Content Area Centers....with embedded ELA practice!

While at Teachers College back in February, I learned about content area centers for middle schoolers and fell in love with the idea. For those of you who have been teaching primary grades, centers are not new for you. But when my learning happened the examples I was provided all had to do with middle school and to be honest, the task cards were a bit overwhelming, so I starting thinking through how I would tweak them for elementary, and here is the resulting post :) 

 What if instead of cracking open social studies textbooks or jumping into science experiments from our FOSS or EIE kits, we had a day or two set aside for centers? K-8 teachers, I want to challenge you to think about some of these compelling reasons to engage in this type of teaching for the purpose of increasing your student's learning. 

Centers are: An opportunity for students to engage with content in a variety of the ways, many "access points", Requires deep thinking about content, rather than "sit and get, Students learn from conversation with one another, defending opinions, justifying thinking  with text evidence, Allows for differentiation in task, support, and thinking, Great chance to generate and answer "big questions", Lends to  thoughtful CCSS connections, Builds independence and ownership of learning, Here are some ideas for centers that could become part of your instruction regardless of the center;

Here is the link to the google doc that has both these task cards and a sheet that describes what CCSS Anchor Standards each supports in a PDF :)

Of course students need to know what your expectations are for the centers, and that does take time. Once students know what the expectations are for the photograph center however it doesn't matter if the photos are of the civil rights movement, science content, or even a math diagram, they know what to do. 

Mini Lecture

The word lecture carries with it a boat load of connotations for me, and probably for you as well. First thing that comes to mind is being in trouble. Don't know if you can believe it, but I got myself in trouble often as a young one. Pushing limits, testing my parents, bossing the world around, saying potty words...You name it, i tried it. As a result, I regularly landed myself in the blue chair in the living room for a time out which was usual bookended with a well deserved lectures about my choices.

Additionally I think of my high school history teacher. Lecture was his style, and although I disliked the format of the class at times, I did learn quite a bit about how to organize, retain and use information. Both memories for me are bittersweet because I tend to learn better by talking than listening. The truth is though, there are times when we just need to be told something. Life isn't always a dialogue, sometime it requires a monologue. 

This week as I learned about the instructional strategy called "mini lecture" I could imagine the times when it would be appropriate, particularly in social studies and science for us as educators to give a monologue on a topic. It's a bit lit downloading information to your students so that they can draw on it later. Below are some details and tips about mini lecturing. As you will see, it's nothing like a behavior lecture in the blue chair or outlining my history teacher's main points in my mind. 

The purpose:

• To give student information related to your topic of study, particularly one event, theory, example, person or point of view under  he umbrella of your unit work (ex: March on Washington during civil rights study, Henry "Box" Brown during a study of slavery in the US, the decision to remove  Pluto from the list of planets during a solar system unit, or the the process of mitosis in biology) 
• To show students visuals, prompt thinking, make connections and model content area vocabulary use

The method:

• 5-10 min, launched with a listening prompt during intro, "today I'm going to talk to you about the March on Washington, I want you to listen for the various opinions that were represented in the crowd in this day."
• Prompt students to take notes, especially in regards to you're starting prompt. If students have been introduced to thinking maps, this is a brilliant use of them. Boxes and bullets or outlines can be hard to manage if you're not controlling the speed that you are getting the info (students can't go back and "re-listening") 
• As the teacher speaks (the pre planned explanation and think-alouds) visuals are shown, either from texts or electronically. Maps, photographs, primary source documents, music lyrics, diagrams are all great options. Some teachers may chose to use text features from the course textbook as a way of preteaching and exposing students to what they will read.
• When the lecture is complete, the most logical and important part is the opportunity for students to discuss what they heard (focusing on the listening prompt that was provided.) Beginning with individual reflection and continued note taking, followed by partner or small group sharing and then eventually whole group discussion, scaffolds students thinking in a way that prepares them to talk about their new knowledge. 
• Questions generated during this time should be charted for further discussion and exploration throughout the unit. 

TIPS

• As  Kathleen Tolan and Maggie.Beattie Roberts taught us this week, "the most important part of the mini lecture is the mini" Keeping your monologue limited increases focus for students and honors their learning by maximizing their time to write and talk. 
• Be prepared! Know what you are going to say and have your visuals in order
• Condsider posting the listening prompt on a chart paper and adding students responses & questions after discussion 

StoryWorks Magazine

Check out this resource for 3-6

Content Area Centers

For those of you who have been teaching primary grades, centers are not new for you. But what having students visit different areas in the room, to engage in a variety of actives was part of our social studies and science instruction? What if instead of cracking open social studies textbooks or jumping into science experiments from our FOSS or EIE kits, we had a day or two set aside for centers? K-8 teachers, I want to challenge you to think about some of these compelling reasons to engage in this type of teaching for the purpose of increasing your student's learning. 

Centers are;

* An opportunity for students to engage with content in a variety of the ways, many "access points" 

* Requires deep thinking about content, rather than "sit and get"

* Students learn from conversation with one another, defending opinions, justifying thinking  with text evidence 

* Allows for differentiation in task, support, and thinking

* Great chance to generate and answer "big questions"

* Lends to  thoughtful CCSS connections

* Builds independence and ownership of learning

Here are some ideas for centers that could become part of your instruction regardless of the center;

Statistics Center- looking at graphic or numerical representations of the content, consider infographics

Photograph Center- photos from textbooks, articles, internet. Diagrams and drawings that represent scientific content

Listening center- audio of speeches or video clips related to content

Write around center- photo, statistics, poem or passage in the middle, students respond by writing around, and the respond to one another by writing around each other's comments

Text to text- two texts on the topic/content that students read and compare/contrast. Two article with opposing viewpoints, two primary source documents from the same time 

Of course students need to know what your expectations are for the centers, and that does take time. Once students know what the expectations are for the photograph center however it doesn't matter if the photos are of the civil rights movement, science content, or even a math diagram, they know what to do. 

Planning centers that span over several days, within the context of your collaborative team can greatly enrich student learning! 

Let me know if this is something your team would like to work on :) 

Observe, Think, Question

OBSERVE...THINK...QUESTION

I'm going to share one of my all-time favorite inquiry-based teaching strategies today. I loved it so much in fact, that I incorporated prompts for it permanently in my classroom. The strategy is called Observe, Think, Question. If you would have walked into my classroom you would have quickly seen a large Eye (observe), a Brain (think), and a questions mark (questions) hanging from the ceiling.
This strategy can be used in any content area using only a photograph, text, or even a video clip. It very simple, and once your students learn it, they can participate pretty seamlessly at any point in your day, in any subject area.
FIRST: the teacher displays an artifact, text, photograph or video clip and the students write (either on a pre-made graphic organizer or a notebook page they have chosen) about what they notice. It takes some practice, but they get good at just "stating the obvious." This stage of the strategy anchors them in the reality without letting them jump ahead to application or prediction. For example, if I displayed this book cover to my students

They might write observations like:

* I see that it is a boy

* I notice he has only one eye

* I notice that there is no nose or mouth

NEXT: The students can verbally share, or record on their paper thoughts they have, and predictions. For the above book cover they may say:

* I think this boy must be the main character

* I think his eye is important

* I think he might wonder a lot because of the title Wonder

LASTLY: Students ask questions about the artifact, text, photo or video clip. I usually have them record their questions first and then pair up to share and generate a few more. 

By the end of the exercise, you can imagine that a lot of interest, background knowledge and predicting has been done. It is a helpful strategy that I found replaced KWL charts in my classroom very quickly. Revisiting the OTQ work after learning has occurred allows for reflection as well. Think about how you might do this....

display a map with no title or legend in geography....

show a video clip like this without sound in your biology class....

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Disciplinary Literacy- 7-12

"How can adolescents think and learn like mathematicians, historians, or biologists if we do not teach them how to read, comprehend, and think deeply about the texts of each discipline?"
TIMOTHY SHANAHAN & CYNTHIA SHANAHAN

This year we have focused on content area literacy in our Professional Learning as 7-12 teachers. This topic is essential to our view of ourselves as teachers of reading and our desire for students to truly understand and internalize the content from their classes. So when I stumbled onto this article by Timothy and Cynthia Shanhahan, I was delighted to read about the work that was done with content area teachers, content experts and reading specialists to create a cohesive approach to disciplinary literacy instruction. Disciplinary literacy refers to the ability to recognize the purpose and strategies best used in each of the disciplines and apply them so as you more successfully read like an expert of that subject would. The article summarizes the a research project that strategically gathered groups of people to discuss, analyze, reflect and focus on reading purposes and strategies in individual content areas in order to better prepare students for the types of reading they will encounter in their various courses.

The article begins with the explanation of the difference between the literacy instruction received prior to middle school, and the increased need for more specified literacy instruction in grades 7-12. The following figure is provided as an explanation of the literacy grow and stages at Shanahan sees it. 

Shanhan explains that the project "has challenged us to rethink the basic curriculum of adolescents literacy instruction, particularly with regard to reading comprehension strategy instruction within the disciplines." This seems to be the most logical way to approach instructing our students. Rather than asking students to make the jump from a Basic to Intermediate Literacy and then tossing them into the world of very complex content text to "figure it out", the results of this project support the need for explicit instruction of reading strategies specific to content and purpose. 

Teachers, disciplinary experts and reading specialists gathered to look at the textbooks being used, record their own think-alouds as they themselves read portions of the text, and then identified the most important strategies for readers to master and apply when reading science, history, and math texts. The representatives in each team were able to synthesize what they knew about the topic, curriculum, and reading to create frameworks for instruction that were aimed at providing students what they needed to be successful in the top portion of the pyramid. 

The following article sites this project and more simply explains what is necessary to consider in the topic of Disciplinary Literacy. Additionally, this author includes some questions that could be used in a PLC conversation or in collaboration with your site's reading specialist. 

Eyes on Disciplinary Literacy

"If we are knowledgeable about the distinct differences among content areas why are we using generic literacy strategies across the content areas?"

PLC Discussion Questions

Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents: Rethinking Content- Area Literacy

Vicky Zygouris-Coe, Reading Today Online