The document discusses challenges in developing reading skills for college-level work. It notes that (1) not enough reading strategies are being taught, so students are losing momentum in readiness. (2) Performance on complex texts best differentiates between those prepared for college versus those who are not, as such texts require sophisticated reading skills. (3) A complex text contains multiple layers of meaning not obvious on a single reading, requiring skills to unlock meaning.

1. Back to Basics Reading Between the Lines Carol Jago Hard Core Bard Core March 26, 2011

2. “The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress.”

3. “The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress.” - Peter the Hermit, 1274

4. Teenagers are sending on average 100 text messages a day – 3,000 a month.

5. Media multi-taskers pay a mental price “They are distracted by everything”

6. Young people ages 8-18 are using entertainment media on average 7 hours and 38 minutes a day. -Kaiser Family Foundation 2010

7. Teaching Screenagers Complex texts require single-tasking, an unbroken and unbothered focus. Students need to “downshift” to read demanding literature and nonfiction.- Mark Bauerlein, “Too Dumb for Complex Texts?” Educational Leadership, February 2011

8. Computer and video games are fulfilling genuine human needs that the real world is currently unable to satisfy. Games are providing rewards that reality is not. They are teaching and inspiring in ways that reality is not. They are bringing us together in ways that reality is not.

10. Between grades 5 and 12 they will spend 10,080 hours in school.

12. A reasonable hope of success, challenges are within players’ Zone of Proximal Development

13. A sense of community

16. A reasonable hope of success, challenges are within players’ Zone of Proximal Development

17. A sense of community

19. Common Core Standards Online http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

21. “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” by Maya Angelou

22. Shared responsibility for students’ literacy development The Standards insist that instruction in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language be a shared responsibility within the school. The K-5 standards include expectations for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language applicable to a range of subjects, including but not limited to ELA. The grades 6-12 standards are divided into two sections, one for ELA and the other for history/social studies, science, and technical subjects.

23. Common Concerns Distribution of literary and informational texts in the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework.

24. Common Concerns Text Exemplars: Appendix B Lists of poems, stories, novels, plays and nonfiction by grade level demonstrating the quality, complexity, and range of texts students should be reading. “The choices should serve as useful guideposts in helping educators select texts of similar complexity, quality, and range for their own classrooms. They expressly do not represent a partial or complete reading list.”

25. How these texts are read (online, e-books, e-readers) matters much less than what is read – works of “quality and substance” — and how manysuch works students read over the course of their K-12 education.

26. Assuming that “we are what we read,” what students read matters.

27. Common Concerns Distribution of communicative purposes in the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework.

29. “What we need is to infuse the work around the common core with an element of visionary thinking. The standards themselves do not confine teaching to the realm of the scripted or undemocratic, but without serious reflection and rethinking, they will. The balance depends on our collective ability to come to terms with the standards and to use them as an opportunity for reflection and growth. Let us hope that we can muster the courage and energy to do so.” - Sarah Fine, Education Week, Oct. 20, 2010

30. Back to Basics Reading Between the Lines Carol Jago Hard Core Bard Core March 26, 2011

31. I want to make good citizens. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart. —Shin'ichi Suzuki

32. Suzuki Method Immersion Encouragement Small steps Imitate examples Internalize principles Contribute novel ideas

36. My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun by William Shakespeare My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked red and white, 5 But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 10 I grant I never saw a goddess go: My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she, belied with false compare.

37. Explanatory Writing Prompt Compare Pablo Neruda’s “Mi Fea” (“My Ugly Love”) with William Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun.” Write an essay explaining how the two poets employ imagery, irony, and other resources of language to express their love.

39. ACT cover

40. Reading Between the Lines ACT report on college readiness in reading 1. Not enough reading skills and strategies are being taught and as a result students are losing momentum in readiness for college-level reading.

41. Reading Between the Lines ACT report on college readiness in reading 2. Performance on complex texts is the clearest differentiator in reading between students who are more likely to be ready for college and those who are less likely to be ready.

42. Reading Between the Lines ACT report on college readiness in reading 3. A complex text will contain multiple layers of meaning, not all of which will be immediately apparent to students upon a single superficial reading. Such texts require students to work at unlocking meaning by calling upon sophisticated reading skills and strategies.

43. Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

44. Habits of Mind- Curiosity- Openness- Engagement- Creativity- Persistence- Responsibility-Flexibility- Metacognition

45. Which of these “habits of mind” do your students most need work with?

46. Walt Whitman

47. Students need BOTH books that are mirrors and books that are windows.

48. Every text … Every text is a lazy machine asking the reader to do some of its work. Umberto Eco

49. Common Textual Challenges

51. Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.

52. I want them to water ski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

53. Reflect on some of the perplexing classroom issues you face every day. What ideas have you explored today that you might apply in your own teaching?

54. “The nation is in thrall to testing and basic skills.”- Still at Risk, Common Core report

55. WHAT WE NEED is an educational system that teaches deep knowledge, that values creativity and originality, and that values thinking skills.