Text InSPECtion on the Core

Close Reading Strategies for Uncovering Informational Text

Anthony J Fitzpatrick

• Publisher: Inedvation Programs
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780986437724
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Transform Your Students into Text InSPECtors! Every student can uncover and discover concepts, content, and context in thoughtful and engaging ways! Inspired by Sherlock Holmes and developed by Anthony Fitzpatrick; these classroom strategies will empower students to activate and enhance their close reading abilities. Features of the book include: • Strategies and Activities Aligned to the Common Core State Standards • Text and Source Selection According to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) Text Selection Guidelines • Graphic Organizers to Assist in Classroom Implementation • Opportunities to Practice the Strategies The author invites you into his classroom and confronts new standards and the challenges of engaging students with text in ways that inspire the detective in all of us. For any teacher looking for new ways to engage students in close reading while providing avenues for higher order thinking, this book is a powerful and accessible way to turn your classroom into a Detective Agency that doesn't divorce content from skills.

1 TEXT INSPECTOR

“I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection.”

Sherlock Holmes -The Sign of Four

As interesting as we believe documents, content, artifact and social studies are, they often need to be presented to students in a way that assuages intimidation, elicits interest and sparks curiosity. That is no small feat in light of a world that is increasingly pre-occupied with itself and the present. It forces us to ask ourselves, “How are we inviting students into the craft of history and social studies, and the exploration of informational text in other disciplines such as language arts?” In many cases, we’ve fallen into the trap of mere content delivery. The false notion that is we say everything that needs to be said; we’ve “covered” it. We are better than that. Much better! In fact, our students are better than that too.

Picture it. You’re the Modern World History teacher charged with the task of teaching to “the Present”. Um. Gulp. But. There is no way to succeed if our aim is to “cover everything”. It’s so hard to give up that control, but you’ll need to. You have to recognize that there is value in empowering your students to successfully navigate content that you haven’t said, will never say . . . and hasn’t even happened yet!

The first strategy in this book is the initial step to doing just that. It was a go-to strategy. One that could expand and integrate with all of the other ones in this book. It is simply allowing your students to be InSPECtors. InSPECTors of the past, of documents, of artifacts of political cartoons, or literature. InSPECtors!

Social, Political, Economic and Cultural inSPECtors!

The strategy isn’t new or earth shattering. It was inspired by an organizational structure picked up as a first year A.P. European History teacher. At our summer institute we learned about G.P.E.R.S.I.A. [Geographic, Political, Economic, Religious, Social, Intellectual, Artistic]. I LOVED it but had a hard time seeing how it could be introduced into other courses. Then the solution presented itself. Opportunity knocked! SPEC! Four broad categories that could weave into regularly used words in order to remind students of the various lenses to view social studies and informational text. Once the strategy was unlocked for the students, they began to see them as universal lenses utilized in many ways. State standards, textbook objectives, and writing outlines are almost always written in a form of spec or another helpful anagram.

Why are the letters in this order? Well it is really important for my students to have an anagram that made sense. It needed to be something that would appear in a ton of different words that subtly reminded or encouraged them. We could use these letters to remind us of certain behaviors and to serve as our formula for uncovering and discovering social studies. In fact, it allowed our classroom to have a structure not dissimilar from those in science. Whenever I would walk into a science classroom I'd be surrounded by formulas to help students unlock the key concepts of the course. Why shouldn't our classrooms be any different?

InSPECt allows students to integrate a consistent filter while using words like SPECifics, SPECulate, SPECial, aSPECts, SPECtacles to reinforce the thinking in a way that reminds students of the path to unlock thematic connections. When I utilized SPEC in my middle and high school classes; the teachers that subsequently had my students were always impressed with their ability to sort information and put it into context.

Off and running is a phrase that does little justice to what happened next. Those four little letters created a SPECtacular opportunity for my students to really engage and analyze content with and across multiple sources, allowed them to present new ideas in logical ways representing a broad SPECtrum of ideas. The rest of the chapter will highlight just a few ways to invite your students to transform into inSPECtors of history and social studies.

Strategy Steps
Define the terms for your students.

The first step in any strategy is to define the parameters for use. Begin by introducing the terms social, political, economic, and cultural to students and giving the foundational definitions that they can then test, affirm, challenge, and change as need be. Depending on the grade level or level of student mastery, the class should make the definition one that is universal throughout the year and is appropriate. The definitions provided in this book should not be taken as authority but rather a suggestion. Often times, the best conversations will emerge as students challenge the definitions in order to further analysis key concepts.

Social -Having to do with people in groups, their living together, includes issues such as gender, economic status, and ethnicity.

Political - Having to do with gaining, seeking, and organizing power, events related to the function of government: making laws, enforcing laws, and interpreting laws.

Economic -Having to do with how people meet their basic material needs; the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services; includes such issues as domestic and international trade, monetary policies, and taxation.

Cultural - Having to do with the technology, arts, and institutions of a given group of people at a given time. It is a tangible representation of interactions.

Opportunity to Engage with Key Terms

Re-define the terms above to meet the needs of the students you currently teach? Are there any key words or concepts from above that would be central to your revised definitions?

Applications for Classroom Use

There are many opportunities for your students to become text inSPECtors. Here are just a few ways to implement this in a classroom setting.

Idea Generation and Categorization

The first example of classroom application is the simplest and the most inviting. It requires that students brainstorm anything and everything they know about a particular concept or topic. Activities like these have a wonderful reward to risk benefit. At first, we might be reminded of the dreaded KWL activity we learned in college. Once we push through the fear of asking for a student response and being confronted with a sea of silence, students will be aware that the expectations of inspection are real and rewarding. As the conversation gets going, students will feel good about having their ideas heard and they’ll crave to contribute. This immediately changes the vibe of the classroom and transforms it into a place with tough thinking is welcomed and rewarded.

Here is a sample activity concerning George Washington. As a class, students were asked to provide any details c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Praise for Text Inspection on the Core
• Introduction
• 1 Text Inspector
• 2 Inviting Interrogations
• 3 T.R.A.I.T.S.
• 4 Return to Sender
• 5 Evaluating Evidence
• 6 Who Done It?
• 7 Finding Footprints
• 8 The Inspector’s Journal
• 9 Detective Agency
• About the Author