Common Core
Standards and the
Six Shifts in ELA
Presentation for Faculty Meetings in January
www.engageNY.org
1
Shift 1: Balancing Informational and
Literary Texts
Students read a true balance of informational and literary
texts. Elementary school classrooms are, therefore,
places where students access the world – science, social
studies, the arts and literature – through text. At least
50% of what students read is informational.
In other words?
Shift 1 Video
www.engageNY.org
2
Balancing Informational
& Literary Texts
Range of Text Types
12
4
th
grade
50% fiction
50%
nonfiction
th
Grades
PK-5
Informational =
Literary Nonfiction,
Historical, Scientific,
& Technical Texts
Literature = Stories,
Dramas, Poetry
8
SHIFT 1
th
grade
grade
40% fiction
60%
nonfiction
20% fiction
80%
nonfiction
www.engageNY.org
Increase in
teaching and
learning
with nonfiction text
ELA/Literacy Shift 1: Balancing Informational
and Literary Text
What the Student Does…
What the Teacher Does…
What the Principal Does…
•Build background knowledge
to increase reading skill
•Exposure to the world
through reading
•Apply strategies to reading
informational text.
•Provide students equal #s of
informational and literary texts
•Ensure coherent instruction
about content
•Teach strategies for
informational texts
•Teach “through” and “with”
informational texts
•Scaffold for the difficulties
that informational text present
to students
•Ask students, “What is
connected here? How does
this fit together? What details
tell you that? “
•Purchase and provide equal
amounts of informational and
literacy text to students
•Hold teachers accountable
for building student content
knowledge through text
•Provide PD and co-planning
opportunities for teachers to
become more intimate with
non fiction texts and the way
they spiral together
www.engageNY.org
4
Shift 2: Building Knowledge in the Disciplines
Content area teachers outside of the ELA classroom
emphasize literacy experiences in their planning and
instruction. Students learn through domain-specific texts
in science and social studies classrooms – rather than
referring to the text, they are expected to learn from what
they read.
In other words?
Shift 2 Video
www.engageNY.org
5
Knowledge in the
disciplines
Reading & Writing
Literacy Standards
• Complement,
not replace
content
standards
Depending on text
rather than
referring to it
• Read a president’s
speech & write a
response
• Read scientific
papers & write an
analysis
SHIFT 2
Grades
6-12
Think sophisticated
non-fiction
• Analyze and
evaluate texts
within disciplines
• Gain knowledge
from texts that
convey complex
information
through diagrams,
charts, evidence, &
illustrations
www.engageNY.org
Expectation
of rigorous
domain
specific
literacy
instruction
outside of
ELA
ELA/Literacy Shift 2: 6-12 Knowledge in the
Disciplines
What the Student Does…
What the Teacher Does…
What the Principal Does…
•Become better readers by
building background knowledge
•Handle primary source
documents with confidence
•Infer, like a detective, where
the evidence is in a text to
support an argument or opinion
•See the text itself as a source
of evidence (what did it say vs.
what did it not say?)
•Shift identity: “I teach
reading.”
•Stop referring and summarizing
and start reading
•Slow down the history and
science classroom
•Teach different approaches for
different types of texts
•Treat the text itself as a source
of evidence
•Teach students to write about
evidence from the text
•Teach students to support their
opinion with evidence.
•Ask : “How do you know? Why
do you think that? Show me in
the text where you see evidence
for your opinion. “
•Support and demand the role
of all teachers in advancing
students’ literacy
•Provide guidance and support
to ensure the shift to
informational texts for 6-12
•Give teachers permission to
slow down and deeply study
texts with students
www.engageNY.org
7
PreCCLS Core
Text
SHIFT 1
Balancing
Informational
and Literary
Texts
SHIFT 2
Building
Knowledge in
the
Disciplines
www.engageNY.org
8
PostCCLS Core
Texts
SHIFT 1
Balancing
Informational
and Literary
Texts
SHIFT 2
Building
Knowledge in
the
Disciplines
Paired Texts: The Hero’s Journey
www.engageNY.org
9
Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity
In order to prepare students for the complexity of college and career
ready texts, each grade level requires a “step” of growth on the
“staircase”. Students read the central, grade appropriate text around
which instruction is centered.
Teachers are patient, create more time and space in the curriculum
for this close and careful reading, and provide appropriate and
necessary scaffolding and supports so that it is possible for students
reading below grade level.
In other words?
Shift 3 Video:
(start to 2:15, 3:15-5:05)
www.engageNY.org
10
SHIFT 3
Staircase of complexity
Increase in
text
complexity
at each
grade level
Levels of meaning
Structure
Clarity of language
Knowledge demands
Qualitative
Quantitative
Word length
Sentence length
Text cohesion
Reader &
Task
Motivation
Knowledge
Experience
www.engageNY.org
Expectation of
proficiency and
independence
in reading
grade level text
Appendix B:
Text Exemplars
and Sample
Performance
Tasks
ELA/Literacy Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity
What the Student Does…
What the Teacher Does…
What the Principal Does…
•Read to see what more they can
find and learn as they re-read texts
again and again
•Read material at own level to
build joy of reading and pleasure
in the world
•Be persistent despite challenges
when reading; good readers
tolerate frustration
•Ensure students are engaged in
more complex texts at every grade
level
•Engage students in rigorous
conversation
•Provide experience with complex
texts
•Give students less to read, let
them re-read
•Use leveled texts carefully to build
independence in struggling readers
•More time on more complex texts
•Provide scaffolding
• Engage with texts w/ other
adults
•Get kids inspired and excited
about the beauty of language
•Ensure that complexity of text
builds from grade to grade.
•Look at current scope and
sequence to determine
where/how to incorporate greater
text complexity
•Allow and encourage teachers to
build a unit in a way that has
students scaffold to more complex
texts over time
•Allow and encourage teachers the
opportunity to share texts with
students that may be at
frustration level
www.engageNY.org
12
CCSS for ELA Appendix B
www.engageNY.org
13
PreCCLS
Refusal of the Call
Often when the call [to adventure] is
given, the future hero refuses to
heed it. This may be from a sense of
duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a
sense of inadequacy, or any of a
range of reasons that work to hold
the person in his or her current
circumstances.
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT 3
Staircase of
Complexity
PostCCLS
Refusal of the Call
Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and
popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call
unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other
interests. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure
into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or "culture,"
the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action
and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world
becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels
meaningless—even though, like King Minos, he may through
titanic effort succeed in building an empire of renown.
Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a
labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his Minotaur.
All he can do is create new problems for himself and await
the gradual approach
of his disintegration.
Excerpt from The Hero with a Thousand Faces
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT 3
Staircase of
Complexity
Shift 4: Text-Based Answers
Students have rich and rigorous conversations which are
dependent on a common text. Teachers insist that
classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text
on the page and that students develop habits for making
evidentiary arguments both in conversation, as well as in
writing to assess comprehension of a text.
In other words?
Shift 4 Video
www.engageNY.org
16
SHIFT 4
Text-based answers
Questions tied
directly to the
text, but extend
beyond the
literal
Students must
cite text to
support
answers
Personal
opinions,
experiences,
and connections
to the text are
minimized in
favor of what
the text actually
says or doesn’t
say
www.engageNY.org
Evidencebased
questions are
purposefully
planned &
direct
students to
closely
examine the
text
ELA/Literacy Shift 4: Text Based Answers
What the Student
Does…
What the Teacher
Does…
What the Principal
Does…
•Go back to text to find evidence to
support their argument in a thoughtful,
careful, precise way
•Develop a fascination with reading
•Create own judgments and become
scholars, rather than witnesses of the
text
•Conducting reading as a close reading
of the text and engaging with the author
and what the author is trying to say
•Facilitate evidence based
conversations with students, dependent
on the text
•Have discipline about asking students
where in the text to find evidence,
where they saw certain details, where
the author communicated something,
why the author may believe something;
show all this in the words from the text.
•Plan and conduct rich conversations
about the stuff that the writer is writing
about.
•Keep students in the text
•Identify questions that are textdependent, worth asking/exploring,
deliver richly,
•Provide students the opportunity to
read the text, encounter references to
another text, another event and to dig in
more deeply into the text to try and
figure out what is going on.
•Spend much more time preparing for
instruction by reading deeply.
•Allow teachers the time to spend more
time with students writing about the
texts they read- and to revisit the texts
to find more evidence to write stronger
arguments.
•Provide planning time for teachers to
engage with the text to prepare and
identify appropriate text-dependent
questions.
•Create working groups to establish
common understanding for what to
expect from student writing at different
grade levels for text based answers.
•Structure student work protocols for
teachers to compare student work
products; particularly in the area of
providing evidence to support
arguments/conclusions.
www.engageNY.org
18
SHIFT 4
PreCCLS
Text-based
Answers
Refusal of the Call
Often when the call [to adventure] is given, the
future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a
sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense
of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that
work to hold the person in his or her current
circumstances.
www.engageNY.org
Question:
What reasons
might a hero
use to refuse
the call to
adventure?
SHIFT 4
PostCCLS
Text-based
Answers
Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and
popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call
unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other
interests. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure
into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or "culture,"
the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action
and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world
becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels
meaningless—even though, like King Minos, he may through
titanic effort succeed in building an empire of renown.
Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a
labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his Minotaur.
All he can do is create new problems for himself and await
the gradual approach of his disintegration.
Excerpt from The Hero with a Thousand Faces
www.engageNY.org
Question:
What fate
awaits the
(future) hero
who refuses
the call to
adventure?
Use specific
examples
from the text
to support
your answer.
Shift 5: Writing from Sources
Writing needs to emphasize use of evidence to inform or make an
argument rather than the personal narrative and
other forms of decontextualized prompts. While the narrative still has
an important role, students develop skills
through written arguments that respond to the ideas, events, facts,
and arguments presented in the texts they read.
In other words?
Shift 5 Video
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT 5
Writing from sources
Three
Text
Argument
Types
Informational/
Explanatory
Writing
Narrative
Writing
Supporting a claim
with sound
reasoning and
relevant evidence
Increase subject knowledge
Explain a process
Enhance comprehension
Conveys experience i.e.
fictional stories,
memoirs, anecdotes,
autobiographies
www.engageNY.org
Argumentative
writing is
especially
prominent in
the CCLS
Appendix C:
Samples of
Student Writing
ELA/Literacy Shift 5: Writing from Sources
What the Student Does…
What the Teacher Does…
What the Principal Does…
•Begin to generate own
informational texts
•Expect that students will generate
their own informational texts
(spending much less time on
personal narratives)
•Present opportunities to write
from multiple sources about a
single topic.
•Give opportunities to analyze,
synthesize ideas across many texts
to draw an opinion or conclusion.
•Find ways to push towards a style
of writing where the voice comes
from drawing on powerful,
meaningful evidence.
•Give permission to students to
start to have their own reaction
and draw their own connections.
•Build teacher capacity and hold
teachers accountable to move
students towards informational
writing
www.engageNY.org
Pre-CCLS
SHIFT
5
Write about a time you
had to make a difficult
decision. Describe the
situation and the heroic
qualities you exhibited.
www.engageNY.org
Writing
from
Sources
Post-CCLS
Modern writers often enhance their story through
the use of literary allusions. Grann compares
Fawcett’s Nina to Odysseus’ Penelope. Analyze
and evaluate the effectiveness of Grann’s choice
in making this comparison. In your essay, be sure
to:
Describe the call
to adventure for
both Percy
Fawcett and
Odysseus.
Compare and
contrast the
impact of
answering this call
on those closest to
the heroes.
Support your
analysis using
specific evidence
from the two
works listed
above.
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT
5
Writing
from
Sources
Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary
Students constantly build the vocabulary they need to access grade
level complex texts. By focusing strategically on comprehension of
pivotal and commonly found words (such as “discourse,”
“generation,” “theory,” and “principled”) and less on esoteric
literary terms (such as “onomatopoeia” or “homonym”), teachers
constantly build students’ ability to access more complex texts
across the content areas.
In other words?
Shift 6 Video
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT 6
Academic vocabulary
Tier One
Words
• Words of everyday speech
Tier Two
Words
• Not specific to any one
academic area
• Generally not well-defined by
context or explicitly defined
within a text
• Wide applicability to many
types of reading
Tier Three
Words
• Domain specific
• Low-frequency
• Often explicitly defined
• Heavily scaffolded
www.engageNY.org
Ramp up
instruction
of Tier Two
words
ELA/Literacy Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary
What the Student Does…
What the Teacher Does…
What the Principal Does…
•Spend more time learning words
across “webs” and associating
words with others instead of
learning individual, isolated
vocabulary words.
•Develop students’ ability to use
and access words that show up in
everyday text and that may be
slightly out of reach
•Be strategic about the kind of
vocabulary you’re developing and
figure out which words fall into
which categories- tier 2 vs. tier 3
•Determine the words that
students are going to read most
frequently and spend time mostly
on those words
•Teach fewer words but teach the
webs of words around it
•Shift attention on how to plan
vocabulary meaningfully using tiers
and transferability strategies
•Provide training to teachers on
the shift for teaching vocabulary in
a more meaningful, effective
manner.
www.engageNY.org
28
Pre-CCLS
Archetype
Epic
Poetry
Mythology
Odyssey
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT
6
Academic
Vocabulary
Post-CCLS
Tier 3
Words
Tier 2
Words
Archetype
Summons
Epic Poetry
Affirmative
Mythology
Titanic
Odyssey
Disintegration
www.engageNY.org
SHIFT
6
Academic
Vocabulary