English Language Arts

By adopting the California Common Core State Standards for ELA/Literacy, the State Board of Education affirmed its hope and belief that all of California’s students develop the readiness for college, careers, and civic life by the time they graduate from high school and that they attain the following capacities of literate individuals:

• They demonstrate independence
• They build strong content knowledge
• They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline
• They comprehend as well as critique
• They value evidence
• They use technology and digital media strategically and capably
• They come to understand other perspectives and cultures

In addition, becoming broadly literate — reading and viewing for pleasure, information, and inspiration, and communicating knowledgeably, powerfully, and responsively — is necessary for life in today’s global society. A person who is broadly literate engages with a wide range of books and texts across a variety of genres, time periods, cultures, perspectives, and topics. A person who is broadly literate also enjoys texts for the pleasure they bring, the ideas they convey, the information they impart, the wisdom they offer, and the possibilities they uncover.

Adapted from the California English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework Introduction. "Vision and Goals for California's Children and Youth." Curriculum Frameworks. California Department of Education (2013).

Types of ELA Texts

Texts that students create, read, view, or listen to in ELA classes include but are not limited to:

Fiction (e.g. short stories, novels, poems, plays), Literary Nonfiction (e.g. memoirs and literary journalism), Nonfiction (e.g. interviews, biographies, Op Eds, speeches, reviews, historical accounts, textbooks, articles, essays), Works of Art (e.g. live and archived productions, performances, visual presentations) and more!

ELA Lesson Snapshot- See the Discussion Card in Action!

The Purpose of the Snapshot

The Discussion Cards are intended to be used with oral discourse structures to ensure that all students have opportunities to think, write, and discuss

• optimize relevance, value, and authenticity, or
• How does this lesson supply background knowledge, or
• What did the teacher and the students do and say?

Introducing the Jigsaw Structure with Focus Questions from the Discussion Cards - Mr. Kinney English 10

Mr. Kinney is preparing his 10th grade students for a discussion structure that his class will use once every 1-2 weeks throughout the school year, the Jigsaw. This high school community is culturally and linguistically diverse with 80 percent of his class of 40 students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. About 1/3 are English learners of varying proficiency levels, and 3 students have IEPs. To help his students first learn the structure and reflect upon its benefits, Mr. Kinney and his aid are going to introduce the Jigsaw with a visual text that is connected to this grading period's essential question, " What does it mean to be invisible?" This lesson was done in one block period.

Mr. Kinney prepared a slide deck of portraits from Kihende Wiley, a contemporary artist. Without providing any information about the artist, Mr. Kinney shows his class the first portrait on the slide deck and asks his students to observe the painting in silence for two full minutes. He then opens up the discussion to students to discuss in teams of three, "What do you see? and what do you wonder?" To support his English learners, he encourages students to jot down a few ideas using the sentence stems "I see... I wonder..." during the 2 minutes of silent viewing time.

As students discuss, Mr. Kinney and his aid walk the room and write on a piece of paper examples of when students share: inferences or interpretations about the painter or the subject of the paining or how the painting affects them emotionally. A couple of groups are sitting quietly, Mr. Kinney and the aid prompt these groups by asking questions such as: what do you see; what does this make you think of; what makes you say that - modeling genuine curiosity.

Mr. Kinney charts a few of the examples that he and the aid captured on a chart at the front of the room in 3 unnamed columns. After each column has 2-3 quotes from students, he names the columns Ethos, Pathos, and Logos which are concepts that they have been working with before. He tells the class that painters, just like writers, use these appeals as a way to achieve their purpose. Next, the students are going to use the Jigsaw structure to take a deep dive into Pathos, appeals that the painter makes to the interests, emotions and imagination of the audience:

1. Students get into heterogeneous base groups that he and the aid have pre-arranged. Teams have access to their notes and each have an ELA Discussion Card. Each student in the base group is assigned one question from the Pathos portion of the card that focus on: affect, logical interpretation and use of humor or irony. They then reorganize themselves into expert groups where they will now work on the same question.
2. In expert groups of three students, students prepare their slide on a google slide deck where each slide will unpack one of the assigned questions. The task is to:
   • Provide synonyms for key words in the question that work for this context.
   • Do a google search for sources that help students figure out what type of evidence the question is asking for. Mr. Kinney and the aid encourage groups to try new wording to their searches if they get stuck.
   • Use the sources to create a list of 3-5 types of evidence that your assigned question is asking for. For example, someone from the team may have found a blog post "10 Ways to Convey Emotion in Your Artwork," then types of evidence might include "Utilize Lighting, Use Real Subjects, Introduce Symbolism., etc." Make sure that each list items begins with a precise verb.
   • Mr. Kinney and the aid circulate between teams to provide feedback to make sure that information on the slides is accurate and clear.
3. Students reorganize back into base groups. One group is asked to sit in the front where Mr. Kinney will walk that group through the Jigsaw protocol.
   • Mr. Kinney hands out the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria for a Text Based Discussion, and asks, "which success criteria do you think we might observe in the discussion that we are about to see?"
   • In front of the class, Mr. Kinney prompts and offers guidance to a student in the group to 1) use their google slide to teach the other students what type of evidence to look for and 2) get the conversation going with phrases such as "what makes you say that?"
   • Mr. Kinney then asks the students who observed the demonstration to use language from the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria to name the strengths that they observed in the discussion.
4. Still in base groups of 3, the students then take turns facilitating a discussion of their question by:
   • Using the google slide that their expert group just produced to clarify what type of evidence their question is looking for.
   • Facilitates a 2-3 minute discussion where the rest of the team responds to the question.
   • Mr. Kinney and the aid circulate around the room listening for misconceptions and asking questions that promotes student talk to create understanding (e.g. "what makes you say that," "say more about that," or "I hear you say __, have you considered. __")

5. Closing. In writing or by using FlipGrid, students respond to one of the questions below

• What other question from the Discussion Card would you like to explore and why?
• What might the connection of today's learning be to our essential question, "What does it mean to be invisible?" Speculate why.
• Using our Learning Intentions and Success Criteria, what was a strength for you and what might be a next step? What structures or opportunities helped your learning today and why?

Up Next: Mr. Kinney will show the class more Wiley portraits and a the video of Wiley talking about his work (also linked in the slide deck) to explore "what is the artist's purpose."

We've analyzed this lesson using the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines and the California ELD Standards. Check out our slideshows to learn more!

Downloadable Formats

• Three per page - a PDF that is ready to print and cut. Best if printed on card stock.
• Digital e-reader - a PDF that has one two-sided discussion card for electronic distribution.
• Editable Word Doc - easy to customize to suit your students' needs.

Order Now!

• Order discussion cards and sample packs using this form. The SDCOE Print Shop will create and deliver each order directly to you, or you can arrange for pickup at the SDCOE main campus. TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE DUE TO SCHOOL CLOSURES.

Works Cited

Beers, Kyleen and Robert E. Probst (2016). "Figure 15: Understanding the Differences in Talk to Check for Understanding and Talk to Create Understanding." Reading Nonfiction. Portsmouth NH, Heinemann. Accessed on Twitter on 4/30/2019. https://twitter.com/kylenebeers/status/551460928605011969?lang=en.

California English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework Introduction. "Vision and Goals for California's Children and Youth." Curriculum Frameworks. California Department of Education (2013).

Currie, Jennifer. “Jigsaw.” San Diego County Office of Education, 2019.