Mini Glossary
Term
Analytical
Skills
CCSS
Context
Depth of
Knowledge
(DOK)
Definition
Analytical skills involve processing and applying information. They include
the ability to solve simple and complex problems, express and support
positions, analyze texts of all types, express ideas clearly, critique the
reasoning of others, etc. Analytical skills and practices form the core of
college- and career-ready standards.
Common Core State Standards
This term is derived from Latin, meaning “a joining together” of external
sources of information (schemas) with internal concepts (e.g., memories).
It is also defined as a frame (e.g., background information, schema) that
surrounds an event being examined and provides resources for
appropriate interpretation (Duranti & Goodwin, 1992). As Fillmore
observed, “When you pick up a word, you drag along with it a whole
scene” (Fillmore, 1975, p. 114). Cummins (2000) describes effects of
context on communication:
 Context-embedded communication: Participants can actively
negotiate meaning (e.g., by providing feedback that the message
has not been understood), and a wide range of meaningful
interpersonal and situational cues supports language.
 Context-reduced communication: Participants rely primarily on
linguistic cues to make meaning, and thus, successful
interpretation of the message depends heavily on knowledge of
the language itself. (p. 68)
Webb’s (1997, 2002) Depth of Knowledge (DOK) schema and chart are
tools that educators can use to analyze and identify the cognitive
complexity of a task, standard, or assessment. A DOK chart, for example,
can be used to identify the analytical skills that students must engage in to
complete a particular task and the skills’ relative cognitive complexity.
Source
http://www.core
standards.org/
http://ell.www.es
u13.org/modules
/locker/files/get_
group_file.phtml
?gid=1519707&fi
d=25247183
Webb, N. (March
28, 2002). Depth
of knowledge
levels for four
content areas.
Wisconsin
Center of
Educational
Research,
University of
WisconsinMadison.
Discourse
As defined in the ELP Standards, discourse is language used in a particular
context, such as the academic discourse of a science classroom compared
to the social discourse of the playground. Different types of discourse call
for different vocabulary, phrases, structures, and language registers.
According to Gee (1999), language is always used from a certain
perspective and always occurs within a particular context; thus there is no
neutral use of language.
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
English
Language
As defined by the CCSSO, Proficiency Level Descriptors for English
Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards, ELP is “a socially constructed notion
(CCSSO, 2012, p.
107)
Proficiency
(ELP)
English
Language
Proficiency
(ELP)
Standards
Funds of
Knowledge
of the ability or capacity of individuals to use language for specific
purposes” (CCSSO, 2012, p. 107). Also referred to by some as English
language development (ELD). Multiple pathways to ELP are possible, but
the end goal for students’ progress in acquiring English is to ensure full
participation of ELLs in school contexts.
The ELP Standards address the types of language proficiency that ELLs
need to develop as they engage in content-area practices.
As defined on page 1 of the ELP Standards, Funds of Knowledge include
second language learners’ primary languages as well as other social,
cultural, and linguistic background knowledge and resources they bring to
situations (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992).
"Language as
Action"
A perspective that understands language to be “intimately connected to all
other forms of action, physical, social, and symbolic” and thus an
“expression of agency, embodied and embedded in the environment” (Van
Lier & Walqui, 2012, p. 4). In other words, students are using language to
do something.
Language
Demands
Language
Domains
Language
Forms
This phrase refers to the “language that students are required to
understand and use during a particular task or activity.”
Reading, writing, speaking, listening
Language
Functions
As defined on page 1 of the ELP Standards, language functions are what
students do with language to accomplish content-specific tasks. Gibbons
(1993) refers to language functions as the purposes for which language is
used in the classroom.
Linguistic
Output
Refers to the production of language. Educators should provide ELLs with
communicative tasks that require students to create the sustained output
necessary for second language development.
Modalities
As defined by the ELP Standards, modalities are the means or manner by
which communication takes place. The three modalities are receptive,
As defined on page 1 of the ELP Standards, language forms are the
vocabulary, grammar, and discourse specific to a particular content area or
discipline. In this module, we define language forms as being made up of
language structures and cross-curricular academic vocabulary.
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
"Realizing
Opportunities for
English Learners
in the Common
Core English
Language Arts
and Disciplinary
Literacy
Standards"
(Bunch, Kibler,
Pimental, 2013)
Module 2
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
(Gibbons, 1993)
(See Principle 7 in
Principles of
Instructed
Second Language
Acquisition.)
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
productive, and interactive. The four language domains of reading, writing,
listening, and speaking are contained within these three modalities.
Receptive
Language
Modality
Productive
Language
Modality
Refers to a situation where the learner as a reader/listener/viewer is
working with “‘text' whose author or deliverer is not present or accessible”
(Phillips, 2008, p. 96).
Refers to a situation where the learner is a speaker and/or writer for an
audience. According to Phillips (2008) the language or text produced is a
planned or formalized speech act or written document that the learner has
an opportunity to draft, get feedback, and revise before publication or
broadcast (Phillips, 2008, p. 96).
Interactive
Language
Modality
Collaborative use of receptive and productive modalities. This mode refers
to the learner as a speaker/listener [AND] reader/writer. It requires twoway interactive communication where negotiation of meaning may be
observed. These exchanges provide evidence of awareness of the sociocultural aspects of communication as language proficiency develops
(Philips, 2008, p. 96).
Register (i.e.
language
register)
The types or levels of language traditionally used in different situations.
(Some examples of registers are frozen, formal, consultative, casual,
intimate).
Practices
As defined by the ELP Standards, the term practices refers to behaviors
that developing student practitioners should increasingly use when
engaging with the content and growing in content-area maturity and
expertise throughout their elementary, middle, and high school years.
Often referred to as “disciplinary practices.”
Science
Practices (SP)
The NGSS Science and Engineering Practices. These practices describe the
behaviors that scientists engage in as they investigate and build models
and theories about the natural world and the key set of engineering
practices that engineers use as they design and build models and systems.
The Science and Engineering Practices “describe behaviors that scientists
engage in as they investigate and build models and theories about the
natural world” (NGSS, 2013).
Mathematical
Practices (MP)
The CCSS math practices describe ways in which developing student
practitioners of mathematics should increasingly engage with the subject
matter as they grow in content-area maturity and expertise throughout
their elementary, middle, and high school years.
English
Language Arts
Practices (EP)
The CCSS English practices describe ways in which developing student
practitioners of ELA should increasingly engage with the subject matter as
they grow in content-area maturity and expertise throughout their
elementary, middle, and high school years. The practices are student
actions, not teaching practices. Developed for the ELPD Framework for
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf (page 7 of
the ELP
Standards)
(Phillips, 2008, p.
96)
(Phillips, 2008, p.
96)
(Phillips, 2008, p.
96)
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf (p. 212)
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
CCSS by ELA writer Susan Pimentel as analogous to the existing
mathematics and science & engineering practices, but not found in the
original CCSS for ELA.
pdf
Scaffolding
As defined in Appendix A of the CCSS ELA & Literacy Standards, this refers
to guidance or assistance provided to students by a teacher, another adult,
or a more capable peer. This assistance enables the students to perform
tasks that they otherwise would not be able to perform alone, with the
goal of fostering the students’ capacity to perform the tasks on their own
later on. Pedagogically, a scaffold is the support offered to students so that
they can successfully engage in activity beyond their current ability to
perform independently.
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
Sentence
Structures
As defined in the ELP Standards and the Proficiency Level Descriptors,
sentence structures include simple, compound, complex sentences, and
the range of other sentence structures.
Task Analysis
This is a structured process during which educators unpack an academic
task to identify the knowledge and skills students will be required to
demonstrate in order to perform the task successfully.
http://www.elpa
21.org/sites/defa
ult/files/Final%20
4_30%20ELPA21
%20Standards_1.
pdf
Module 2