple texts
– will require students to develop informative/explanatory responses or narratives, produce opinions/arguments – citing evidence from text(s) and using standard language conventions, etc.

15
Close Reading Defined
Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately.(PARCC, 2011, p. 7)

16
Close Reading is Like

17
Close Reading Is
Deep Comprehension
Authors thoughtfully select details, hoping that we, the readers, are listening. When we take the time to do so, as carefully as we listen to the people we love, we see the complexity of ideas that reach beyond the page and impact our lives.

18
A Closer Look At
Close reading
Close
Reading
Strategies from Notice and Note

19
Work with a short passage
Opinion Life
Text Suggestions from: Lehman, C. and Roberts, K, (2014). Falling in Love with Close Reading. Portsmouth, NH , Heinemann .

20
Start with media photos
What do you observe in this Picture?
Based on your observations,
What message
Does This photograph convey?

You’re Ready to…
ELACC5RL2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

22
Country music is one of the last vestiges for soulful, introspective, clever lyrics.
Harry Connick Jr. American Idol, March 5, 2014.
Song lyrics
“Never Grow Up”
Poem
“On Turning Ten”
By Billy Collins

23
Focus intensely on The
Passage Itself

25
Involves Rereading

26

27

28

29
Engagement isn’t A thing,
It’s the only thing!

30
Part Two – Close Reading:
These are a few of my favorite Things

31
Wikki Stix
Use with all ages For Finding Text-Based
Evidence

32
Pointers, Post-its, and projected text

33
Highlighters and apps
Annotations, anyone?
iAnnotate

34
Trash or treasure?
Adapting a note taking technique to use with textual evidence.
Although it might seem as though skimming is the opposite of close reading
(and in a way, it is), it is also a crucial skill for pulling information out of a text.
Sarah Tantillo. “Skimming: The Overlooked Close Reading Skill.”

35
So much drama
Reader’s theater for close reading strategy instruction
Reader’s
Theater

36
Set it to music
What does the text Say?: A strategy lesson set to music

37
Part Three: now what?
Getting started

38
Close reading confessions

39
Close reading confession # 1
I’m still learning how to teach this.
There’s more than one way to teach close reading (and apparently I am trying them all!) My initial lessons were based more on the Beers and Probst Signpost lessons in
Notice and Note . Now, I am drawn to the close reading ritual found in Falling in Love with Close Reading - Choose a lens, look for patterns, then develop new ideas.

40
Close reading confession # 2
My students don’t actually read the text. Instead they ______ (fill in the blank with a reading avoidance behavior.)
So I tried monitoring silent reading .
This is something I’ve always done during guided reading, and it’s great to keep everyone on task during close reading. It involves walking around asking students to whisper read a section of text to me. This helps me manage and support struggling and reluctant readers.

41
Close Reading confession #3 One pattern I see is _____ with words like _____.
My students can Talk about the close reading text, but the writing about the text is a real struggle.
So now I teach sentence frames.
These sentence frames can help scaffold students’ thinking-literally giving their thoughts a running start so that they can just focus on the content and not on the syntax of their ideas.
Falling in Love with Close Reading, p. 42

42
Sentence frames
Point of view
Brobow, R. (2011, October ). “Confessions of a teenage concussion queen.”
Scholastic Scope , p.9
I think the author wants me to think that . . .
If the author was debating this topic, they would say
. . .
The author doesn’t say anything about . . . which makes me think . . .
Some feeling words the author uses are __________,
_____________, and __________, which tells me that the author probably feels . . . about the topic.
The author seems to believe that . .

43
Close reading confession #4
Some of the Complex texts I need students to read Closely are beyond My students’ skill level so I _____ . ( What do you do?)
Keep working on helping students read on a higher level, but
I don’t abandon the suggested text because it is too hard.

44
THANK YOU!