New standards aim to teach with context

Literary lessons encourage critical thinking

High school students often think they will encounter a story about a bird when they begin studying Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, a Mountain Home English teacher said.

Michelle Padgett teaches the novel because it is a classic piece of American literature that grapples with issues of growing up and racial biases in the 1930s.

This year, Padgett plans a different approach to the novel because for the first time, teachers for the ninth through 12th grades across the state are required to follow the Common Core State Standards for literacy and mathematics. The standards have been implemented over the previous two school years for kindergarten through eighth grades.

“My approach is going to be more student-driven, more of their own discovery,” Padgett said.

The Common Core State Standards outline expectations by grade level on what students should know about mathematics and literacy. The standards were developed through the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. More than 40 states have adopted the standards, though some have slowed implementation of them.

The standards have drawn supporters and critics across the country.

Padgett anticipates starting a six-week study of To Kill A Mockingbird in October. The story is a fictional tale set in the 1930s and told by the daughter of an Alabama lawyer who defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. The mockingbird is a symbol of innocence.

This school year, the book will tie into lessons about the Great Depression in social-studies classes and about the stock market in math classes to help students understand the historical context.

In her English class, Padgett’s students also will read about Jim Crow laws, which were used to enforce racial segregation in the South, and they will read an old newspaper article about Harrison in the early 1900s when white mobs drove out black residents.

Padgett said she hopes the classic book makes her students think and connect events in the novel with history, including events thathappened close to home.

“You don’t just judge someone based on the color of their skin or how they look,” she said. “It’s all about stereotypes and getting them to understand that the world can be a reflection of this novel.” PROMOTING THINKING

The Common Core State Standards emphasize teaching high school students how to get meaning from literature, said David Jolliffe, professor and Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Jolliffe has 37 years of experience in education, and for the past three years has trained teachers across the state on the Common Core State Standards for literacy.

Preparing students for college and careers is a major focus of the Common Core State Standards.

“College composition is about active reading,” Jolliffe said. “The biggest problem students face is when they are asked to take a text and write about this text.”

College instructors expect them to know how to read for meaning, but many students graduate from high school accustomed to the teacher telling them what the text means. When a college instructor asks them for the main idea, many students’ first reactions is to look in the book.

“The main idea is not on the page,” Jolliffe said. “The main idea is in their heads.”

Pulling meaning out of a text requires students to hypothesize about the author’s intention, find evidence in the text that supports the hypothesis and then explain why they think the evidence supports their hypothesis, Jolliffe said.

The literacy standards are pushing educators to challenge students to analyze and draw meaning from complex pieces of literature, nonfiction and informational texts, according to an Arkansas Department of Education document on the standards.

Combining major works of literature with other types of reading on the same subject helps students understand that the themes and issues are not archaic ideas, but are relevant today, Jolliffe said. Students are challenged to consider what different authors say about an issue and to develop their own thinking about it.

LITERACY HUDDLES

Padgett developed her new approach to teaching To Kill A Mockingbird while attending a literacy “huddle” this month with schools involved in the Achieving By Changing program of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, an organization that focuses on rural and charter schools.

She hopes the study allows students to explore issues related to stereotypes, prejudices, race, growing up and the literary use of point of view, but she also hopes the new approach will help them develop analytical thinking, she said.

“I feel like it was a revival,” said Padgett, who has taught English for 17 years. “I was excited for the kids. I think I would like to be a kid in the classroom and read that novel.”

The huddles give teachers time to explore the new standards, think about how the new standards apply to their classrooms and learn about resources the program has compiled for their use, said Teresa Chance, who is directing the Achieving By Changing initiative. The initiative offered three huddles this summer, and a fourth is scheduled for September.

Participants in curriculum huddles work in teams of two or three to develop lessons and assessments related to the Common Core State Standards that fit into a unit for specific subjects and grade levels. Their work is posted at www.achievingbychanging.com.

“The teachers that come to the huddle have been very happy to have time to talk to other teachers,” Chance said. “There are a lot of folks that have not had the opportunity to have those deep conversations.”

The Arkansas P ublic School Resource Center started Achieving By Changing with a $2 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation to assist small school districts and charter schools across the state with transitioning to the Common Core standards.

For English classes, the standards aim for a broader focus than reading and discussing a novel because of its high literary value, Chance said. Teachers should pull in multiple pieces around a theme, guiding students to make connections among the different pieces. Their readings could corroborate an author’s message or challenge that point of view.

“You need to compare and contrast different texts,” Chance said. “You need to be able to analyze.”

Paul Stewart, an English teacher at Benton County School of the Arts in Rogers, developed a series of lessons on To Kill A Mockingbird while working with Padgett during the huddle. Stewart plans to continue teaching Harper Lee’s novel, but his work has made him think about the way he teaches.

“We go very deep into the author’s craft and how they create meaning,” Stewart said. “What’s changing for me is making sure that the students are doing more of the discovery, and I’m doing less of the telling.”

When they finish studying a novel, Stewart has a new plan for the final three days of the unit. He will give his students an essay question and ask them to develop the system that will be used to grade their essays.

On the second day, his students will spend time exploring their ideas in a discussion with their classmates. They will put those thoughts into an in-class essay that they will finish on the third day.

“When I’ve thought of an idea myself and made all of the connections, it’s something I remember for years and years and years, rather than just learning enough to get through the test,” Stewart said. “Engaging with a work of literature, it stays with a kid potentially forever.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 07/28/2013

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