October 19th - MS
000_MS Agenda 10192023 .docxAgenda
Slides
MS NSI October 19.pdfPre-Work
For your prework, we'd like to ask you to do two things:
Please read, "Our kids aren't good readers. Here's the reason" and respond to the questions listed.
Please review the assessment and sub-unit 1 for Amplify unit C. Please follow the steps listed below.
We'll discuss your pre-work during our online meeting. Please don't forget to sign-in before joining our Zoom meeting. See you all soon!
Please read, "Our kids aren’t good readers. Here’s the reason" by Susan Engel and Catherine Snow. After you've read this opinion piece, please respond to the following questions. Please hold on to your responses - we will be discussing these questions during our session:
What are Engel and Snow arguing in this piece?
How does Engel and Snow's argument align with your current experience?
How do you define background knowledge?
What questions are you left with?
Please complete the following for Amplify unit C for your grade (The Chocolate Collection, Brain Science, or Science & Science Fiction):
Step 1: Please take a look at the unit assessment for Unit C – you can use the Amplify assessment for the purposes of our work today. Be sure to consider both the multiple-choice questions and the writing prompt.
· What is the content that students are expected to know?
· What are the skills students are expected to demonstrate?
Step 2: Next, take a look at sub-unit 1 and read the sub-unit text(s) if you have access (7th & 8th grades, please skim Phineas Gage & Frankenstein - you do not need to read the entire novels for the purposes of our work):
· What do students need to know and be able to do to access the content of the texts (grade 7 & 8) or the research work (grade 6)?
· How does the work in Sub-unit 1 support students to be successful with the assessment?
· What is the background knowledge that students will need to access or develop to help them be successful with this work?
Materials for our Work Together from 6:00 to 8:00
Reading Rope
Knowledge please a key role in building language comprehension. This includes both background knowledge and literary knowledge. While there has been a push in education policy to focus on phonics, knowledge building is becoming the forgotten strand. However, research has shown that background knowledge is a strong predictor of comprehension, even when texts are beyond what has been deemed a student's indpendent reading level. Knoweldge that contributes to students' ability to read and comprehend complex texts includes:
tier 2 & tier 3 vocabulary
genre specific knoweldge
context for writing
content specific knowledge (i.e., scientific or historical knoweldge relevant to the text)
Continuing to Work with Unit C
Step 3: Working with your group, create a sequence of work that asks students to use the routine of pair/trio share to charting to access and develop their background knowledge. As you create your sequence, please note the following:
What are pair/trios writing about and discussing? How will that help them to engage with the text/research work?
What should their charts look like? (are they t-charts? Pie charts? A drawing to represent their understanding of a concept?)
How will you ask students to share those charts?
Step 4: Please create a Google slide that does the following:
Explains the background knowledge that students will need prior to engaging in the sub-unit and why.
Details the sequence of work that you’ll use to help students access or develop that background knowledge.
Chart Samples
We often use t-charts in our work, but what are some other charts that you might ask students to create a share? Below are some samples, but we'd love to see other types of charts in the background work that you'll create with your group.
Bridge to Practice
The purpose of this bridge to practice is for you to continue to build out the knowledge building lesson and implement that lesson with Unit C. To be successful with this bridge to practice
develop a lesson that supports students to build critical knowledge to support comprehension of the texts in the unit.
use a small set of student centered routines (for example, pair/trio work & charting) to help students develop the knowledge.
use that lesson with your students.
reflect on the process using the following questions:
What went well in using the knolwedge building lesson with students?
What do you want to change or try differently next time?
We'll discuss how it went (or where you are in planning if you haven't yet engaged in the task) during our meeting in December.
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Sara (smd94@pitt.edu), Glenn (gln4@pitt.edu), and Tony (tpetrosk@pitt.edu)