Setting the Stage: What is Rigor?
Supporting Student Access to Complex Texts
Goals and Outcomes
Overarching Objectives of the August 2014 Network Team Institute

Teams will be able to:
o
Identify rigorous instruction.
o
Plan interventions that leverage existing curriculum and keep students thinking.
o
Use student work to build students’ skills.
o
Use CCLS aligned curriculum samples as a model for curriculum development.
High-Level Purpose of this Session
The purpose of this session is to help participants understand what rigor means in high school ELA classrooms and what it looks like in high school
instruction.
August 2014—Page 1
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New York State Common Core
Session Outcomes
What do we want participants to be able to do as a result of this session?

Explain the concept of rigor in high school and ways rigor can be supported in the
classroom using CCSS aligned curriculum.
How will we know that they are able to do this?

Aligned survey question
Related Learning Experiences

Planning Interventions for Instructional Success: Working with Fiction Text
Key Points

Rigor must be a part of every classroom environment.

Rigor is a shared responsibility of the curriculum and the instruction, but it ultimately “lives” in instruction. Although the 9th grade ELA
curriculum is designed with rigor in mind, what a teacher does to enhance, reinforce, adapt, and adopt has the greatest impact on whether or
not students are thinking at high levels.
August 2014—Page 2
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New York State Common Core
Session Overview
Section
Introduction and
Welcome
Time
Overview
Prepared Resources
Facilitator Preparation
5 min
Introduce the session.

Session PowerPoint
 Read and download session
materials.
20 min
Participants read “4 Myths about
Rigor in the Classroom,” annotate
the text, and discuss implications for
curriculum and instruction.



Session PowerPoint
What is Rigor handout
“4 Myths About Rigor in the
Classroom” article
 Read and download session
materials.
45 min
Participants read a portion of a
curriculum text (“St. Lucy’s Home for
Girls Raised By Wolves”) and
discuss questions from the
curriculum, analyzing them for
connections to the article.


Session PowerPoint
“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls
Raised by Wolves” text
excerpt
 Read and download session
materials.
Analyzing Rigor in
Instruction: Video
Analysis
30 min
Participants watch and analyze a
short video of instruction to
determine when students are
thinking at high levels and when the
instructor is doing the thinking.



Session PowerPoint
Video of Instruction
 Read and download session
Who’s Thinking Now Note
materials.
Catcher
Processing “Who’s Doing the
Thinking” handout
Reflection and
Closing
5 min
Understanding Rigor
Recognizing the
Potential for Rigor in
the Curriculum
105 min
Participants will reflect on their
learning.
Total for this session
August 2014—Page 3
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

Session PowerPoint
 Read and download session
materials.
New York State Common Core
Session Roadmap
Section: Introduction and Welcome
In this section, you will introduce the session and its purpose.
Slide
Time
1
0 min
Picture
Materials used include: Session PowerPoint
Script/Activity Directions
Welcome participants to the session.
August 2014—Page 4
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New York State Common Core
Slide
Time
2
5 min
Picture
Script/Activity Directions
Review the purpose of this session. Talking points include:
 This session is about rigor in high school and what it takes to create
rigor.
 In this session, we will consider the features of this curriculum that
create opportunities for rigor and how teachers can use and build
upon those opportunities to meet their students’ unique learning
needs.
Total
time:
5 min
Section: Understanding Rigor
In this section, participants will read 4 Myths about Rigor in the
Classroom, annotate the text, and discuss the implications for
curriculum and instruction.
Materials used include: Session PowerPoint, What is Rigor handout, “4 Myths
about Rigor in the Classroom” article
August 2014—Page 5
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New York State Common Core
Slide
Time Picture
Script/Activity Directions
3
0 min
Transition into the “Understanding Rigor” section of the session.
4
5 min
Ask participants to read the three quotes on the What is Rigor handout and
annotate the text, looking for ideas that resonate with you.
Lead a brief whole group discussion of their observations, working with
participants to identify their current perspectives about rigor. Key ideas:



Leadership is key to ensuring rigor.
Teams must work together.
It is common for participants to talk about “artifacts”—lesson plans,
curriculum, etc. Ask folks to think about their beliefs as they read the
article.
August 2014—Page 6
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New York State Common Core
Slide
5
Time Picture
Script/Activity Directions
Ask participants to read the “4 Myths About Rigor in the Classroom” article. Ask
them to annotate the text, focusing on the following:
15
min
 Concepts that connect or resonate with you.
 Words that would be a part of your definition of rigor.
 Concepts or ideas that might surprise others. It may be helpful to ask
participants to consider how thinking in terms of others may help striving
readers.
Ask participants to share their annotations and discuss the following questions in
groups of two to four (depending on the room setup):
 What is rigor?
 Where does rigor “live”?
Lead a whole group discussion of observations from the instructional and
leadership perspective, making sure to address the following key points:
 Rigor does not live in a text. Rigor is created in the instruction—the
implementation—of curriculum.
 We can assign complex texts, but HOW we treat them can be rigorous—
good questions, engaging and rigorous activities, discussions, writing
assignments, challenging projects and assessments.
 Implementation can also lack rigor—low level questions, giving away
answers, over-scaffolding (providing more scaffolding than students actually
need), or scaffolding in the wrong ways.
 This curriculum is designed to create the conditions for rigor in the
classroom, but it does not constitute rigor itself. Curriculum is not a
August 2014—Page 7
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New York State Common Core
Slide
Time Picture
Script/Activity Directions
substitute for careful instructional planning that creates rigorous experiences
for students.
 Because rigor is not absolute, it is necessary to consider the context in
which rigor lives. This means that, as teachers, we consider the curriculum,
our instruction, our assessments, and our students in order to ensure rigor.
 Leadership is essential in creating the culture that supports this work.
Total
time:
20
min
August 2014—Page 8
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New York State Common Core
Section: Recognizing the Potential for Rigor in the Curriculum
In this section, participants will read a portion of a curriculum text
(“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised By Wolves”) and discuss
questions from the curriculum.
Materials used include: Session PowerPoint, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised
by Wolves” text excerpt
Slide
Time Picture
Script/Activity Directions
0 min
Transition to the Recognizing the Potential for Rigor in the Curriculum section
of the session.
6
August 2014—Page 9
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New York State Common Core
Slide
7
Time Picture
Script/Activity Directions
Provide 10 minutes for participants to reread (or read) Stage 1 and 2 of “St.
Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell.
30
min
Ask participants to consider the following as they read:


What makes this text complex and potentially rigorous for 9th graders?
What makes this text rich and potentially engaging for 9th graders?
Provide ten minutes for participants to discuss their responses.
Lead a brief (5 minute) whole group discussion of their observations, making
sure to address the following key points:


August 2014—Page 10
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This text has rich vocabulary, a straightforward, yet complex narrative
structure, complex characters, and multiple themes.
The vocabulary is particularly challenging and beautiful; and the
inferences students need to make to determine the key ideas in the text
can be challenging.
New York State Common Core
Slide
8
Time Picture
Script/Activity Directions
Instruct participants to take about 8 minutes and read the Unit Overview and
9.1.1 Lesson 1. Encourage participants to look for evidence of the article’s
perspectives about rigor. Notice:
15
min




The amount and type of homework
Teacher and student actions
The types of questions and support for reading closely
The amount of text considered each day
Ask participants to spend ten minutes discussing their findings in pairs. Lead a
brief report out, guiding participants to make the following connections:





Total
time:
45
min
August 2014—Page 11
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The curriculum deals with small pieces of text each day, but goes into
them deeply.
Questions are scaffolded to build toward key understandings slowly.
Questions focus on vocabulary as well as key ideas and other textual
elements.
Homework is closely tied to the learning goals of the lessons and is
designed to engage students in a deeper consideration of the content.
Teacher actions are designed to create space for students to consider
text while holding them to a high standard for academic thinking.
New York State Common Core
Section: Analyzying Rigory in Instruction: Video Analysis
In this section, participants will watch and analyze a short video of Materials used include: Sesssion PowerPoint, Video of instruction, Who’s
instruction to determine when students are thinking at high levels Thinking Now Note Catcher, Processing “Who’s Doing the Thinking” handout
and when the instructor is doing the thinking.
9
Transition Slide: Recognizing Rigor in Instruction.
0 min
August 2014—Page 12
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New York State Common Core
10
Explain the upcoming activity to participants. Tell them they will see a short
video excerpt from a classroom. They will watch the video once completely
through to understand what is happening. Then, they will watch it again and
use the Who’s Thinking Now Note Catcher in their materials packets to track
whether it is the teacher or the students who are doing the most thinking at a
given moment in the video.
20 min
Ask participants to watch the video. Play the video once, without stopping.
Ask participants to briefly discuss with a partner what they saw happening in
the video.
Ask participants to turn to the Who’s Thinking Now Note Catcher in their
materials. Instruct participants to watch the video again. Tell them that, this
time, you will stop the video at regular intervals and give the participants 60
seconds to capture 1) who is doing the bulk of the thinking in that moment and
2) why they think this is so.
Play the video a second time, stopping at regular intervals. (The intervals may
depend on available time for this activity or natural breaks in the lesson. Note:
the most powerful videos will come from your own site and your own teachers.)
Once participants have watched the video a second time, play it a third time
without stopping and ask participants to check their responses. Do they stand
by their selections?
August 2014—Page 13
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New York State Common Core
11
Total
time
Ask participants to turn to the Processing “Who’s Doing the Thinking” handout
in their materials packets. Ask each table group to select a facilitator. Then, ask
the groups to discuss each question using the following protocol:
10 min

1 minute: Group members write their response to the question silently.

3 minutes: Group members discuss their responses.

Once groups have discussed each of the questions, invite participants
to share some of their observations. These will vary widely, but should
demonstrate an awareness of some of the following ideas:

It is very difficult for a teacher working the room in the moment to keep
students doing the thinking much of the time.

It is easy to default to giving an answer and asking students to find
evidence for that answer.

Talking does not equal thinking. Thinking is more visible in the types of
talking—the processing, the analysis, not the connection making as
much or the “me too” statements. We need to go for the deep thinking.
30 min
Section: Reflection and Closing
In this section, you will reflect on your learning and consider
implication for practice.
Materials used include: Session PowerPoint
August 2014—Page 14
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New York State Common Core
Slide
Time
12
5 min
Picture
Script/Activity directions
Encourage participants to reflect on the concepts of adoption, revision, and
support. Have participants discuss the following questions, focusing on the
roles of all members of the instructional team, including leaders.


Total
time:
5 min
August 2014—Page 15
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How can this curriculum help teachers create “an environment in which
each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is
supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student
demonstrates learning at high levels”?
What needs to happen for teachers to be able to do this?
New York State Common Core
Turnkey Materials Provided








Session PowerPoint
Facilitator Guide
What is Rigor? handout
4 Myths about Rigor in the Classroom (available at http://static.pdesas.org/content/documents/M1-Slide_21_4_Myths_of_Rigor.pdf)
Curriculum Sampler:
o 9.1.1 Unit Overview
o 9.1.1 Lesson 4
Who’s Thinking Now Note Catcher
Processing “Who’s Doing the Thinking” handout
Take it Home Reflection Template
August 2014—Page 16
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