What Will the Future Bring? A Narrow Window of Opportunity to Get

Comprehension Instruction Right!!!

Slides posted at www.scienceandliteracy.org

P. David PearsonUC Berkeley

A Confluence of Opportunity

A model of comprehension processes The Construction-Integration model of Walter Kintsch.

A framework that can be used to shape instruction in a productive and flexible manner The Four Resources Model of Peter Freebody and Allan Luke

A policy lever that can be used to frame the accountability system to which we hitch our wagon The Common Core Standards for English Language Arts

An assessment framework that could shape the terms of our accountability system The National Assessment of Educational Progress

A new rhetorical frame Deeper Learning

Could the Stars be Aligned?

Let’s unpack each of these components a littleSee how they fit togetherSee where they might take us in terms of curriculum and

pedagogyDiscuss the ways in which it could all unravel

THE CONFLUENCE…

Common CoreKintschFour ResourcesNAEP

The Common Core Standards…

Just to remind us

College and Career Readiness Standards

Common Core State Standards (grade by grade)

Assessments to measure their mastery

10 recurring standards for College and Career Readiness

Show up grade after grade

In more complex applications to more sophisticated texts

Across the disciplines of literature, science, and social studies

Affordances of the CCS

An uplifting vision based on our best research on the nature of reading comprehension

Focus on results rather than meansIntegrated model of literacyShared responsibility (text in subject matter learning)

Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the close, attentive, reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature.

They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to pick carefully through the staggering amount of information available today in print and digitally.

They actively seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens world views.

They reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence essential to both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic.

An Uplifting Vision: ELA CCSS

Focus on results rather than means*

Why? Leave a place for each lower level to add its own signature Some decisions about means really are local Appropriate role for a larger body politic

Balance between our goals and our methods

*This is one issue on which there is reason to be concerned. Pick up later.

From the ELA Standards Document…

By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed.

Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning.

Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards.”

Integrated Model of Literacy

Two views of integration Integrated Language Arts Integration between ELA and disciplines

The CCSS are better on the interdisciplinary than on the ELA integration

Corresponds to the actual uses to which reading and writing are put.

Reading, writing, and language always serve specific purposes Reading and writing, not generically, But about something in particular

The something in particular

What reading, writing and language look like in a domainThe information for a particular topic or unit or chapterThe information in a particular text

Our current view of curriculum

Lang

uage

Art

s

Mat

hem

atic

s

Soci

al S

tudi

es

Scie

nce

A model I like: Tools by Disciplines

Science Social Studies

Mathe-matics

Literature

Reading

Writing

Language

Academic Disciplines………..La

ngua

ge To

ols

Early: Tools dominate

Science Social Studies

Mathe-matics

Literature

Reading

Writing

Language

Academic Disciplines………..La

ngua

ge To

ols

Later: Disciplines dominate

Science Social Studies

Mathematics

Literature

Reading

Writing

Language

Academic Disciplines………..La

ngua

ge To

ols

Weaving is even a better metaphor than a matrix

mathliterature

Social studiesScience

ReadingWriting Language

ScienceW

riting

Read

ing

Lang

uage

Social Studies

LiteratureMathematics

Shared Responsibility

English and Subject MatterWhat we said before, reading and writing are always

situated in a topic and a purpose.Knowledge fuels comprehension and writing.Reading and writing, along with experience and

instruction, fuel knowledge.Reading and writing and language work better when they

are “tools” for the acquisition of Knowledge Insight Joy

Why sharing now?

The gap for college and workplace readinessThe increasing demands of an informational societyFinally addressing a problem that has always been thereIncreasing awareness among disciplinary scholars

April 23, 2010 edition of Science.

The historical pathway to Kintsch’s Construction Integration Model

Text

Reader

Context

Reading Comprehension

Most models of reading have tried to explain how reader factors, text factors and context factors interact when readers make meaning.

Text

Reader

Context

Reading

The bottom up cognitive models of the 60s were very text centric, as was the “new criticism” model of literature from the 40s and 50s (I.A. Richards)

Reading Comprehension

Bottom up and New Criticism: Text-centric

Pedagogy for Bottom up and New Criticism: Text-centric

Since the meaning is in the text, we need to go dig it out…

Leads to Questions that Interrogate the facts of the text Get to the “right” interpretation

Writerly readings or textual readings

Text

Reader

Context

The schema based cognitive models of the 70s and the reader response models (Rosenblatt) of the 80s focused more on reader factors--knowledge or interpretation mattered most

Reading Comprehension

Schema and Reader Response: Reader-centric

Pedagogy for Reader-centric

• Since the meaning is largely in the reader, we need to go dig it out…

• Spend a lot of time on– Building background knowledge– Inferences needed to build a coherent model

of meaning– Readers’ impressions, expressions, unbridled

response• Readerly readings

Text

Reader

Context

Reading

The sociocultural models of the 90s focused on the central role of context (purpose, situation, discourse community)

Reading Comprehension

Critical literacy models: Context-centric

• Since the meaning is largely in the context, we need to go dig it out…

• Questions that get at the social, political and economic underbelly of the text– Whose interests are served by this text?– What is the author trying to get us to

believe?– What features of the text contribute to the

interpretation that money is evil?

Pedagogy for Critical literacy models

Text

Reader

Context

In Kintsch’s model, Reader and Text factors are balanced, and context plays a “background” role--in purpose and motivation.

Reading Comprehension

CI: Balance Reader and Text: little c for context

• Since the meaning is in this reader text interface, we need to go dig it out…

• Query the accuracy of the text base.– What is going on in this part here where it

says…– What does it mean when it says…– I was confused by this part…

• Ascertain the situation model.– So what is going on here? – What do you know that we didn’t know

before?

Pedagogical implications for CI

KintschModel

3Knowledge Base Text

1Text Base

2Situation Model

Inside theReader’shead

Out in the world

Experience

NAEP

Locate and RecallInterpret and IntegrateCritique and Evaluate

Common Core

Standards 1-3: Key ideas and detailsStandards 4-6: Craft and structureStandards 7-9: Integration of knowledge and ideas

Key ideas and detailsCraft and structureIntegration of knowledge

and ideasRange and level of text

complexity

Locate and RecallInterpret and IntegrateCritique and Evaluate

Complexity is specified but implicit not explicit

CCSS NAEP

Consistent with Cognitive Views of Reading

Kintsch’s Construction-Integration ModelBuild a text baseConstruct a “situation” modelPut the knowledge gained to work by applying it to novel

situations.

What the text saysWhat the text meansWhat the text does

Locate and RecallIntegrate and InterpretCritique and Evaluate

DecoderMeaning Maker

User/Analyst/Critic

Key Ideas and DetailsIntegration of Knowledge and Ideas

Craft and Structure

Kintsch 4 Resources NAEP CCSSText Base Decoder Locate and Recall Key Ideas and

DetailsSituation Model Meaning Maker Interpret and

IntegrateIntegration of Knowledge and Ideas

Put Knowledge to Work

Text Analyst Critique and Evaluate

Craft and Structure

Says

Means

Does

Kintchian Model

3Knowledge Base Text

1Text Base

2Situation Model

Inside the head Out in the world

Experience

Says

Means

Does>>>>>>>>>

Reader as Decoder

Reader as Meaning Maker

Reader as Text User/Analyst/Critic

These consistencies provide…

CredibilityStretchResearch “patina”

How could this all unravel?

We instantiate one or more of the components inaccurately.

My candidates for conspiracies of good intentions Close Reading: What the right hand giveth the left hand taketh away Giving up on a tough assessment agenda

Close Reading

From literature classesWhat do you think?What makes you think so?All about warranting claims about what the text means.Thrilled when I saw the distribution of the first 9 CCSSBut…

www.corestandards.org/assets/Publishers_Criteria_for_3-12.pdf

The nature of the texts

C. Shorter, challenging texts that elicit close reading and re-reading are provided regularly at each grade. The study of short texts is particularly useful to enable students at a

wide range of reading levels to participate in the close analysis of more demanding text.

Such reading focuses on what lies within the four corners of the text.

Questions and Tasks

A. A significant percentage of tasks and questions are text dependent. The standards strongly focus on students gathering evidence,

knowledge, and insight from what they read and therefore require that a majority of the questions and tasks that students ask and respond to be based on the text under consideration. Rigorous text-dependent questions require students to demonstrate that they not only can follow the details of what is explicitly stated but also are able to make valid claims that square with all the evidence in the text.

Text-dependent questions do not require information or evidence from outside the text or texts; they establish what follows and what does not follow from the text itself

D. Questions and tasks require careful comprehension of the text before asking for further evaluation or interpretation. The Common Core State Standards call for students to demonstrate a

careful understanding of what they read before engaging their opinions, appraisals, or interpretations. Aligned materials should thereforerequire students to demonstrate that they have followed the details and logic of an author’s argument before they are asked to evaluate the thesis or compare the thesis to others.

Materials make the text the focus of instruction by avoiding features that distract from the text. Teachers’ guides or students’ editions of curriculum materials should

highlight the reading selections. Everything included in the surrounding materials should be thoughtfully considered and justified before being included.

Given the focus of the Common Core State Standards, publishers should be extremely sparing in offering activities that are not text based.

5. The VAST unknown: CCSS and Assessment

Assessments will make or break the CCSS movementThis is where we decide whether the movement is

Opportunity for reform Or Same old, same old

If assessments are not changed, these standards will not make an iota of difference in teaching and learning

Short version of assessment…

With these standards, we’ll never get there with…Multiple Choice or even short answer assessments as the primary

focusThese standards require us to engage kids in

Multiple day performance exams Read within and across texts Focus on project-based learning Deeper learning

Have to return the the excitement of the mid 90s and get it right this time.

I give PARCC and Smarter Balanced a 70% chance of getting it right

108

The Players in the Assessment Game

Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers: PARCC

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium: SBAC.State AssessmentsNAEPTesting Industry

Constraints Common Core Standards Assessment consortia frameworks

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)

Different audiences and purposes (summative/formative/diagnostic)Affordances

Learning progressions Computer adaptive testing Automated and distributed scoring Improved psychometric tools

PARCC Signal & model good instruction Rich & rigorous performance tasks

SBAC Empirically validate descriptions of learning

progressions

Through-Course, Interim/Benchmark Assessment Visions

Should: reflect the interactive and multidimensional nature of

comprehension assess readers’ abilities to understand, learn from, and use

text to accomplish specific purposes provide transparent models of the demands of skilled

reading across a range of grades, disciplines, tasks provide strong and informative predictors of success in

college, careers, and K-12

Through-Course Comprehension Assessments & Learning Progressions

From Pearson, Valencia, and Wixson

An assumption/prediction?

Whatever model we develop, it is likely to be a hybrid model. Item format

Multiple Choice Constructed Response Performance Tasks

Passage issues Length and authenticity Disciplines—Literature, Science and History

Efficiency

Instructional Validity

Deeper Learning

My focus

Given ourvast experience with MC and CR, I’ll focus on performance tasks…

Except to say that well developed theories of mc items, along with equally well-developed theories about classes of distractors, are really important to decision validity and the information value of test items.

We need to learn something from each and every response a student makes, not just the right ones.

Performance Tasks: Why bother?

External validity College ready Career ready

Curricular validity Powerful learning Deeper learning

Consequential validity What curricular activities will it lead teachers and students toward?

Sample Extended Constructed Response Items (taken from CCSS)

9-10 ELA, Informational--Students analyze how Abraham Lincoln in his “Second Inaugural Address” unfolds his examination of the ideas that led to the Civil War, paying particular attention to the order in which the points are made, how Lincoln introduces and develops his points, and the connections that are drawn between them.

11-12, ELA, Informational--Students delineate and evaluate the argument that Thomas Paine makes in Common Sense. They assess the reasoning present in his analysis, including the premises and purposes of his essay.

Sample Extended Constructed Response Items (taken from CCSS)

11-12, ELA, Drama--Students compare two or more recorded or live productions of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman to the written text, evaluating how each version interprets the source text and debating which aspects of the enacted interpretations of the play best capture a particular character, scene, or theme.

11-12, ELA Poetry--Students cite strong and thorough textual evidence from John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” to support their analysis of what the poem says explicitly about the urn as well as what can be inferred about the urn from evidence in the poem. Based on their close reading, students draw inferences from the text regarding what meanings the figures decorating the urn convey as well as noting where the poem leaves matters about the urn and its decoration uncertain.

Sample Extended Constructed Response Items (taken from CCSS)

11-12, Informational Texts: Science--Students analyze the concept of mass based on their close reading of Gordon Kane’s “The Mysteries of Mass” and cite specific textual evidence from the text to answer the question of why elementary particles have mass at all. Students explain important distinctions the author makes regarding the Higgs field and the Higgs boson and their relationship to the concept of mass

Example of a New Standards Task from mid 1990s

Man and His MessageMLK6-8 days, depending on class timeCulminating task: write an essay based upon choosing one

of several prompt options.

Pearson

Texts Encountered

A video about the Civil Rights Movement entitled, A Time for Justice. An article about the Civil Rights Movement entitled, Confrontations. An article about Ghandi from Scholastic's SEARCH magazine. An oral rendition of King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Printed versions of other King speeches. An excerpt from a Time magazine account of the Rodney King riots in

East Central Los Angeles. Two CNN video accounts of the riots: Rage of Despair and Roots of the

Problem.

Tasks Completed over the Period

collaboratively complete separate cognitive webs on key concepts from the readings (Martin Luther King, Civil Rights Movement, Non-Violent Resistance).

keep an ongoing log/chart of emerging learnings from all the different texts (written, oral, or video).

answer straightforward "assignment-like" questions.compare the similarities and differences between King and Ghandi

in a modified Venn diagram display.the culminating essayEVERYTHING can be scored

Affordances

Has the look and feel of powerful or deeper learningEngages students in workplace like behaviors, including social

behaviorsExpands our conceptualization of what counts as a textHigh capacity for engagement: interest and relevanceMaps onto many of the Common Core Standards for reading in

HistoryCould build professional community of teachers around

implementation and scoring

Constraints

Whose work is it anyway? The inevitable dilemma of collaboration

Not just reading (video and audio texts)

The usual suspects for performance tasks Task generalizability Scoring costs

Domain coverage What counts for which standards

Example of a MEAP Inspired Pilot Task circa 2000 for a Local Michigan District

School-wide Comprehension Assessment

Instructionally embedded (took a week out of the LA block) Multiple text Listening and reading Reliance on multiple choice questions

Individual texts Cross texts

Written Response to Reading Position taken in response to the prompt question Support from personal experience Support from texts Counts for both writing and reading comprehension depending on the

rubric used

Listening: Sister Anne’s Hands

Multiple Choice Question Stemsfacts, relationships, inferences

This story is mostly about…Sister Anne showed determination when she said…What did Sister Anne mean when she said, “For me, I’d rather open

my door enough to let everyone in”?The children learned much from Sister Anne. This selection tells us

that…

Kate Shelly and the Midnight Express

Multiple Choice Question Stems facts, relationships, inferences

An important lesson of this story is… How are Kate and her mother different? In this selection, how do you know Kate showed determination and

bravery when crossing the Des Moines River Bridge? Because Kate followed through, how would you predict she will face

problems in the future? What dialogue does the author use to show you Kate has determination? How do you know this story takes place in the past?

A Day’s Work

Multiple Choice Question Stems facts, relationships, inferences

By showing determination, Francisco… An important lesson from this selection is… In this selection, why did Francisco and Grandpa leave the weeds? This selection is not only about determination, it is also about… Why did the author have Grandpa and Francisco speak in Spanish?

Cross Text Mult Choice Stems facts, relationships, inferences

What important advice would both Grandpa and Kate give?In both reading selections you read about main characters who…How are Francisco and Kate different?How were the characters rewarded for showing determination and

following through?

Applying Ideas to a Task

If you were trying to do something that was very hard, and you did not think you could get it done, would you keep trying or quit? Use examples from the two stories we read to support your decision.

Scoring

Answers question orresponds to theme

Answers question and refers toideas in one text

Answers questions and uses ideas from at leastone story to support position taken.

Answers questions by making connections betweenreadings and using ideas from both readings to support

position taken

Writing in Response to ReadingPoint Score 6

The student clearly and effectively chooses key or important ideas from each reading selection to support a position on the question and to make a clear connection between the reading selections. The point of view and connection are thoroughly developed with appropriate examples and details. There are no misconceptions about the reading selections. There are strong relationships among ideas. Mastery of language use and writing conventions contributes to the effect of the response.

Affordances

In the direction of powerful and deeper learning, but…Only one task for rubric-based scoringPretty good coverage of a range of cognitive targets vis a

vis question types.

Constraints

Does the reliance on MC format compromise its position vis a vis powerful and deeper learning?

Limited to a single discipline—literatureLimited to a single genre—narrativeLimited to a single medium—text

Looking Ahead

Lots of dilemmas to manageBack to the future and déjà vu all over againTake advantage of new technologies, tools, and

understandings

Dilemmas to Manage

Social nature of embedded tasksDomain coverage

Enabling skills or just the big outcomesDependence/independence across

Standards/cognitive targets/itemsIssues of equity across populations, especially ELL and

LD populations

Déjà vu all over again

Build on what workedFace the music on

Intertask generalizability Scoring reliability and cost

Take advantage of new tools and technologies

Learning progressions (see SBAC) But they are hard and different in reading Discipline, topic, and text play a MAJOR role in shaping item

difficultyWe’ll just have to see how things scale in IRT modelsComputerized scoring, but…

Easily corruptible Will clever kids learn how to school the systems?

Computer adaptive testing Garbage in-Garbage out

The promise of the ELA CCSS will not be realized unless we create a new generation of reading assessments that capitalize on the knowledge gained in recent decades and the visions for the future.

FINAL THOUGHT ABOUT ASSESSMENT

Wending our way through yet another perilous policy landscape…

1. A confluence of forces pointing us in the same direction2. A wonderful opportunity3. Some forces that can cause it all to unravel

Old Chinese Proverb

May you live in interesting times…