Rigor Is NOT a Four-Letter Word

Barbara R. Blackburn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351337441
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Learn how to increase instructional rigor so that all students can reach higher levels of learning! In this new edition of a best seller, author Barbara R. Blackburn offers practical ideas for raising expectations, increasing complexity, integrating scaffolding into instruction, creating open-ended choices and projects, and much more. This timely new edition provides connections to rigorous standards, plus it features new sections on topics such as questioning models, student ownership, Genius Hour, summative assessments, becoming a teacher-leader, and increasing rigor in instructional technology.

Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subject areas, the book is filled with helpful strategies and tools that you can implement immediately. In addition, full-sized templates are available as eResources on our website (www.routledge.com/9781138569560) so you can download and print them for classroom use.

With its practical advice and helpful tools, Rigor Is NOT a Four-Letter Word will set you and your students on the fast track to higher learning and sustained success.

1

The Case for Rigor

Introduction

I’ve been in education for over 25 years. I was a teacher, an educational consultant, and a professor, and now I work with teachers and administrators as a consultant. Throughout my experiences, I have learned many things from my students and from other teachers and administrators. Three of those frame my beliefs about rigor.

Lessons Learned

• 
  The power of an individual teacher
• 
  Students reflect our perspectives
• 
  Focus on what we can control

First, I have seen the power of an individual classroom teacher. My most memorable teachers were also the ones who held me to high standards. As I work with schools, I am privileged to see teachers who make a difference, even in difficult circumstances. One teacher always has made a difference in the life of a student. One teacher always will make a difference in the life of a student.

Next, I know that students reflect our perspective of them. My second year, I was assigned to teach two classes of remedial students. They came into class with a defeated, despondent attitude. In response to my enthusiasm about the upcoming year, Rhonda said, “We know we are in the dumb class. Everyone else knows too. Didn’t you know that?” Over the course of the year, my students slowly responded to my belief that they were capable of learning. It took time, but they learned to believe in themselves, in part because I believed in them.

Finally, we should focus on the things we can control and quit worrying about those things that are out of our control. That lens served as a filter for the content of this book. With every chapter, I asked myself, “Is this something a teacher could decide to implement in his or her classroom?” Too often, I meet teachers who believe they have no control over anything, but that is not true. Focus on your choices. For example, you may have a student who works after school, and that prevents her from staying for tutoring at the end of the day. Rather than feeling frustrated and wishing she would miss work, offer her another option for tutoring, perhaps in the morning. When you focus on what you can control, you’ll feel more productive.

The Call for Rigor

There have been calls to increase rigor for over 25 years. However, in recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis. In 2010, the Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org) were created to increase the level of rigor in schools. Other recently revised state standards and newly created national standards similarly reinforced the need. Rigor is at the center of these standards, and much of the push for new standards came from a concern about the lack of rigor in many schools, as well as the need to prepare students for college and careers. There has also been data from sources such as the Programme for International Studies of Assessment (PISA) that have shown us we need to re-evaluate what we are doing in terms of rigor.

Office of Vocational and Adult Education

The Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) wanted to create a stronger link between adult education, post-secondary education, and work. To do so, they evaluated the Common Core State Standards, which had been created based on a broad range of research and with wide input from stakeholders. Then, they determined which of those essential skills were most relevant for post–high school plans. Finally, they shared the results in Promoting College and Career Ready Standards in Adult Basic Education. First, let’s look at three critical shifts that need to occur in schools in the areas of English/Language Arts and Content Literacy Across the Curriculum.

English/Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Texts Students Read and Questions for Writing and Speaking
Shift	Explanation
Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language	Complexity of text that students are able to read is the greatest predictor of success in college and careers (ACT 2006). Current gap in complexity between secondary texts and college/career texts is roughly four grade levels (Williamson, 2006).
Evidence: Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational	National assessment data and input from college faculty indicates that command of evidence is a key college and career readiness skills.
Knowledge: Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction	Informational text makes up the vast majority of required reading in college and the workplace.

These shifts are critical for all students. A teacher, Barbara, whom I spoke with said, “My students can’t even answer the questions I ask. How am I supposed to ask them for evidence?” Requiring students to provide evidence for opinions and responses is a necessary skill that should start at the kindergarten level. It’s simple: Just ask “Why?”

If your students answer that Clifford is a big dog, ask them “Why do you think he is big?” If they tell you that the main character in Maniac McGee did a particular action, ask “Why do you think he did that?” When asking students to justify an antagonist’s actions, ask “Why?” Of course, with older students, we should use words such as “evidence” and “justification,” but the heart of citing evidence is answering “Why?” These three shifts are not only important for students with special needs, they are also achievable.

There are also three key shifts related to mathematical thinking.

Mathematics
Delving Deeply Into the Key Processes and Ideas Upon Which Mathematical Thinking Relies
Shift	Explanation
Focus: Focusing strongly where the standards focus	Focusing deeply on the major work of each level will allow students to secure the mathematical foundations, conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and ability to apply the math they have learned to solve all kinds of problems—inside and outside the math classroom.
Coherence: Designing learning around coherent progressions level to level	Create coherent progressions in the content within and across levels, so that students can build new understanding onto previous...