This Power-Up provides strategies to increase students ability to access content areas, demonstrate mastery of standards, and increase general understanding of expectations during instruction. Students are required to move beyond the expectation of merely getting the right answer or recall simple facts. Students are currently required to analyze, justify, and explain how they solved problems as described in Common Core Standards. This module will provide instruction on how and why teachers need to be explicit in teaching the language needed to access content areas such as English Language Arts/Literacy, Mathematics, and Science. These strategies can also be applied to other academic areas that utilize academic language. The populations of learners impacted most are English Learners, Students with special needs, at-risk learners, and students with receptive/expressive language issues.
Essential Questions:
How do I write learning objectives that include academic language, content, and supports needed for success?
What is Disciplinary Discourse?
How can I design lessons that specifically teach academic language needed to access content in a variety of areas (ELA, Math, Science)?
Create and maintain inclusive, equitable learning environments that support individual and collaborative learning experiences, utilize high leverage practices, and foster critical thinking, active engagement, and well-being for all learners.
Develop lesson plans that explicitly teaching academic language associated with achievement.
Assess student achievement based on the use of the specific academic language function.
Apply knowledge of Specific Disciplinary Discourse (academic language) and how it impacts learning.
Revise an existing lesson plan to include one content/language objective including supports necessary for achievement.
Teach a mini-lesson using one of the Academic Function Language skills and strategies.
Reflect on the experience of developing, teaching, and determining if the student was able to access the content at a level necessary to achieve based on common core standards.
Review the learning outcome and think about these two questions:
What academic language will students need to use in order to acquire new knowledge and skills?
What academic language do students need in order to tell you that they learned the content?
Download the Academic Language Made Easy slide deck for review and notetaking.
Watch the Model of Disciplinary Discourse/Teaching Academic Language video.
Complete the Application Activity.
Using an instructional plan that you will teach in your classroom, target an academic language function from the toolkit and teach a mini-lesson to a student or small group you think might benefit from the academic language skill (i.e. Justification, Summarization, Cause and Effect).
Teach the lesson and then briefly respond (in writing or video) to the following prompts:
Was there evidence the student is proficient in using the academic language?
What would be your next steps in determining if there was mastery in acquiring the academic language concept?
Submit your instructional plan with your reflection including next steps.