09: Classroom Conversations

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 11.33.58 AM

 

  • Pitfalls of Many Classroom Discussions:
    • mainly teacher monologues
    • 80% teacher speaking, 20% students talking if lucky
    • missing student explanations
    • uses quick checks for comprehension without elaboration
    • struggling students talk the least
    • focus on fast delivery of information
  • Benefits of Facilitating Classroom Conversations:
    • can assess student understanding in real time
    • less reteach
    • students are more active in their own learning
  • Strategies for Facilitating Good Classroom Conversations:
    • Break up teacher monologues with student processing time. During student processing time, students discuss with their neighbor what they think is important and what they find confusing.  After giving students pair discussion time, call on individual students randomly to share what they thought was confusing and what they thought was important.
    • Use rich visuals and vocab cards (see p. 9 and 10 in slides).  Ask students which words on vocab cards appear in visuals and explain why.
    • Use vocab cards with research and workshops.  After reading a passage or going through a couple workshop slides, ask which words were featured and what was learned related to those words.
    • Use sentence stems to scaffold conversations.
    • Use Better Together protocol: Periodically pause during workshop that students are annotating.  During pause, students compare notes with a partner.  Using comparison to add missing details to notes.
    • Always / Sometimes / Never: Display statements that are true or true-ish.  Ask students to identify which statements are always, sometimes and never true.  Also, ask students to create statements about topics that are always, sometimes, and never true.
    • Use sentence stems and vocabulary cards to scaffold synthesizing academic conversations within teams or between partners.
3-sowhat
Knowing common pitfalls of classroom discussion can help teachers identify these and replace them with better practices.  Knowing many strategies for facilitating good classroom conversations can help one scaffold academic conversations without becoming too repetitive.  Facilitating good academic conversations can help students become more active agents in their own learning and can provide another form of formative assessment.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Identify key vocabulary for upcoming project
  • Create vocabulary cards for key vocabulary – see page 9 in slides
  • Research and select scaffolding strategies for learning vocabulary and for facilitating academic conversations – see above for examples
  • Develop resources (graphic organizers, sentence stems, question sequences, etc) for selected scaffolding strategies
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement strategies for extending and deepening classroom conversations for ALL students
  • Use formative assessments to determine if classroom conversations are developing accurate content knowledge
  • Listen carefully to classroom conversation to determine if students are learning new content
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Identify practices that can be used repetitively (routines) to extend and deepen frequent academic conversations
  • Have students reflect on how practices are helping them achieve specific learning targets
  • Reflect on which strategies are creating the most engagement and most achievement for students
  • Use tech tools such as Wiki Talki to create more opportunities for students to get peer feedback on their academic oral responses to questions

08: Exploring the Challenge Zone

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 11.24.18 AM

 

  • Characteristics of Activities with High Intellectual Quality:
    • Higher order thinking
    • Disciplined inquiry
    • Construction of knowledge
    • Deeper knowledge & understanding
    • Transfer of knowledge to novel contexts
    • Analyze & synthesize information
    • Explaining ideas
    • Asking questions
    • Thinking creatively and critically
    • Designing and planning
    • Self assessing and reflecting
    • Cross curricular connections
    • Adult-like roles and tasks
    • Connect concrete and abstract knowledge
  • 7 Intellectual Practices
    1. Mimic thinking and reasoning patterns of content experts
    2. Transform learning for different audiences and contexts
    3. Sustained academic conversations
    4. Connect concrete and abstract knowledge
    5. Connect written, spoken and other forms of communication to make meaning
    6. Critique knowledge and information
    7. Use meta-language while learning (talking about language)
3-sowhat
.Characteristics of high intellectual quality and 7 intellectual practices can be used to create checklists to evaluate and revise a portfolio of scaffolding activities associated with a project.  The characteristics of high intellectual quality describe components of a good PBL unit.  This validates the work that goes into designing and implementing projects.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Develop checklists based on the characteristics of high intellectual quality and the 7 intellectual practices to evaluate groupings of scaffolding activities
  • Use checklists to identify what characteristics and practices are critical to scaffolding specific project products
  • Research strategies that relate to specific intellectual characteristics and practices
  • Design scaffolding that aligns to identified intellectual characteristics and practices
  • Design assessments that provide evidence that students are developing critical intellectual skills
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding activities that demonstrate intellectual characteristics and utilize intellectual practices that support specific project products
  • Use assessments to determine whether or not students are learning targeted intellectual skills
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Identify key characteristics and practices that need to be spiraled throughout the curriculum because they are vital to the discipline
  • Develop standardized routines and checklists that describe the critical skills and characteristics identified in previous bullet point
  • Use prompts to get students to reflect on the development of key intellectual skills over several projects
  • Create student friendly learning targets that describe various levels of intellectual skills
  • Communicate learning targets and use prompts to have students provide evidence that they are progressing towards the learning targets

 

5-relatedstuff

07: Scaffolding Academic Writing

1-sources

 

2-what

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 11.19.02 AM

 

  • 3 Functional Grammer Components:
    1. field: topic
    2. tenor: relationship between writer and audience
    3. mode: communication channel / style
  • Characteristics of Effective Writers:
    • Adjust language for purpose and audience
    • Organizes writing to meet specific purposes
    • Edits and revises
    • Uses writing models
    • Has prerequisite content knowledge
    • Explicit enough to generate understanding
    • Confident
  • Characteristics of Genres:
    • Particular organization
    • Specific social purpose
    • Unique language features associated with culture of discipline
  • Genre Type: Narrative
    • Purpose: entertainment, education
    • Organization: Orientation, Events, Complication, Resolution
    • Language features: sequenced in time, past tense, wide use of active tense, includes dialogue, descriptive language
  • Genre Type: Argument
    • Purpose: persuasion
    • Organization: statement of position, preview of arguments to follow, supporting arguments, supporting evidence, reaffirmation of position
    • Language features: logically sequenced, present tense (for generalizations), uses technical jargon, use evaluation vocabulary to suggest stance
  • Teaching Implications of Genres:
    • Social purpose of text affects language features
    • Can have hybrid genre, one embedded in another
    • Genres are descriptive, not prescriptive
    • Treat genres as useful (not static) prototypes
  • Scaffolding Writing Stages:
    • Build the field: All scaffolding that builds up related content and language knowledge
    • Model the genre: Develop student knowledge of focus genre
    • Joint construction: Using joint writing, think aloud, and questioning strategies to collaboratively write sample pieces of focus genre
    • Independent writing: Students use scaffolding from previous stages to write on their own.
    • Using a genre framework for assessment and revisions: Use framework (rubric, checklist, etc) that describes key genre features to assess and revise work
  • Implementation of Writing Stages:
    • Timing for stages? sprinkled over a whole unit, not one lesson
    • Use all 4? Depends on student prior knowledge
    • Use of other language? In all phases except the final one
    • Genre choice? Genre that makes sense for the content and context
  • Other Strategies for Students Who Need More Support:
    • Encourage drafting in native language
    • Storyboard – use pictures and words to create graphic outline
    • Reorder jumbled sentences that model key sequences in genre
    • Dialogue journal – teacher writes question, students answers, teacher responds
3-sowhat
.Knowing the functional grammar components for a targeted genres makes it easier to model and create scaffolding to support the learning of that genre.  Explicit teaching of specific functional grammar components can help students develop the skills of effectively writing within specific genres.  Knowing the phases for scaffolding writing can help one design and sequence activities that explicitly scaffold writing.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Identify the specific genre that makes sense for an upcoming project context
  • Research functional grammar components that go with targeted genre(s)
  • Develop scaffolding activities that go with all the 4 Stages needed by students (depends on their prior knowledge) – see above for 4 Stages
  • Collect good samples (models) of targeted genre
  • Develop genre checklist that lists all key features of the targeted genre
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding activities from all 4 (or less) stages of scaffolding writing during logical phases of project
  • Use models as conversation starters and demonstrations of key language features
  • Use peer and self feedback cycles and genre rubrics or checklists to assess and revise work more than once
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use writing routines and standardized checklists to create many repeated opportunities for students to deliberately practice writing in specific genres that are critical to one’s content
  • Use reflection prompts to make students aware of how their skills are developing over the course of several projects
  • Use evaluation routines/graphic organizers that have students provide evidence that they effectively used the key language features of targeted genres

 

5-relatedstuff

06: Scaffolding Academic Talk

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 9.54.04 AM

 

  • Form Focused & Meaning Focused Talk: Extend academic conversations by asking questions that recap and probe student meaning, not correct their language forms
  • Factors that Facilitate Second Language Learning:
    • Comprehensible Input: Key inputs include
      • Use mother tongue
      • Written / oral text
      • Pictures and diagrams
      • Graphic outlines
      • Prior learning and experiences
      • Demos
      • Gesturing and miming
      • Multimedia
      • Symbols
      • Multiple forms of expression
    • Comprehensible output: One useful form is a problem-solving dialogue aimed at learning concepts and related language simultaneously
    • Stretched or pushed language: Learner is pushed by context to talk outside comfort zone.
    • Negotiation of meaning: Conversations negotiate meanings by clarifying and questioning meanings of words.
    • Models of appropriate language: Use of think-alouds and sample products to model spoken and written academic language
    • Well-developed mother tongue: Bilingual opportunities allow learners to leverage full range of linguistic abilities
  • Making Teacher-Student Talk a Context for Language Learning:  Five ways to make teacher-student talk more supportive:
    1. Extend teacher-student exchanges
    2. Extend time for students to think
    3. Appropriate and recast language
    4. Encourage literate talk
    5. Make reasoning explicit
  • Traditional Classroom Talk (IRF): Traditional teacher-student exchanges has the IRF format: Inquire, Student Response, Teacher Feedback.  This format can lead to short teacher-student exchanges.
  • Extending Traditional Classroom Talk:  Strategies include:
    • Give clues
    • Give several opportunities to respond
    • Give extending thinking time
    • Pair share between pairs of students allows student to process before teacher asks students questions
    • Use spoken interactions to model written reflections
    • Ask open-ended questions
    • Appropriate and repeat student talk using academic language
    • Encourage students to use more formal language
    • Ask students to reason aloud; ask probing questions to make reasoning steps more explicit
    • Ask question sequences that model problem solving processes
    • Respond to student meanings; refrain from correcting spoken language forms
    • Treat students as conversational partners
    • Give ALL students opportunities to speak
    • Let students practice speaking in small groups before calling on them in whole group conversations

 

3-sowhat
Extending academic conversations is a craft that can be learned and used to great effect.  Extended academic conversations can teach students academic vocabulary and reasoning and problem solving processes.  Being aware of comprehensible inputs and outputs can help one plan for academic conversations that are productive for ALL learners.  Being aware of the short IRF exchange pattern is a first step to breaking and extending that conversation pattern.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Research key language, concepts, and practices
  • Script probing questions that highlight steps in key reasoning and problem solving processes
  • Script open ended questions that can start extended academic conversations
  • Research and gather multiple types of comprehensive inputs to teach key concepts and terms
  • Research strategies for including ALL students in classroom conversations
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement strategies that include ALL students in classroom conversations
  • Implement strategies that extend classroom conversations – See above
  • Be aware of short IRF exchanges as they occur and make efforts to extend these exchanges
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use technology tools such as Wiki Talki to record academic talk and provide peer feedback.  These tools can increase frequency of feedback on academic talk.
  • Develop, teach, and use routines that students repetitively use to speak and write about reasoning and problem solving
  • Use sentence stem visuals repetitively to scaffold student think aloud’s, reflections, and other academic conversations
5-relatedstuff

05: Engaging in Academic Literacy

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 9.50.42 AM

 

  • Implement a Janus curriculum: Develop academic language based on what students already know: Key strategies include:
    • Build new knowledge on top of prior knowledge
    • Use personal narratives to start lessons
    • Prior to reading text, brainstorm what words might appear in text and supplement with words in text that might challenge students; discuss those words using everyday language.
  • Model the use of academic language in your interactions with students: Key strategies include
    • Give students opportunities to make content-related observations.
    • Appropriate student observations and recast them in more academic language.
    • Move back and forth between everyday and academic language to create multiple opportunities to learn new terms.
  • Talk about language: Develop a meta-language with students: Key strategies include:
    • Talk about language to show how it works to express ideas more concisely and/more more effectively
    • Text may appear less dense if students underline nominal groups and nominalizations – See 04: What is Curriculum Literacy to learn what nominal groups and nominalizations are.
  • Integrate Language Activities with Content Activities: Key strategies include:
    • Embed communication prompts into content tasks
    • Use graphic organizers
    • See Literacy articles for ideas.
    • Embed form-focused activities into content activities – example of form concepts: proper grammar & language for a lab report
  • Sample Literacy Building Activities: Too many to recount here.  Buy the book!  Here are my top 5 in no particular order:
    • Progressive brainstorming:  Students each get own color marker.  Each starts with a poster with a topic on it.  For a set time, student brainstorms word associations with topic.  Students rotate and add content to different posters.  After rotating back to original poster, students reflect on other students’ additions to poster and discuss whether or not they agree with these new associations.
    • Joint construction: Model genre-specific writing by co-writing with students in a live, think-aloud discussion
    • Thinking sheets: Sheets with checklists that explicitly scaffold problem solving processes.  If used repetitively, can build bridges between prior and new knowledge.
    • Barrier crosswords:  Pairs of students get the keys for each other’s crossword puzzles.  They give each other clues to complete the puzzles.
    • Word walls:  Word bank of key terms displayed on a dedicated part of the wall.  Include pictures, terms, examples, and student-friendly definitions.

 

3-sowhat
The strategies in this section can be used to build strong bridges between everyday and academic language.   Knowing many literacy strategies can help one amplify the content through message abundancy.  All of the strategies recapped above can be used to create PBL scaffolding that teaches content and language simultaneously.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Research language and thinking that is key to effectively understanding concepts in upcoming unit or project
  • Research literacy and content building strategies.  See Literacy articles for ideas.
  • Select strategies that best tie prior knowledge to new language and thinking
  • Develop resources (graphic organizers, thinking sheets, question prompts, etc) that relate to strategies to be implemented
  • Set aside time in project calendar for scaffolding activities that develop content and language knowledge simultaneously
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement multiple scaffolding strategies that build upon prior knowledge to acquire new knowledge.  See Literacy articles for ideas.
  • Be aware of and leverage opportunities to extend academic conversations that use both academic and everyday language
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Develop routines (for example: standardized thinking sheets for solving word problems and for writing lab reports) that students can use repetitively to solve problems and develop products
  • Develop a practice of using meta-language to make students more aware of how academic language is used to effectively express ideas
  • Prompt students to reflect on whether or not and how learning strategies are helping them develop their content and language skills

 

04: What is Curriculum Literacy?

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 6.56.19 AM

 

  • What does it mean to be content literate? Everyone is content illiterate in at least one discipline.  To be content literate, one must know:
    • key vocabulary
    • key conceptual frameworks that relate key vocabulary
    • how to read and write within discipline
    • understanding what big ideas are and how they are organized
  • Literacy in the Curriculum: Various academic literacies exist because different disciplines process and package information in different ways.  Becoming more aware of discipline-specific thinking is a first step to modeling this thinking for students.  Thinking about subject specific literacy entails investigating:
    • what types of reasoning/thinking are important?
    • what genres of text are used?
    • how to present and support arguments?
    • what is the key vocabulary?
  • Spoken and Written Language: Written language tends to be more explicit than spoken language because the context embedded around spoken language eliminates the need to say specifics.  Explicit language can be used to bridge the gap between everyday language and the more formal language (that tends to be written language).
  • Two Features of Academic Language:
    1. Nominalization: Changing verbs to their associated nouns (example: analyze -> analysis).  Nominalization allows writer to talk about abstract ideas more concisely.  To scaffold normalized words, use concrete examples and easy to understand words to define and illustrate the terms.
    2. Norminal groups: A group of nouns that contain a high density of information.  The combination of nominalizations in nominal groups can lead to very dense texts.  These are used to make writing more concise and allow for discussion of more general ideas.  To build towards an understanding of texts with nominal groups and nominalizations, use everyday language and concrete examples.

 

3-sowhat
It is humbling and perspective-building to be reminded that everyone is illiterate in at least one discipline’s genre(s).  In addition to vocabulary, it is helpful to know that nominal groups and nominalizations can also make text harder to decode.  Content-specific literacy is a set of skills that can not be presumed; they CAN and must be scaffolded.  These skills include reading, writing, expressing, relating, and applying key ideas.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Analyze texts related to targeted content and be aware of nominalizations and nominal groups
  • Research scaffolding strategies that teach students how to read, write, inquire, apply and relate key ideas
  • Research strategies for decoding texts of high lexile
  • Research specific types of thinking that are needed to apply key ideas effectively
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding activities that teach language, thinking, and content simultaneously.  See Literacy articles for ideas.
  • Prior to assigning dense texts, explicitly teach vocabulary in the text (both content and none-content related) that make text difficult to read
  • Use concrete examples and everyday language to decode nominal groups and nominalizations for students
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use models and conversations about models to scaffold development of writing skills within content specific genres
  • Teach and frequently implement routines and strategies for digesting and annotating texts
  • Students reflect on strategies and whether or not they are helping them better read and write within content
5-relatedstuff

03: Learning in the Challenge Zone

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 6.50.13 AM

 

Key Ingredients to Learning in the Challenge Zone:
  • High expectations combined with high levels of support (high challenge + great scaffolding)
  • Explicit content language scaffolding
  • Builds on prior knowledge and experiences
  • Teacher understanding of subject specific language needed to be successful
  • Positive teacher student relationships
  • Positive teacher beliefs (see below)
Key Positive Beliefs: Positive beliefs are important to teaching because they influence teacher expectations and teacher choices relating to students.  Key positive beliefs include:
  • Believe in students in terms of their potential, not in terms of current abilities
  • Focus on Uncovering as opposed to covering material
  • Reflect on teaching and learning practices
  • See culturally diverse classroom as a resource and opportunity, not as a problem

 

3-sowhat

Cultivating the right beliefs and skill sets to support ALL learners is important to building positive teacher-student relationships and to implementing effective scaffolding.  The idea that material is Uncovered, not covered can remind teachers to select methods for teaching that promote deeper understanding of material.  Leveraging students’ diversity, as opposed to bemoaning it, is a way to model greater appreciation of diversity for students.

 

4-nowwhat
 
Preparation Steps
  • Reflect on one’s beliefs towards students when things are going well and things are not going well
  • Research team building and relationship building activities
  • Research key language needed to think effectively within one’s content
Early Implementation
  • Facilitate activities and routines that build a positive culture of trust and safety
  • Use pre-planned and emergent scaffolding to teach content and language simultaneously.  See Literacy articles for ideas.
  • Reflect upon scaffolding activities in order to improve them
Advanced Implementation
  • Develop routines that celebrate student achievement of various types
  • Facilitate practices and routines that get students to reflect upon and celebrate their academic progress and achievements
  • Develop activities and routines that emphasize transfer of knowledge to novel situations
  • Find ways to incorporate diversity into content teaching
 
5-relatedstuff

02: Scaffolding Academic Literacy

1-sources

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 6.43.33 AM

 

  • Designed Scaffolding & Interactional Scaffolding: Designed and interactional scaffolding are both important to learning literacy.  Designed scaffolding is pre-planned and interactional scaffolding is unplanned and emerges in teacher-student interactions.  Well designed scaffolding creates opportunities for high quality interactional scaffolding.
  • Designed Scaffolding: Key components include:
    • explicitly sharing learning targets and reasons why they are relevant
    • sequence problem solving activities to build from simpler to complex concepts and language
    • build on prior knowledge
    • use multiple student groupings: individual, pairs, small group, whole group
    • use student need to select grouping mode
  • Talk Occurs around a Written Text: Key components:
    • Talk about language (meta language) to show differences between informal and academic definitions of terms
    • Listen to intended meanings in student responses
    • Build on prior knowledge
    • Recast student responses in academic language (as needed)
    • Use extra wait time
    • Ask questions to extend academic conversations
  • 5 Steps for Planning an Integrated Program:
    1. Pre-assess students’ language skills
    2. Identify the literacy load (specific vocabulary and thinking patterns) that are critical to what one is about teach
    3. Select key language to focus on
    4. Select activities that combine learning of content and key language
    5. Evaluate implementation
      • Did it build on prior knowledge?
      • Is there evidence that students learned new concepts?
      • What standards did students demonstrate?
      • Did students extend ideas by themselves?
      • Was there enough scaffolding to ensure active participation of all students?
3-sowhat
Message abundancy, not lowering expectations, can support student achievement.  This idea has implications for the amounts and types of content and language scaffolding that is prepared to support learning in projects.  Projects already naturally lend themselves to multiple learning modes.  This tendency needs to be leveraged to gives students many opportunities to learn key concepts and key language.

 

Designing good scaffolding can create opportunities for strong academic conversations to spontaneously emerge when scaffolding is implemented.  This is a reminder to prepare good lesson sequences and good academic questions that can lead to memorable, relevant, and extended academic conversations with students.

 

4-nowwhat

Preparation Steps
  • Identify key vocabulary and concepts in upcoming unit or project
  • Research graphic organizers, videos, and activities that go with key vocabulary and concepts
  • Prepare demos and related questions that will stimulate extended conversations about key concepts
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use multiple types of scaffolding to amplify key content and key vocabulary
  • Design sequences of activities that build from simple to complex concepts
  • Build sequences within lessons that start with observations of hands on activities in informal language and then use teacher-facilitated conversations to build bridges to appropriate academic vocabulary
  • Use extended wait time while engaging in conversations
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate extended academic conversations with and among students
  • Establish routines that make academic conversations frequent among students
  • Use vocabulary lists to guide students in reflections on their note – taking and their apprehension of their note – taking with partners and with teacher
  • Populate project folder (or briefcase) with multiple resource types for each key concept and create opportunities for students to use these to get extra support (as needed)
5-relatedstuff

01: Why teach in the Challenge Zone?

 1-sources

Chapter 1 in Gibbons, Pauline. English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2009. Print.

 

2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-10 at 6.33.17 AM

 

  • Raising Expectations:  Despite research that correlates high student achievement with intellectually challenging curricula, many ELL programs focus on low-level activities.  Instead of lowering the level of activities, programs that develop academic literacy should maintain high levels of expectations and support learners to achieve these high expectations with high levels of academic support.
  • Literacy in the Middle Years: In middle school, literacy demands ramp up.  In upper elementary to middle school, students experience an abrupt shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”.
  • What is Academic Literacy: Academic literacy means learning to read, write, and think using the vocabulary and thinking processes unique to each discipline.  Different subjects have different genres because they evolved different thinking patterns.
  • Implications for Teaching Subject Literacy: A first step for scaffolding academic literacy is understanding the specific literacy demands of the subject one is teaching.
  • Who are EL Learners? ELLs come from varying language backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses.  Lack of explicit literacy instruction creates an achievement gap between EL and non-EL students.
  • EL Learners in Content Classrooms: EL learners develop academic literacy slower than conversational fluency.  Language-only classes lack lessons in subject-specific academic literacies.  Content and content-specific literacy must be developed and taught simultaneously.
  • Some Current Perspectives on Intellectual Quality: Intellectually challenging curricula is needed to develop understanding and literacy skills.  These curricula include: language learning, explicit teaching, real-life relevance, language-based collaboration work, and learning standards-based goals.
  • An Approach to Teaching & Learning: High Challenge & High Support Classrooms: Learning is a collaborative activity (Vgostsky).  Use scaffolding to facilitate activities that help learners do more than they can do on their own (Vgotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development).  Engage in many academic conversations because outer conversations can become inner speech or thinking patterns over time.  High support & high challenge classrooms live in the challenge zone.

HSHSFIG

 3-sowhat

Teaching literacy is not limited to English Language Arts classrooms because different subjects speak and think in different academic genres.  Understanding the specific literacy load of the content one teaches is a first step in developing scaffolding that supports EL and non-EL learners who are developing fluency in one’s content genre(s).  Lowering academic expectations has been proven to have negative effects on student achievement.  Instead of lowering standards, one can better support students by maintaining high levels of challenge AND support.  The chart that connects student emotions to levels of support and challenge can be used to decode students’ responses to various learning activities so that appropriate adjustments can be made to keep students engaged in learning.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Identify the new vocabulary and thinking patterns that are critical to being successful in specific units or projects
  • Research strategies for teaching vocabulary and for managing academic conversations.  See Literacy articles for ideas.
  • Develop scaffolding activities that teach both content and language/thinking.  See Literacy articles for ideas.
  • Use challenge vs. support chart to categorize scaffolding activities and insure quality control
Early Implementation steps
  • Observe student emotional responses to scaffolding activities and use challenge vs support chart to hypothesize their perception of challenge and support levels of activities
  • Use explicit strategies for teaching vocabulary and specific critical ways of thinking
  • Facilitate fréquent academic conversations that have high levels of student participation to scaffold development of language and thinking
  • Scaffold how students write in content-specific genres
 
Advanced Implementation steps
  • Have students reflect on the development of their language and thinking skills
  • Use multiple strategies to develop content and literacy knowledge
  • Have students self-assess their perception of activities in terms of their level of challenge and support and offer up suggestions to bring activities into the challenge zone (high level,high support zone)
  • Develop routines that lead to deliberate practice of key patterns of thinking, writing, and speaking within content-specific genres
 5-relatedstuff