Organization and Structure
(Focus Topic)
College and
Career Readiness
Anchor Standard
(Focus Topic)
College and
Career Readiness
Anchor Standard
(Focus Topic)
College and
Career Readiness
Anchor Standard
Grade-
Specific
Standard
Grade-
Specific
Standard
Grade-
Specific
Standard
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Organization and Structure
Sample ELA/Literacy Standards
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Focus Topics from College and
Career Readiness Anchor Standards
RL.K.3
2

Organization and Structure
Coding Scheme
RI . 4 . 2
Strand Grade Standard Number
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Organization and Structure
Coding Scheme
L . K . 2b
Strand Grade Standard Number
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Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
Horizontal Alignment a.k.a Integration
Reading Standards
Read and understand what read, including for research
Speaking and
Listening Standard 4
Share findings from research
Writing Standard 7
Conduct research
Writing Standard 9
Draw evidence from reading
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Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
While the standards delineate specific expectations in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language, each standard need not be a separate focus for instruction and assessment. Often, several standards can be addressed by a single rich task” (p. 5, CCSS).
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Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
• Pair literary texts with informational texts
•
Locate evidence from texts to support written answers in questions and tasks
• Present information researched in tasks
• Study language conventions in reading texts
• Include questions and tasks that address standards many times in varied ways with multiple texts
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Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
Vertical Alignment a.k.a. Progression
RI.4.5
• Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.
RI.5.5
• Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts .
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Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
Vertical Alignment a.k.a. Progression
RF.1.4a, b, c
Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
a. Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
b. Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or selfcorrect word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
RF.2.4a, b, c
Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
a. Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
b. Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or selfcorrect word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
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English Language Arts and Literacy

Content Shifts
Main Goal of the CCSS for ELA/Literacy
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3 Shifts
Regular practice with
complex text and its academic vocabulary
Building knowledge through content-rich
nonfiction and informational text
Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text
Content Shifts
6 Shifts
3. Appropriately complex text
6. Academic vocabulary
1. Balance literature and informational text
(K-5)
2. Literacy as part of science and social studies/history; informational text as part of ELA (6-12)
4. Questions regarding text are text-dependent
5. Writing to inform or argue using evidence
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1.
Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction and informational text
2.
Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text
3.
Regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary
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Regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary
English Language Arts and Literacy

Content Shift #1
Regular practice with complex text
• What is the appropriate text to teach at each grade level? Defined by…
– Reading Standard 10
– Reading Foundational Skills Standard 4 (K-5)
– Text Complexity and Text Types (Page 31)
– Page 32
– Appendix A and Appendix B
• The Publishers’ Criteria further refines that criteria.
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Reading Standard 10
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Reading Standards for Text Complexity
Kindergarten Grade 1
(Literary Texts)
Grade 2
(Informational Texts)
(Reading Foundational Skills)
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Reading Standards for Text Complexity
Grade 3 Grade 4
(Literary Texts)
Grade 5
(Informational Texts)
(Reading Foundational Skills)
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Children at the kindergarten and grade 1 levels should be expected to read texts independently that have been specifically written to correlate to their reading level and their word knowledge. Many of the titles listed above are meant to supplement carefully structured independent reading with books to read along with a teacher or that are read aloud to students to build knowledge and cultivate a joy in reading.
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Content Shift #1
Additional Text Selection Criteria
• Staircase of text complexity
– Read-aloud texts well above grade-level band; read-along texts in grade-level band; independent reading at reading level of student
– Extensive opportunities to encounter complex text
• Through read aloud and read along
• 50/50 balance between literature and informational text
• High-quality texts, worth reading and rereading, richly illustrated, when appropriate, and well written
• Reading foundations key to success with complex text
(learn to read and read to learn simultaneously)
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Content Shift #1
Text Complexity Definition
(page 31 and Appendix A)
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Content Shift #1
Resources for Determining Text Complexity
(Appendix A, Page 32 and Appendix B, and Other Tools)
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Content Shift #1
Resources for Determining Text Complexity
(Appendix A, Page 32 and Appendix B, and Other Tools)
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Content Shift #1
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Content Shift #1
Resources for Determining Text Complexity
(Appendix A, Page 32 and Appendix B, and Other Tools)
• Text Complexity Grade-Band Level Chart
• Text Complexity Qualitative Rubrics
• Text Complexity Questions for Reader and Task
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Content Shift #1
Determining Text Complexity – Appendix A
• Text Complexity Process
– Quantitative – place in grade-level band
• Lexile, ATOS, Flesch-Kincaid, etc.
• Text complexity chart (updated)
– Qualitative – further define where to use within band
• Rubrics
• Professional judgment
– Reader and Task – further define how best to teach text
• Is the content appropriate for age level?
• What areas are potentially difficult for students?
• What vocabulary should be taught?
• What is the big idea and key student understandings?
• What questions/tasks will get at those understandings and what standards align with those understandings?
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Content Shift #1
Text Complexity Analysis Practice
Read “Insect Olympics”
• Quantitative Measures
– ATOS: 4.4
– Flesch-Kincaid (FK): 4.5
– In what grade-level band does this article fit?
• Qualitative Measures
– Use the appropriate rubric to analyze the article
• Reader and Task
– What should be taught with this text?
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Content Shift #1
Vocabulary Tiers
Academic (Tier II)
• consequence
• criteria
• substantial
• justify
• persist
• (words essential for meaning, but not often easily defined in the text)
Domain-Specific (Tier III)
• hyperbole
• metaphor
• cell wall
• amoeba
• equation
• GDP

Content Shift #1
Academic vocabulary is essential.
• Role in complex text
• One of two features of text most predictive of student difficulty (Chall 1996, Stanovich 1986, Nelson et al 2012)
• There is in fact a great deal of powerful academic vocabulary in these texts.
• From, “Officer Buckle” third grade (department, attention, speech, applauded, frowned, onstage, swivel, frowned, afterward, announced, discovered, grinned, roared, enormous, bowed)
• Vocabulary is difficult to catch up
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Content Shift #1
Academic Vocabulary
Which words should be taught?
– Essential to text
– Likely to appear in future text
Which words should get more time and attention?
– More abstract words (persist vs. checkpoint noticed vs. accident)
– Words which are part of semantic word family (secure, securely, security, secured)
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Content Shift #1
Academic Vocabulary
• When should you provide the meaning; when should students determine from context?
• How should words be taught?
– Distributed practice
– Use the text
--Differences (applaud vs. clap; isolated vs. alone)
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Content Shift #1
Reading Foundations
• Explicit and systematic instruction (focus on sequenced and structured teaching of phonological awareness)
• Need lots of distributed practice
• Need ongoing diagnostic support (assessment)
• Should be happening simultaneously with read alouds of complex text
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English Language Arts and Literacy

Content Shift #2
Read-Alouds with Informational Text
• 50/50 balance
• As students are learning to read in K-1, they should also exercise their ability to comprehend complex text through listening and responding to read-aloud texts
• In grades 2+, students begin reading more complex texts through read alongs, thus consolidating the foundational skills with reading comprehension.
• Reading aloud texts that are well-above grade level should be done throughout K-5 and beyond.
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Content Shift #2
Sequencing Texts to Build Knowledge
• Literacy in social studies/history, science, and technical subjects embedded in K-5; connections to content areas
• Additional resources referenced on Evaluation Tool l #2
– Page 33 in the CCSS for ELA/Literacy
– PARCC Model Content Frameworks
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Content Shift #2
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Content Shift #2
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Reading and writing grounded in
English Language Arts and Literacy

Content Shift #3
Reading and Writing Grounded in Evidence
• Students demonstrate understanding of text in writing, speaking, and research.
• Writing to sources
– Text-dependent questions
– “Evidence Standards” : Reading Standard 1 and Writing
Standard 9
• Research tasks
– Develop from the text and topics studied
– Offer students chance to reflect on a text or topic and connect it to other texts, events, or ideas (compare/contrast, investigate concept or idea, explore real-life connections, etc.) AFTER students fully demonstrate understanding of individual text
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Content Shift #3
Text-Dependent Questions
• Questions that can only be answered with evidence from the text
• Can be literal but can also involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation
• Focus on word, sentence and paragraph as well as larger ideas, themes or events
• Focus on difficult portions of text in order to enhance reading proficiency
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Content Shift #3
Text-Dependent Questions
1.
In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous? strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something.
2.
In “Letter from a Birmingham
Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair.
3.
In “The Gettysburg Address”
Lincoln says the nation is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Why is equality an important value to promote?
What can you infer from King’s letter about the letter that he received?
“The Gettysburg Address” mentions the year 1776.
According to Lincoln’s speech, why is this year significant to the events described in the speech?

Content Shift #3
Why use text-dependent questions?
• More time outside the text less inside
• Going outside the text privileges those who have that experience
• It is easier to talk about our experiences than to analyze the text
• That being said….
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Content Shift #3
Why limit pre-reading?
• Multiple readings often make this unnecessary
• Too often provides information students can glean from careful reading of the text- in many cases provide a complete summary
• Almost impossible to wean students from this
• Similarly challenging to move teachers away from providing this “smoothing of the road”
• Research base?
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Content Shift #3
Text-dependent questions should…
• Be focused around the big ideas and key understandings of a text (allow students to demonstrate understanding of what is most important in the text); not a reading strategy or device that is not important to understanding.
• Use standards to provide specific wording and expectations for knowledge (standards are not the focus)
• Focus student attention on difficult sections of text
• Expect thorough response
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Content Shift #3
Culminating Activities
• Should relate to big ideas and key understandings
• These types of culminating assignments will be a significant shift for students and teachers
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Content Shift #3
Academic Vocabulary and Text-Dependent Questions
From “Hot and Cold Summer” Trophies 5 th grade:
• “To avoid someone means to keep away from them so that you don’t have to see them and they don’t have to see you. How did the boys avoid meeting Bolivia at first?
(pg. 23 )”
• Re-read the last two paragraphs on page 39. Rory had a
“strong suspicion ”. What is a suspicion ? What details in the story made Rory suspicious of Bolivia?
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Additional Alignment Considerations
Syntax
• Possibly as much as vocabulary predicts student performance
• Questions and tasks addressing syntax
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Additional Alignment Considerations
Fluency
• We must address fluency.
• With the arrival of more complex text, more students will struggle to read fluently.
• How to address this?
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English Language Arts and Literacy

Close Reading Exemplar
• Listen to the read aloud as instructed by the text.
• Think about the types of questions being asked and alignment to CCSS.
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Close Reading Exemplar
Not Aligned to CCSS – Many basal reading programs
• Many questions not text dependent
• Virtually all culminating assignments not text dependent
• Focus on comprehension strategies
• Do not focus as strongly on academic (Tier II) vocabulary
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Close Reading Exemplar
Not Aligned to CCSS – Many basal reading programs
• Do not typically “within and across grade levels…systematically develop the knowledge base of students”
• Some number of texts not aligned in terms of complexity
• Typical lack of balance between narrative and informational texts at each grade level
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Close Reading Exemplar
Not Aligned to CCSS – Many basal reading programs
Vocabulary and Leveled Text – 4 th Grade Example
• Shelter, splattered, fixed, rescue
• Journal, tremors, traction, interval, volunteered, retrieve
• Generation, abandoned, languished, terrified, warble, galvanized, debris, hoisted, shuddered
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