Glen Ellyn District 41 presentation NCTE Boston November 2013

1. Putting It Together
A Modular Approach to the
Common Core
NCTE November 2013
presented by Kim Barrett, Janis Pfister, Stacey
Stout, Stacy Slater and Kayla Wheeler

2. Glen Ellyn District 41
Ignite passion. Inspire excellence. Imagine possibilities.
Glen Ellyn, Illinois (Western Chicago Suburb)
High academic achievement (top 6% in state)
Strong sense of community
Active family involvement
3,600 children Pre K- 8
4 elementary schools
1 middle school
Average class size 23.5

3. About District 41
Ethnicities
White 68.2%
Hispanic 13.2%
Asian 10.8%
Black 4.1%
Mixed 3.5%

4. About District 41
Special Populations
Low Income 22%
Limited English 12.9%
IEP 11.5%
Homeless 1.3%

5. Who Are We?
★ Literacy Coach - Janis Pfister
○ 5 years in self-contained LD/BD classroom
○ 11 years coaching
○ Works with diverse populations of students and teachers
○ Instructed in both OH and IL
★ Literacy Coach - Stacy Slater
○ 4 years in middle school
○ 8 years coaching
○ 15 years in public relations and media

6. Who Are We?
★ Literacy Coach - Stacey Stout
○ 4 years in elementary and middle-school
○ 8 years coaching
○ Works with diverse populations of students and teachers
○ Instructed in both IL and AZ
★ Literacy Coach - Kayla Wheeler
○ 11 years in elementary and middle school
○ 6 years coaching
○ Wrote ESL literacy curriculum for ESL levels 1, 2, and 3 based on the
Common Core modules

7. Goals for Today
❖Share our reinvention process
❖Deconstruct a CCSS standard
❖Analyze resulting learning steps
❖Apply the PARCC modular template
❖Evaluate efficacy of our adaptations
❖Understand how Problem-Based Learning
unites CCSS standards and authentic purpose
❖Share our vision for further integration

8. Our Foundation
 Balanced literacy
 Workshop model
 Authentic texts
 Units of study approach to writing
 Reading/writing mirror each other
 Literacy coaching model
 Teacher resources
 Professional development

9. Our Gurus

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Katie Wood Ray
Lester Laminack
Jeff Anderson
Irene Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell
Lucy Calkins
Stephanie Harvey
Matt Glover
Cris Tovani
Frankie Sibberson

10. The Big Three Ideas of a PLC
 Focus on Learning


Do you believe all students can learn at high levels?
Do you accept responsibility to ensure that all students learn?
 Build a Collaborative Culture
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

What do we expect students to learn?
How will we know when they learn it?
How will we respond when they don’t?
How will we respond when they already know it?
 Focus on Results


Which students mastered specific essential standards?
Which instructional practices worked?

11. What Our PLCs Look Like Today
❖Meeting schedule



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3 times per week
30 minutes before school
Grade-level team
Specialists and support staff rotate among teams
❖ All teachers are a part of the meetings (PE,
ENL, resource, art, music, administration,
etc…)

12. Overarching Learning Goals
Critical thinking. Communication. Collaboration. Creativity.
 To encourage and nurture life long learners and
readers
 To cultivate enthusiasm and a sense of wonder
 To engage students in purposeful and authentic
work
 To develop the habits of mind that will allow
children to thrive in a changing and global
society

13. Workshop
Approach: The
Learning Structure
Common Core ELA
Standards: The
Learning Targets
Modules:
The Learning
Resources

14. Understanding the Common Core
 College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards
apply to all students K-12
 From the CCR, the authors, working
backwards, created a developmental
continuum of discrete skills

15. Common Core State Standards
 Began work in June 2010
 Deconstructed the CCSS
 Wrote operational definitions
 Created standards-based report cards
 Created learning steps

16. Deconstructing the Standards
 Nouns
 product
 Verbs
 process
 Adjectives
 assessment boundaries
 Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised

17. Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised
Old version
New version

18. CCR Anchor Standard 1 for Reading Informational Text:
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical
inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to
support conclusions drawn from the text.
K
1
2
3
4
5
6
With
prompting
and
support,
ask and
answer
questions
about key
details in a
text.
Ask and
answer
questions
about key
details in
a text.
Ask and
answer
questions
such as who,
what, where,
when, why,
and how to
demonstrate
understanding of key
details in a
text.
Ask and
answer
questions to
demonstrate
understanding
of a text,
referring
explicitly to
the text as the
basis for the
answers.
Refer to
details and
examples in
a text when
explaining
what the
text says
explicitly
and when
drawing
inferences
from the
text.
Quote
accurately
from a text
when
explaining
what the
text says
explicitly
and when
drawing
inferences
from the
text.
Cite
textual
evidence
to support
analysis of
what the
text says
explicitly
as well as
inferences
drawn
from the
text.

19. Learning Steps
Prior knowledge
Prerequisite skills
Vocabulary
Differentiation
Resources
Assessment

20. Learning Steps
Reading
Requisite Skills
Literature
Standard 2
Academic
Vocabulary
Resources
Assessment
Details
Examples
Explicit
Inference
Text
Background
knowledge
Theme
Summarize
Drama
Character
Problem
Resolution
Overarching idea
*Comprehension
Toolkit
*Bookshop ReadAlouds
*Interactive ReadAlouds (pp. 47-50)
*Next Step in
Guided Reading
*Mentor Texts
*Fourth Grade
Readers (p. 57)
*Individual
conference
*Guided
reading
*Quick writes
*Journal
*Reading
response
(4th grade)
Determine a
theme of a
story, drama,
or poem from
details in the
text;
summarize the
text.
Summarize:
*Identify key elements of
story: character, problem,
resolution
*Retell story, grouping related
ideas in order to summarize
Determine:
*Identify overarching idea (i.e.
friendship)
*Recall themes from literature
(i.e. Never give up)
*Interpret how character
responds to challenges
through thoughts, actions, and
dialogue in order to determine
theme

21. Your Turn
Standard R I 4.5
Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison,
cause/effect, problem / solution) of events, ideas, concepts,
or information in a text or part of a text.
 Deconstruct Standard R I 4.5
 Write learning steps

22. PARCC Framework
A
B
C
D

23. Literacy Modules
 Support the reading/writing workshops
 Provide general scope and sequence for
approaching CCSS
 Identify CCSS to highlight during instruction
 Identify social studies themes for classroom
exploration
 Provide appropriate texts aligned to social studies
themes and concepts
 Increase the quantity and quality of research
 Provide formative and summative assessments to
guide instruction

24. Teaching the Modules
• Teacher reaction
– http://youtu.be/IE6Q1xkez8Q

25. Essential Questions
Module A
Module B
Module C
Module D
How can we improve What does it mean
our community?
to be a citizen in a
democracy?
Informational:
Opinion/Persuasive
Letter
Informational :
Biographical Sketch
Informational :
List Articles
Informational :
Interest Magazines
Narrative:
Poetry
Narrative:
Graphic Narratives
Narrative:
Short Stories of
Realistic Fiction
What was the
How did early
relationship between colonial life shape
exploration and
America?
encounters in the
New World?
Level 2
How does our
How do people
economy connect us around the world
with the world?
live?
Was the American
Revolution
inevitable?
How did the
colonies become a
nation?
Informational:
Q & A Books
Informational:
Argument Essay
Informational:
Biography/Essay
Informational:
Essay/Biography
Narrative:
Launch
Narrative:
Poetry
Narrative:
Historical Fiction
Narrative:
Fantasy
Narrative:
Launch
Level 3

26. The Module Documents

27. Planning
• Unit of Study: Graphic Stories
• Primary goals: Writing habits----Editing/Revision---Crafting techniques
• Secondary Goals
• Projection of Possible Mini lesson topics
• Immersion –teacher-led
• Immersion- share out
• Idea- choosing a story to tell
• Text- fonts/ size for different purposes
• Gutters – showing the passage of time
• Organizing panels
• Ways to use of color
• Ways that graphic novelists demonstrate dialogue
• Ways that graphic novelists demonstrate thinking
• Ways that graphic novelists demonstrate action
• How to draw something when you don’t know how
• Using captions to narrate

28. Planning Templates
Week
Standard
Reading
RL. 3.5Refer to parts of stories,
dramas, and poems when
speaking about text; describe
how successive parts builds on
earlier sections
RL. 3.3Describe the characters
in the story and explain how
their actions contribute to the
sequence of events
2/04
Understanding how to read graphic novels
Anchor (kick-off)Mini-lessons

Introducing graphic novel format
(differences between graphic novels
and book formats)
Anchor charts/mini-lessons*:

How to read a graphic novel
(conventions of graphic novel)

Infer character traits

Understanding vocabulary (page
174)
W.3.3: Write narratives to
develop real or imagined
experiences or events using
effective technique, descriptive
details, and clear event
sequences
W.3.4: With guidance and
support from, produce writing in
which the development and
organization are appropriate to
task and purpose
W.3.10: Write routinely over
extended and short time frames
for a range of tasks, purposes,
and audiences
Reader’s Notebook/ Journal

Giving graphic novels a try
LLC tie-in: Exposure to graphic novels in
all genres
Writing
Unit of Study: Graphic Novels
Immersion –

Highlight features in Blackout

Provide books for student
immersion
Texts:

Anchor charts/mini-lessons**:

Noticings (divide noticings into
ideas, voice, organization,
sentence fluency, word choice)
Students share out to create
chart

Ways graphic novels
demonstrate dialogue, thinking,
action

Other features of graphic novels
–connect with reading anchor
chart
Grammar/
Vocabulary
Vocabulary for graphic
novels:

panel

font

gutter

captions

29. Shift to standards based reporting (2009)
Ken O’Connor - How to Grade for Learning
Developed operational definitions (standards)
and performance levels (A, M, P, NM)
Incorporated (wherever possible) soon-to-be
released Common Core Standards
Aligned some literacy instruction to CCSS (2009)
Revised existing work; completed further work
(2010)

30. Module A/Unit 2 At-A-Glance
READING
READING
Comprehend
Informational
Text Standards 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10,
Research
Standards 7, 8, 9
WRITING
Writes to
Communicate
Standards 2 and
10
ESSENTIALS
CONCEPTS TO TEACH
Nonfiction Reading:
Using Text
Structures to
Comprehend
Expository,
Narrative, and
Hybrid Nonfiction
Reading strategies

Determining
importance

Synthesizing
Characteristics of

Expository Nonfiction

Narrative Nonfiction

Hybrid Nonfiction
Text evidence
Reading to learn
 Determine purpose for reading
 Gather information from factual texts and use
strategies to remember it
 Notice and remember significant information
from illustrations and graphics
 Compose information in summary form from
multiple expository nonfiction texts to address
a specific topic
 Make connections among informational texts,
historical fiction, content area study, and prior
knowledge to assist comprehension
Informational
Writing:
Nonfiction
(Exploration and
Discovery)
Writing to inform/teach
readers
Immerse in mentor texts to
plan, emulate, and try on published authors’ styles
Entice readers to learn about
a topic
Informational text structures
Topic selection
Narrowed focus; focus on an
angle
 Analyze mentor texts for ways to recognize
technique, bias, craft voice, anecdotes, analogies,
vignettes
 Grow topics in notebook
 Choose a topic of substance, personal interest,
importance, expertise
 Activate prior knowledge and build knowledge
through additional reading
 Draft sections using text features: table of
contents, boxes of facts set off from the text,
diagrams, charts, glossary, and/or appendix to
provide information to the reader
Incorporate listening and speaking, grammar and vocabulary standards in all phases of the unit.

31. ESL 1
I
N
F
O
R
M
A
T
I
V
E
Unit 1 = Emigration
N
A
R
R
A
T
I
V
E
Unit 2 = Immigration
A
R
G
U
M
E
N
T
Unit 3 = Symbols of America
 Essential question: Why do
people leave their country?
 Summative = Personal Picture
Books
ESL 2
ESL 3
Unit 1 = Traits of Good
Citizens
6th
•What can we learn from the past?
(artifacts)
 Essential Question: What kinds
of things do “good” citizens do?
 Summative = Character study
using a compare and contrast of
2 historical figures.
7th
•Whose story is it? (winners and
losers/bias)
8th
•Whom do we believe and why?
(primary sources)
Unit 2 = Responsibilities and
Rules of Citizenship
6th
•What makes places unique and
different?
7th
•How does where I live influence
how I live?
8th
•How and why do globes and
maps change?
6th
•Why do we have rules and laws?
What would happen if we didn’t?
7th
•What are inalienable rights?
8th
•Should downloading music be
restricted or regulated? By whom?
 Essential question: Why do
 Essential Question: What are
people come to the United States
the roles and responsibilities of
 Summative = Atlas and The
citizens in a democratic society?
Place of My Favorite Memory
 Summative =Narrative
paragraph on “A Time I Broke
the Rules.”
Unit 3 = Freedom
 Essential question: What are the  Essential question: What does it
significant symbols of America?
mean to be free?
 Summative = This symbol
 Summative= Using Web 2.0
reflects America better than any
Technology, create a timeline of
other symbol because…
the significant protests in
American History.

32. Your Turn
• Please choose a piece of student work
• Can you find evidence of the module work in
this student sample?

33. Integrating Problem-Based Learning
 Third year of experimentation
 Summer training (MindQuest 21)
 Summer in-house training
 Third-grade push-in
 What’s In a Name?
 The True Cost of Owning a Pet
 Scope ranges from classroom to community

34. Public Service Campaign
Brochures
Power Point Presentations
Glogster Online Posters

35. How Can We Improve Our Community?
Level 2 Module A
 Essential question
Informational writing
Opinion/persuasive
Non-traditional research
Interviews, surveys, local sources

37. Big Ideas on Community
Helping Those in Need
Donate food, clothes, toys,
books
Book drive
Toy drive
Food pantry
Helping the Environment
Shelters
Homeless animals
Recycling
Beautification
Clean up/pick up trash
Tree planting
Community garden
Walking club
Bike day
Promoting Positive
Change
Promoting literacy
Craft projects
Bullying
Including others
Good exercise
Running errands for people
who need help
Book clubs
Buddy helpers
Welcome club

38. How Can We Improve Our Community?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUetOwvg-uU

39. Dear Community,
I want more fruit and vegetable
on my lunch tray. First of all,
fruit and vegetables are very
good for you…
Fruit and vegetables give
energy so the students will
learn better. You will probably
get the career you want
because you are smarter.
I think our village should help all the
kids, men and women who are
starving of hunger! I bet you did not
know that 7,615,360 people die every
year of hunger! 33% of the world
population is considered to be
STARVING!! One person dies every
3.6 seconds! Can you put out some
boxes in certain places around the
village so people can donate money,
food and clothing? I think you should
put a link on the village website to
donate money to buy food and clothes
to give to Feed My Starving Children.
With so many children dying, this is
why we need to help them!

40. Dear Community,
Imagine a world of people having
nowhere to live. For some people
that’s reality. P.A.D.S. is letting
people that have been homeless
for a year or more know what its
like to live in a house. P.A.D.S is
also giving life skills to homeless.
One of the life skills are computer
skills. When P.A.D.S. find people
on the streets they let them stay at
P.A.D.S. center. This is the reason
me and my group want to make a
clothing/food drive and give the
money to charity.
We should have an Apple store in
Glen Ellyn. First of all having an
Apple store would bring more jobs
to Glen Ellyn. There are people in
Glen Ellyn that need these jobs.
Next an Apple store would bring
many people to Glen Ellyn to
shop. On opening day people
would camp out or even wake up
early just to be first in line! An
Apple store would make Glen
Ellyn popular.

41. Dear Community,

42. Moving Forward
Modules
Two-year cycle
Eight modules
First-grade “minis”
Overarching Concepts
CCSS patterns
Inclusive of all disciplines
Problem-Based Learning

43. For More Information
•jpfister@d41.org
•sslater@d41.org
•sstout@d41.org
•kwheeler@d41.org
•Find our slides at NCTE or slideshare.net