Knowledge and Skills Statement
Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts.
Demonstrated Proficiency of ELA.8.5.E
Assign small groups of students the same text to read. Have them use sticky notes to capture connections made while reading independently. Then, have students discuss their connections with the group and share specific text that prompted their connections. Challenge students to include connections made to other texts during their conversations.
Further Explanation
This SE requires students to make connections between what they read and relevant personal experiences, other texts they have read, or aspects of the real world they know about to build a framework for understanding. Students demonstrate comprehension of the text as they recognize these connections and can draw comparisons between them.
Supporting Information for ELA.8.5.E
Research
1, VanDerHeide, J., & Juzwik, M. M. (2018). Argument as conversation: Students responding through writing to significant conversations across time and place. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 62(1), 67–77. doi: 10.1002/jaal.754
Summary: In this article, the author presents an instructional model that reconnects to the why of writing. The model of information reasoning requires students to learn how to make a claim, provide supporting evidence of those claims, and create additional examples of the claims through the use of analogies and stories. In this study, students were asked to write a letter in response to an ongoing conversation that was important to them. Personal experience helps to develop the students' ability to advocate for a position through writing. The approach requires scaffolding on argumentative writing instruction. This study includes multiple templates to guide the writing of the responses. This approach fosters the opportunity for students to participate in conversations that have a historical background. In doing so, students engage in topics of debate that have continued over time and in various spaces. Students are invited to participate in these discussions through their writing positions as arguing for or against a position.
2. Borsheim-Black, C., Macaluso, M., & Petrone, R. (2014). Critical literature pedagogy: Teaching canonical literature for critical literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 58(2),123–133. doi: 10.1002/jaal.323
Summary: This article is a deep dive into developing reading comprehension. The strategy stems from critical social theory and assumes that all texts are positioned within a certain idea (ideology), personal experience or connection, similar texts, and/or a reflection of society. The critical eye is trained to read with the text and to read against the text. The article reveals that taking a critical approach to reading for comprehension has the ability to disrupt perpetuated stories. The article includes references to literary canons, charts, examples, and references.