Navigating Non-fiction Reading and Writing

Based onClose Reading of Informational Texts

Assessment-Driven Instruction in Grades 3-8

by Sunday CummingsWorkshop leader: Deborah Hoover

Why and who

• The process of reading, observing and interpreting text deeply.

• Sunday Cummins blog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zdlbey9-Jc

• She is a regular contributor to GoodReads and Booklist online.

• She also has a blog on Facebook.

Why it’s important

• Close reading is a central focus of the Common Core State Standards.

• The purpose is to teach students to notice the features and language used by the author.

• Students are required to think thoroughly and methodically about details in a text.

• Ability to evaluate or critique what is written – print and digital versions.

More and more and more…

• The amount of information text students are reading is increasing exponentially.

• In addition to reading more informational text, students are being asked to read more complex texts in both print and digital formats.

• Students are creating more complex texts with global audiences.

Content Area Textbooks

Reference Resources

Non-fiction text – print and digital

Magazines

Webpages

Databases

Newspaper

Instructional Shift

• Move from instructing understanding how to read to reading to understand.

• Being able to read informational text closely across ALL content areas.

• Students must show how the author uses evidence to support their position, conclusion, or interpretation.

Issues for Students

• Requires effort by students to close read – must re-read selection multiple times.

• Close reading means students need to develop an automaticity of reading strategies becoming reading skills. Practice, practice, practice.

• Developing the ability to sustain close reading at the word, sentence, and paragraph level throughout the text in order to adequately summarize the author’s central idea(s).

Types of Nonfiction

• Survey – provides an overview on a topic, often have nouns as their title such as “Reptiles” or “Impressionism.”

• Concept books – focus on abstract ideas or classifications, like life cycles; this type dives deeply into a precise topic and may draw on both primary and secondary material as support evidence.

• Biographies – may focus on the life of one or several people.

Evaluating Non-fiction text

• Text Organization – outside, around and inside

• Author’s Word Choice – content specific vocabulary – strong or weak?

• Author’s Point of View – what did include and what they didn’t include?

Digging a hole

First shovel full – Pick Out the Key Idea and Details

• Skim and scan the text for the layout – strategic preview THIEVES strategy

• Determine the text organization• Determine the main idea* and supporting

details• Connect the text to background knowledge

Digging a hole

Second shovel full – Craft and Structure• Chunk text into manageable pieces• Text features• Text organization• Content vocabulary – author’s word choice• Can answer higher order questions

Digging a hole

Third shovel full – Integration of Knowledge and Ideas/Author’s Point of View

• Synthesize and analyze information from another text source.*

• Record thinking in written form to demonstrate understanding.

• Can cite evidence.• Can answer more complex questions.

Suitcase analogy

Developmental levels of meta-cognitive knowledge

• Tacit learners – lack awareness of what is inside “their suitcase.”

• Aware learner reflect upon their decisions for a “successful trip.” – know their destination but make NO adjustments for “their trip.”

• Strategic learners – are able to repack or reorganize and reflect upon their decisions for a “successful trip.”

• Reflective learners – can repack, reorganize and reflect upon their decisions for a successful trip.” END GOAL!!!

Engagement

• Reader MUST meet the author at the point of comprehension.

• How to promote this?????• Curricular texts – mentor text/partner reads.• Free voluntary reading.

Text Talker Activities

Begin with verbal practice then move on to written practice.

• According to the text…• The author stated…• The illustration/chart/graph/map shows…• I know because…• In the text it said…• In paragraph ____ it said…• I can infer from …• An example in paragraph ____ is ….

Close Reading Strategies

• Paraphrase – read each sentence, infer what it means & write it in your own words.

• Summarize – use the main points from a section of a text & write a brief statement.

• Ask critical questions – questions that you go back & answer questions that help you analyze.

• Analyze – to infer the author’s perspective & purpose make implications, identify key concepts & ask critical questions.

• Evaluate – critique & judge clarity & precision synthesis, logic, relevance & significance.

Key to success

• Embed lessons within multiple content areas that build upon one another so students get multiple opportunities to practice with a variety of applications – authentic learning.

Transferring to writing

• “By the end of fourth grade students should be able to develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details quotations and other information/examples related to the topic.”

Common Core StandardsGrade 3 students Grade 5 students Grade 8 students

Ask and answer questions understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for answers.

Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text say explicitly and when drawing inferences form the text.

Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.

Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.

Determine the central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.

PA Core Sample• CC1.2 Reading Informational Text: students read, understand and respond to informational

texts with emphasis on comprehension, making connections among ideas and between texts with focus on textual evidence.

Grade 3• CC1.2.3B Ask and answer questions about the text and make inferences from the text, refer

to text to support responses.• CC1.23D Explain the point of view of the author.• CC1.2.3E Use text features and search tools to locate and interpret information.• CC1.2.3G Use information gained from text features to demonstrate understanding of the

text.• CC1.2.3H Describe how an author connects sentences and paragraphs in a text to support a

particular point.• CC1.2.3I Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two

texts on the same topic.• CC1.2.3L Read and comprehend literary nonfiction and informational text on grade level

reading independently and proficiently.

Essential Skills of Close Reading

• Prior knowledge of the topic, text structure, content area or academic vocabulary.

• Setting the purpose for reading by previewing text strategically.

• Self-monitoring for meaning.• Determining importance.• Synthesizing.

Characteristics

• Multiple readings of same topic through different texts

• Focus on a short passage – (complex text).• Build understandings of key take-aways in the

text• Practice with both fiction and non-fiction as

well as genres of both categories.

Teaching for automaticity

• Tapping into one’s prior knowledge related to informational text structure.

• Topical and vocabulary knowledge.*• Setting a purpose for reading – scaffold.• Self-monitoring for meaning – meta-cognition.• Determining what is important – practice note

taking.• Synthesizing – evaluating and merging information.• Teach for varying reading purposes.

Non-fiction Text Structures

• Different from the structures typically used in literature such as description/definition/example, sequence/time order, comparison, problem-solution…

• Instead focus is on teaching students to recognize these structures as techniques author use to build texts.

Complex Text

• The issue of identifying definitive text structures is more difficult the more complex the text.

• To introduce more complex text begin with what students are already familiar with – such as a textbook and incorporate the investigation skills & strategies of identifying the text structures used while reading it.

Micro and Macro

• Micro level of text structure – word, sentence and paragraph construction.

• Macro level – how the micro structures build to form a pattern, the big picture.

• Complex text will require readers to think about domain specific vocabulary and topical background knowledge as well as how the author is structuring the language to convey the content.

Building research skills

• If students can determine what is and isn’t important in text they can more easily compare and contrast different texts on the same subject.

• Must be able to do that in order to think critically and independently.

Setting Purpose for Reading

• Purposes are central to any reading.• Identifying purpose from writer’s and reader’s

perspectives.• Different purposes require different levels of

reading focus needed.• Initial purpose for reading can shift and

deepen as you read further.

Flexibility

• Reader’s begin with identification of purpose for reading.

• Next step is to recognize how authors indicate to the reader to make a shift in purpose.

• Final step is to develop the flexibility to adjust their purposes for reading from one text to another or even from one paragraph to the next.

Determining what is important

• Trash and Treasure• Pasta analogy • Synthesis activity – graphic organizer

Content (Facts) Process (Thinking)

Unpacking the standard

Grades 3-8 should be able to:• Determine which key words or phases in a text reveal the

author’s central ideas.• Identify other key words or phrases that lead to important

supporting details.• Explain why certain details support the author’s central

idea(s).• Combine key words or phrases in a coherent or logically

consistent way to create and objectively correct oral or written summary.

Cite the Evidence

• Start by having students verbally justify their answers – turn the prompt around.

• Move on to written responses with prompts that must be justified with evidence.

• Building up to citing evidence when taking notes.

• Notes with cited evidence provide a skeletal framework for stronger writing.

Cite the Evidence Activity

Identify Author’s Purpose

Post –it NoteEvidence

Fact 1

Post –it NoteEvidence

Fact 2

Post –it NoteEvidence

Fact 3

Post –it NoteEvidence

Fact 4

Post –it NoteEvidence

Fact 5

Post –it NoteEvidence

Fact 6

Roadblocks

• Need for vertically consistent scaffolding of skills.

• Takes students longer to close read text.• Many content area texts are poorly written

and not student friendly.

Synthesis

• Framed photograph analogy.• Application of analogy to reading.• Students move from just summarizing to

summarizing AND synthesizing.• Synthesizing knowledge is the ultimate

purpose of close reading.• Being able to synthesize across multiple texts

is called researching.