Transformational Literacy

Making the Common Core Shift with Work That Matters

Ron Berger, Libby Woodfin, Suzanne Nathan Plaut, Cheryl Becker Dobbertin

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781118962237
• eBook ISBN: 9781118962251
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Engage, challenge, and inspire students with work that matters

Transformational Literacy, written by a team from EL Education, helps teachers leverage the Common Core instructional shifts—building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction, reading for and writing with evidence, and regular practice with complex text—to engage students in work that matters. Worthy texts and worthy tasks help students see the connection between their hard work as readers and writers and their capacity to contribute to stronger communities and a better world.

The stories, examples, and resources that permeate Transformational Literacy come primarily from the more than 150 EL Education schools around the country that support teachers to select, supplement, customize, and create curriculum, and improve instruction. The book also draws on EL Education's open source Common Core English Language Arts curriculum—often cited as one of the finest in the country—and professional development offered to thousands of teachers to implement that curriculum effectively.

Transformational Literacy combines the best of what EL Education knows works for kids—purposeful, inquiry-based learning—and the new imperative of the Common Core—higher and deeper expectations for all students.

• Teach standards through a compelling and purposeful curriculum that prioritizes worthy texts and worthy task
• Improve students' evidence-based reading, thinking, talking, and writing
• Support students to develop a new mindset toward the challenge of reading complex texts

Transformational Literacy introduces an approach to literacy instruction that will engage, challenge, and inspire student with work that matters.

Part one
Unlocking the Power of Informational and Literary Texts

Part one
Introduction

Students in Julia St. Martin’s tenth-grade English class at the Springfield Renaissance School in Springfield, Massachusetts, are seated in concentric rings of desks, engaged in a student-led discussion about two guiding questions: “Why read?” and “What is a world without books?” They have been reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and, in order to further explore the themes raised in the book, they have also read a series of articles about literacy. They are engaged in a fishbowl protocol—the inner ring of students in conversation with each other, citing evidence from their texts that supports their thinking about the guiding questions, and the outer ring observing and taking notes on both content and their peers’ speaking and listening skills.

“When I pick informational text for kids, I’m thinking about two things—relevance and complexity,” St. Martin says. “One of the informational texts that kids used today was a pretty complex text. Kids were really pushed to use data—numbers and percentage—to really rationalize and prove their arguments. I also chose a less complex text so that all kids could participate and feel smart about the dialogue.”

Before the fishbowl begins, St. Martin sets the tone for the group: “I expect for us to be really smart and articulate about using this expert text. . . . I’m also hoping that today you can use Fahrenheit 451 to really push us to have a smart conversation about ‘Why read?’ and ‘What is a world without books?’”

In round one of the protocol a student references the article “New York Disconnected Youth Literacy Initiative,” citing the rising rates of television watching and the low academic test scores for youths in New York City. Her peer responds with “I connected that to ‘Why read?’ because if we don’t read we won’t have the knowledge we need to go out in the world and do other things.” At this point St. Martin refocuses the students reminding them to have smart conversations about specific texts, naming the article, and citing quotes. In response one student sets a new tone: “I took an example from ‘From the Streets to the Libraries . . .’”

At the end of the round she reminds the outer ring of their responsibility to respond, build, and hold everyone accountable for using the expert texts. Olivia responds to this important role with: “Something people could work on is trying to put in the vocabulary words that we used.”

In round two of the protocol a student references the article “Ray Bradbury: A Warning to Future Generations,” further building the argument that turning away from books and toward television is bad for our society. Her peer brings the discussion back to Fahrenheit 451, reminding the group that the only reason the people in Bradbury’s dystopian world thought books were bad was that the firemen were telling them so.

An expert—a librarian—had recently visited the class and students begin to use their notes from her visit as another informational text to cite during the fishbowl: “I connected ‘Why read?’ and ‘What is a world without books?’ to Ms. Pfiefer, the expert that came in—the librarian, . . .” she begins.

“We used a fishbowl protocol today to really allow students both in the inner circle and outer circle to feel accountable for the conversation and discussion,” St. Martin says. She holds the students in the outer circle accountable by instructing them to listen closely and to write on their sticky notes when they hear their peers use evidence from the text to move their logic. After each round students in the outer circle provide feedback to the inner circle. After round two, Olivia, who had moved to the inner circle, receives words of praise: “Olivia automatically jumped in and connected it to the novel very well,” her peer says.

Later, during the debrief, students are reflective about the value of this protocol. One student shares, “I like the feedback that the people in the outside circle gave because it gave groups after the ones that had already gone something to have in mind for what they should do or improve on.” One student notes that the final group did the best because they used the “power words” and everyone participated in what felt like a “real conversation.”

All told, St. Martin was pleased with the fishbowl: “What I was most impressed with in our students was their ability to support their ideas with a great sound body of evidence and kids were also moving themselves toward using events in the novel to support their ideas as well.” You can view this fishbowl discussion in the accompanying video, “Students Cite Evidence from Informational and Literary Text.”

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Watch video: “Students Cite Evidence from Informational and Literary Text”

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THE CENTRALITY OF INFORMATIONAL TEXT

It’s evident from the conversation of the tenth-grade students in Julia St. Martin’s class that the two kinds of texts they are discussing—literary and informational—have unlocked meaning for each other. The articles have enriched the students’ understanding of the themes in the novel, and the novel has helped them understand the articles on a deeper level than they may have without the rich imagery and narration of Bradbury’s story.

This Common Core literacy instructional shift requires students to build content knowledge through a balance of rich informational and literary text. Elementary teachers must infuse more informational text into their literacy instruction in order to systematically develop the knowledge base of their students. Secondary English teachers must find ways, as Julia St. Martin did, to integrate informational text with literary text. Secondary content area teachers must explicitly work as literacy teachers, devoting class time for students to engage with rich, informational texts to become better readers. For many teachers, this does not feel like a welcome shift in their instructional practice, and for many it will not be an easy one.

Our goal is to help teachers, especially elementary and English teachers—who may fear the encroachment of informational texts into a curriculum filled with novels, poetry, and plays—see the power of nonfiction to help students explore the issues and themes that emerge from great literature, and also to help secondary content area teachers become effective literacy teachers, strengthening their instruction in their discipline. Building content knowledge is a worthy endeavor—one that makes a big difference in students’ trajectory toward college, career, and civic readiness—and all teachers have a role to play.

Leveraging This Instructional Shift

In our professional development work with elementary teachers, we find that many worry that the new Common Core literacy standards will cause them to lose the engaging power of literature in their classrooms. They have stacks of books by their favorite authors—picture books for young readers and chapter books for older ones—that they use every year to lead students, individually or collectively, to become eager, strong readers. These same teachers who can list dozens of their favorite fictional authors have few authors of nonfiction whom they would consider their favorites—sometimes none. Many of these teachers feel that the Common Core will mean building a whole new area of expertise and collection of books to teach and they are resistant, feeling that fiction is more engaging for children and adults.

However, informational text is not necessarily less engaging or less interesting to read, either for students or adults. Kindergartners are just as excited to read books about dinosaurs, horses, and trucks as they are to read stories. Adults spend much of their time reading informational text found in print and online—magazines, newspapers, biographies, histories, guidebooks, cookbooks, manuals, and blogs. We don’t need to give up the great literature in our classrooms, but we have to also build literacy skills across a range of formats, including informational text, so that students can buil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• DVD Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• About Expeditionary Learning
• Introduction: Embracing Challenge
• PART 1 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INFORMATIONAL AND LITERARY TEXTS
• PART 2 READING FOR AND WRITING WITH EVIDENCE
• PART 3 SUPPORTING ALL STUDENTS TO SUCCEED WITH COMPLEX TEXTS
• Conclusion: Leveraging the Common Core for Schoolwide Improvement
• References
• Appendix A Informational Text Resources
• Appendix B Photograph Resources
• Appendix C Helpful Terms for Reading for and Writing with Evidence
• Appendix D Qualitative Text Rubrics
• Appendix E Primary Source Close Reading Guide
• Appendix F Deeper Lessons Tool
• Appendix G Questions for Discussion
• Appendix H Accessing the Bonus Web Materials
• Index
• How to Use the DVD
• End User License Agreement