Reading
Smarter Balanced Assessment Claim: Reading
Students can read closely and analytically to comprehend a range of increasingly complex literary and informational texts.
Students can read closely and analytically to comprehend a range of increasingly complex literary and informational texts.
Resources
what it means to "Read carefully"
Annotation Handouts & Strategies
- Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop Your First Year at Harvard: I use this text to introduce the concept of active reading. I want my student to understand that annotating is more than highlighting passages, especially since most standardized tests prohibit highlighters.
- BookNotes by Jim Burke: The essential information that readers should notice in a fictional text
- Acronyms to help you analyze literature (by Sandra Effinger): Analyzing literature should eventually be second nature to the sophisticated reader; however, learning how what to look for needs to be more formulaic for younger readers. These mnemonic devices are good for the younger reader who needs a formula and good for the older reader who may need periodic reminders for difficult texts.
- Mrs. Cassel's Helpful Handouts: A wealth of graphic organizers using many of the pre-AP reading strategies
- Five Close Reading Strategies to Support the Common Core: An educator's blog with great reminders about what good readers DO when they annotate
- ELA CCSS Bookmarks: "Full page, per standard resource provides all of the information found on the ELA CCSS Bookmarks (essential skills and concepts, academic vocabulary, question stems, and references the related College and Career Readiness Standard along with both the previous and following grade level standard in order to highlight the continuum of learning."
- Remember to ask students to look for something specific as they read carefully and annotate. Give their annotations a purpose. You might ask how an author builds tone or conveys theme (AP questioning), or you might have them practice for Smarter Balanced testing by imitating some of their questions (Use the ELA CCSS Bookmarks for sample question stems and prompts.)
APPs & Web Resources
- South Carolina Teachers of English Texts Sets (scroll to “Links to Conference Presentations”): Dr. Mary Styslinger's compilation of graduate students' resource collections for canonical literature
- Frank Baker's Media Literacy Clearinghouse: "MLC's mission is to assist K-12 educators who want to teach standards that include non-print, media texts, learn more about media literacy, integrate it into classroom instruction, help students read the media, help students become more media aware, and locate appropriate resources."
- Poetry Foundation and POETRY app: An impressive collection of poems that are searchable by author, title, subject and theme
- Notability: A note-taking app that allows students to create notes or annotate on pdf files that they save in Notability. I usually attach pdf files of readings to my website. Students click on the article and choose "Open in Notability" on their iPads. They can then annotate it and email me a copy of their annotations. Here is an example of an annotated text from one of my AP Literature students.
- Any document created with Word can be converted to a pdf file. Click "file," then "save as." In the "file type" field, scroll to "PDF" and click "save." Now you will have both a .doc and a .pdf file. It is ALWAYS good to keep a doc file so that you can edit it. You can overwrite the pdf file when you make changes to the doc file. When you save documents to your website or when you email them to students, always do so in the PDF file format so that they cannot be edited and so that students can view them on any device.
- Many online texts can be found in PDF format. Search "[title of text] full text pdf" or use the advanced search settings in Google to specify PDF format results.
Accessibility Resources
- Readability: A free tool that removes the distracting ads and "noise" that can surround online texts
- Rewordify: This site takes difficult text and simplifies it. However, words that are simplified are highlighted so that a student can hover over the simplified word to see the original. See an example of how Rewordify works.
Online Texts
- Jim Burke's Digital Anthology: A wealth of "good things to read," including literature, images, letters and journals, multimedia texts, speeches, media, information, etc.
- The New York Times' Poetry Pairings: "In our weekly “Poetry Pairing” series we collaborate with the Poetry Foundation to feature a poem alongside content from The Times that somehow echoes, extends or challenges that poem’s themes."
- The New York Times' Learning Network: Teaching and learning with The New York Times
- The New York Times' Room for Debate: "In Room for Debate, The Times invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news and events and other timely issues."
- Kelly Gallagher's Article of the Week: In order to expand students' understanding of the world around them and to help them bring this knowledge to other classroom readings, Gallagher assigns an article each week. View his current lists and archived lists.
- Zinn Education Project: "The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the use of Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States and other materials for teaching a people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. The website offers more than 100 free, downloadable lessons and articles organized bytheme, time period, and reading level. The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change" (from the website).
- The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: "A nonprofit organization devoted to the improvement of history education"
- The Library of Congress American Memory: "American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning." (from the website)
- Primary Source Materials and Document Based Questions: "An Internet hotlist on document based questions"
- The National Endowment for the Humanities - Edsitement: "The best of the humanities on the web"
- ReadWriteThink: NCTE & International Reading Association
- PBS LearningMedia: Learning resources from ETV/PBS
- Discovery Education: "Discovery Education transforms classrooms, empowers teachers and captivates students by leading the way in providing high quality, dynamic, digital content to school districts large and small, rural and suburban and everything in between." (from the website)
- Thinkfinity: "Thinkfinity is the Verizon Foundation's free online professional learning community, providing access to over 60,000 educators and experts in curriculum enhancement, along with thousands of award-winning digital resources for K-12 - aligned to state standards and the common core." (from the website)
- ArtsEdge: "ArtsEdge is the Kennedy Center's free digital resource for teaching and learning in, through and about the arts." (from the website)
- Knowitall.org: "ETV's educational Web portal, a collection of fun, interactive websites for K-12 students, teachers and parents" (from the website)
- Project Gutenberg: Offers over 42,000 free ebooks