ERDG 623 Practicum: Differentiated Instruction and Coaching, 5-12
Program Requirements and Prerequisites: (1) If you are in the 5-12 program, all courses are prerequisites, except ERDG 677, which may be
taken before or after ERDG 623. (2) If you are in the B-12 program and taking ERDG 623 for 6 credits, the same applies; however, ERDG 620 for 3
credits must be taken after taking ERDG 623. (3) If you are in the B-12 program and are taking ERDG 623 for 3 credits, all courses in your program
are required before taking ERDG 623. This is a 6 credit course for students enrolled in 5-12. For students enrolled in B-12 program, credits are 3-6
hours. Prerequisite: Rdg 600 or 601.
Practicum: 25 Hours
Course Description: Involves an intense small group inquiry with youth. Graduate students teach a small group, document and assess students’
literacy learning, and analyze instructional interactions drawing on theories of literacy development. Emphasis includes creating contexts for inquiry,
text selection, responsive reading and writing instruction, and engaging with families. Graduate students develop communities of professional
practice as they engage as responsive literacy coaches, analyzing teaching interactions, and offering reflections and possibilities for future instruction.
Attributes
 Literacy as Social Practice**
 Equity
 Generate Productive Learning Communities**
 Engagement**
 Reciprocal Relationships Across Modes of Communication**
 Strategic Teaching to Promote Self-Extending Learning**
 Assessment of Literacies and Their Development**
 Research Based Professional Learning**
Core Content
Literacy Practices and Academic
Identities
Q: How do teachers engage youth in
differentiated literacy practices that
positively influence individuals’
academic identities?
Q: How does differentiated organization
of literacy events influence academic
literacy development?
Attributes (continued)
 Respectful Representation of Students, Families and Communities**
 Critical Literacies*
 Disciplinary Literacy/Knowledge Building**
 Data Based Decision Making**
 Technologies and Digital Media*
 Materials and Resources**
 Prevention and Intervention**
 Standards**
Possible Assignments
Differentiated Areas of Focus
1. Ongoing Planning, Teaching, and
Assessing Inquiry Units
a. Lesson Plans
b. Text Selection
c. Teaching/interacting with students
d. Revision and ongoing planning
with PLC
e. Reflection/Assessment
Possible Readings
Academic Identity
White, J. W. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2011). Minority college
students and tacit “codes of power”: Developing academic
discourses and identities. The Review of Higher Education,
34 (2), 283-318.
Reading/Writing to Learn
Graham, S. & Herbert, M. (2011). Writing to read: a metaanalysis of the impact of writing and writing instruction on
reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81 (4), 710-755.
Reading/Writing to Learn
Key Ideas and Details: Citing evidence
and details and central ideas and
summarizing (CCSS IR 1 and 2)
Q: How do teachers help readers
determine and summarize the key ideas
and meanings in an author’s argument?
Q: How do instructional routines support
learners, including ELL learners?
Q: How do teachers assess student
understanding of the relationship between
evidence, details, and central ideas?
Distributed Cognition/Knowledge
Building
Q: How do learning communities build
knowledge using text, talk, and carefully
planned tasks?
Q: How does distributed cognition aid in
building learning/discourse communities?
Q: How can student understanding of the
relationship between evidence, details,
and central ideas be assessed across texts,
talk, and writing?
Distributed Cognition/Knowledge
Building in Literacy Coaching
Q: How do Professional Learning
Communities build knowledge about
effective literacy practices in the
community?
Q: How is community knowledge
informed by research?
Q: How does distributed cognition aid in
building learning/discourse communities
about teaching?
Q: How is student understanding of
academic reading and writing enhanced
by the work of literacy coaching PLCs?
2. Longitudinal audio and video
assignments (If taking for 3 credits, two
audio only)
a. What is the evidence of student
learning in two audio and 1 video
analysis from the beginning,
middle and end of the semester?
b. What is the nature of instructional
interactions over time? How did
they
influence students’
engagement with texts?
3. Final Culminating Report on Student
Growth and Teacher Involvement in
Growth
a. What is the evidence of student
learning at the beginning, middle
and end of the semester?
b. Do pre-post tests demonstrate
similar results? Explain.
c. How did interaction with students
influence that which was learned?
What is the evidence of this
influence? What does it mean, in
terms of students’ extended
learning and your continued
teaching?
d. How did family interaction
influence teaching and learning
over time?
Wineburg, S. & Martin, D. (2004). Reading and rewriting
history. Educational Leadership, September, 42-45.
Learned, J. E. Stockdill, D. & Moje, E. B. (2011).
Integrating reading strategies and knowledge building in
adolescent literacy instruction. In S. J. Samuels & A. E.
Farstrup (Eds.), What research has to say about reading
instruction, pp. 159-185. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association.
Learning Theory Informing Knowledge Building
Wells, G. (2002). The role of dialogue in Activity Theory.
Mind, Culture, and Activity, 9 (1), 43-66.
Engeström, Y. (1987). Chapter 3: The zone of proximal
development as the basic category of expansive research:
two classic examples of developmental psychology.
Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to
developmental research Retrieved from
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.ht
m
Gallimore, R. & Tharp, R. (). Teaching mind in society:
Teaching, schooling, and literate discourse.
Teaching Argumentative and Explanatory Writing
Raphael, T. E. & Englert, C. S. (1990). Writing and reading:
Partners in constructing meaning. The Reading Teacher,
February, 388-400.
Dlugokienski, A. & Sampson, V. (2008). Learning to write
4. Individual Report to Families regarding and writing to learn in science: Refutational texts and
analytical rubrics. Science Scope, 14-19.
beginning, mid-semester, and end-ofsemester student learning
Anderson, C. (2000). How’s it going?: A practical guide to
conferring with student writers. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann
Q: How do families inform the work of
teachers and PLCs?
Range of Reading and Level of Text
Complexity (CCSS IR 10)
Q: What is a complex text?
Q: How do we teach reading with
possibly frustrating complex texts?
Q: How do instructional routines support
learners, including ELL learners?
Q: How do teachers assess student
understanding of the relationship between
evidence, details, and central ideas across
texts, talk, and writing when texts may be
too difficult to read, with ease,
independently?
Family Engagement Assignments
1. Introductory Letter to Families
2. Weekly engagements with family
(phone, email, conference, note home,
etc.) documented in a Family Log.
3. Final Reflection of Family
Engagements: What have you learned
over time? How has this knowledge
informed your teaching?
Coaching
1. Coaching log
A. Small group instruction
section: interactions and
possibilities
1. Notes from teaching sessions
2. How your feedback was used
Teaching Argumentative/Explanatory
3. Resources shared among small
Essays
Craft and Structure: word choice, text
group
organization, and point of view and style
B. Seminar section (6 credits,
(CCSS IR 4, 5, 6)
only)
Q: How do teachers help students develop
1. Video tape lesson notes
understanding of themselves as authors
2. Resources shared by class
whose specific word choices, structure,
point of view, & style enhance
2. Final Reflection on Coaching (6arguments?
credit only)
Q: How can teachers use rhetorical
How did your coaching change
knowledge to teach students to build an
over time, based on analysis of
argument?
small group and seminar
Q: How do instructional routines support
notebook?
learners, including ELL learners?
Q: How do teachers assess student
understanding of rhetorical strategies they
use as authors to structure arguments and
explanatory writing?
Kelly, G. J. & C. Bazerman (2007). How students argue
scientific claims: Rhetorical-semantic analysis. Applied
Linguistics, 24 (1), 28-55.
PLC
Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (2012, 3rd
Edition). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio
Emilia experience in transformation (Part II: Teaching and
learning through relationships and Part III: Documentation
as an integrated process of observing, reflecting, and
communicating).
ABC-CLIO: Santa Barbara, CA.
Text Selection
Wineburg, S. & Martin, D. (2009). Tampering with history:
Adapting primary sources for struggling readers. Social
Education, 73 (5), 212-216.
A Beginner’s Guide to Text Complexity.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
modal analysis, analysis of argument, and
analysis of authentic documents (CCSS IR
7, 8, 9)
Q: How do teachers help students
decipher what makes a strong argument
and decipher, also, how arguments made
in different modalities may have a
different impact on an audience.
Q: How to teachers teach strong
arguments?
Q: How can teachers assess students’
progression toward making a strong
argument in order to help students move
writing forward?
Text Types and Purposes: Writing
argument and Writing explanatory texts
(CCSS IW 1 and 2)
Q: How do teachers teach writers to use
evidence to support claims, including
explanation of counterclaims, in their
written arguments?
Q: How can teachers help students
maintain a focus on claims,
counterclaims, and evidence in a writing
workshop?
Q: How can teachers assess student’s
progression in writing an argument or
explanatory essay to help students move
writing forward?
Q: How can teachers assess final products
with feedback focusing on what works as
well as helpful suggestions to motivate
future writing?
Student Self Assessment of Program
Attributes
Drawing on all classes taken in your
Masters program, discuss your growth
regarding all attributes in the Master’s
program. Make a separate heading for
each attribute and discuss where you are
now, in relation to those attributes, how
courses and particular assignments and
activities helped you to get to this point,
and how you envision these attributes
serving you in your current and future
teaching.5