What I Learned from Dr. Roz Linder's Writing Jumpstart Conference

I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Rozlyn Linder  speak at the Writing Jumpstart Conference in Chicago.  When Dr. Linder contacted me via Twitter in early October to let me know she'd be in the Chicagoland area and that she'd offer a discount code for my followers and me to attend her workshop, I was ecstatic!  I own her K-2 and 3-8 Chart Sense books for informational text and literature. 

Both books are dog-eared, highlighted and tabbed.  Needless to say, she's well respected in my book.  After meeting her in person, I can say she is one of the most down-to-Earth, brilliant and amusing gals I've had the honor to meet.

She discussed how the Common Core Standards have caused shifts in writing, which not only impact writing but reading scores as well. Since this is the case, she began to deconstruct the state tests to see how she can better support her students and to get them to be better writers.  She tested many ideas and collaborated with teachers from all over.  After much thought and hard work, she documented her useful tips and created anchor charts and strategies that align with Common Core via Chart Sense for Writing. 

Dr. Linder's main focus for the day was evidence-based writing.  Since state tests ask students to communicate their ideas via constructed responses, they need to be able to explain or argue a particular point using the text.  They are required to go back into the text and show evidence for their thinking.  Text evidence is the cornerstone for everything in constructed responses.  What we did ten years ago is not working anymore, now that the standards have changed. 

How does this connect to the reading standards? Anchor Standard One states "refer explicitly to the text".  In terms of finding evidence, students seem to snag anything they can and call it text-based evidence.  As we know, what they snag is not always necessarily from the text and may merely come from their background knowledge.  As teachers, we need to get students into the habit of supporting their thinking, not just regurgitating what they feel is text evidence without real proof.  

Dr. Linder commented on how some kids just want to give teachers exactly *what they want*.  Ever hear a student say, "Well, how many sentences do you want me to write?"  The best response to this question is, "Write how many sentences it will take you to support your thinking."   

How school tends to work to DIScourage evidence based thinking:
Teachers tend to model evidence quickly within the text and then have students go back to their desks and write down their own evidence. This brief modeling is very ineffective for most students, especially those who tend to struggle in reading and writing.  She claims, "It's tempting to go straight to writing, but consider how much more effective it is when you scaffold and help students move into something is small chunks."  Her suggestion is to have students jump into hands-on activities to practice finding clues or evidence before any type of writing even begins.  Teachers need to get into the habit of "Teaching evidence ALL day, EVERY day."

Teachers should want students to think and have ideas, not just strive to "have the right answer".  Dr. Linder stated, "Don't create a culture of thinking outside the box as being wrong.  Create a culture that gets students to support their own thinking."  Students are allowed to have an opinion, but get them to prove why they think that or have that opinion.  Get students to think in terms of evidence.  PROOF,  PROOF,  PROOF!  

Teach students to use clues by asking, "What clues do you see?"  Let students know it's not about people agreeing with them, it's about them showing or providing evidence for their thoughts.  Students shouldn't strive to just get to the teachers point of view.  They should have their own point of view as long as it can be supported.

Teachers can prepare an evidence based class by using these two *Big Questions*: What do you know? and How do you know?  Teachers need to immerse students in finding evidence without even using a text at first.  Dr. Linder tells students, "When you tell me something, I want to know how you know!"  She claims this is a necessary precursor to evidence biased writing.  "Evidence based TALK has to happen."  Teachers need to make sure students know how to point to evidence before they can write about it.

At the conference, Dr. Linder had us looking at images then sharing our observations (what we knew) and then explaining how we knew what we knew.  One of the images used was a painting by Norman Rockwell.  We made inferences and noted evidence for why we thought what we thought.  This gave us first-hand experience of how to implement *Reading Images* with the students. 

 

The next day, I tried this out with my own students.  You can use post-it notes of explicitly named evidence on chart paper containing the image and use it as your anchor chart. Remember students should be asked to find evidence before reading and writing even begins.

For this reason, I photocopied a few illustrations from a story we were going to read and placed them onto chart paper.  I then asked my students to look at the picture and answer the question What do you know?  Their responses for what they knew were "He is messy", "It's morning", "It's around the holidays", "It's winter" and "It's cold outside."  I then asked the students, How do you know? What makes you say that?  The students began to tell me how they came to their particular conclusions.  For example, when they said "He is messy", they proved their thinking by saying "There is stuff all over the floor", "His drawers are all open with things hanging out of them", etc.    

I made hand-held signs, in addition to the sign below, to reminder my students to stop and think about the two *Big Questions*.  Click on the image for a copy of your own, if you're interested. :)  

Dr. Linder went on to share additional ideas for students to practice, so they get the hang of finding text evidence in meaningful ways. Below are some of those ideas.
Strategies to introduce evidence in FUN ways: Out of the text ways to get kids to give evidence:

• Use movie trailers!  According to Dr. Linder, "Because movies are visuals, all students have access to the information and it doesn't matter if they are a great readers or writers.  They still get to practice thinking and supporting their thoughts with evidence from the text."

• Use concrete and tangible experiences for making inferences, such as comparing shoes.  Here's the image used at the conference.
  
  Ask students, "What do you know?  How do you know?  What makes you say that?  Tell me more!"  

• Have students Read Images: For example, take a look at magazine covers of the same topic and explain what they think and why they think it.  The example used at the conference was O.J. Simpson.
  
  Of course, it's best to pick images your students can connect with to make it more powerful.  Dr. Linder mentioned using interest surveys to find out what impacts or connects to students.  It's also okay to allow kids to bring their schema into the conversation until they've had some practice for the purpose of getting them talking.  However, make sure to require the students to stick to evidence in what they see in an image, not bringing in other schema, once they get the hang of it.  (If you'd like more information on inferring from visuals and multimodal texts, see my previous post HERE.)

• Use sentence frames when asking and responding to questions.  For example, "So you're saying...", "Based on the image, you think...", "Based on the cover...", "According to..." , "___ explained..." , "One point made (in the news)...", etc.  This will allow for a smoother transition when the students begin writing their constructed responses.  Give students lots of  time to chat about images then ask, "Tell me what you know and how you know it."  Have them practice using the sentence frames in their oral responses before their written responses.
  
   

• Play *Get Trashy*! The idea is to gather random items that may get "thrown away" from two separate types of people (A.K.A. "your neighbors") and have the students infer what types of people they are.  I heard of this idea at the Illinois Reading Conference from Tanny McGreggor.  So fun for the students!  Dr. Linder mentioned, "Kids remember these things.  If you skip the effort and time connecting with kids outside of the pen and paper, you are missing a chance to teach skills they need to write thoughtfully and thoroughly."
  

Well, there are a few ideas Dr. Linder shared at her conference.  There were a ton more, so if you're ever able to see her speak in person, I highly recommend it!  You'll walk away with easy-to-implement ideas for your classroom, no matter the subjects you teach.  Be on the lookout for Dr. Linder's soon-to-be-released book called Big Book of Details to help students elaborate when writing.  If it's anything like her other books, it will be a must-own resource! 

Literacy Retreat, Session 1 Recap: Achieving Complex Thinking During Reading

Let me start off by saying, the Smekens Education Literacy Retreat was amazing!  I learned a great amount in such a short 2-day time frame.  The main presenter, Kristina Smekens, is highly knowledgeable. The way she shares information is entertaining and fun, which is always a bonus when sitting for 2-days.  If you ever get a chance to attend the retreat, take it!  I'm hoping to attend annually, since the topics change each summer.  Anyway, in the upcoming weeks, I will be sharing information from the eight sessions I attended.  I don't have specific dates of when I'll be posting, since I am supposed to be taking a break from educational-related things (Yeah, right!), but here are the session topics: :)

1. Achieving Complex Thinking During Reading
2. Executing Complex Tasks After Reading
3. Building Stronger Beginnings and Endings
4. Teaching Academic Vocabulary with Six Interactive Strategies
5. Differentiating to Support English Language Learners
6. Inferring Ideas from Visuals & Multimodal Texts
7. Revitalizing the Writing Process
8. Using Mentor Texts to Teach Sentence Variety

One more thing before I fill you in on the first session.  I strongly recommend getting Chart Sense K-2, Chart Sense 3-8 and Chart Sense for Writing written by Rozlyn Linder.  I purchased these professional texts last summer and have certainly not regretted it.  

I have used Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and this blog to get the word out about these books.  The reason I am referencing them is because of their repeated mention at the Literacy Retreat.  It seemed as if a high percentage of the mini-lessons discussed at the retreat were taken from these books!  Rozlyn Linder, the author of the Chart Sense books, is a genius.  There are tons of Reading mini-lessons organized by the standards and each mini-lesson contains useful and extremely easy-to-implement anchor charts.  My Chart Sense books have been tabbed, dog-eared and highlighted and are definitely some of my "must-have" resources.  

Okay, moving on. There was so much information shared at this session.  I will be sharing a few key points, some anchor charts, a fun activity and three online resources mentioned within the session's duration.  Here we go! :)

Session 1: Achieving Complex Thinking During Reading
The essential question for this session was based on the image below: How do you get kids to think across the continuum of complex thinking? 

When students are asked to read a complex text, they first need to learn how to peel back the layers of a text before digging in.  We, as teachers, need to get students to think at different levels starting with the Word Levels and then progressing to the level of Discerning Greater Meaning.  As you may already know or have personally encountered within your classroom, students have a hard time with thinking in terms of "the bigger picture", which includes thinking about characters across a text.  

The Critical Consideration level is where teachers begin asking students to analyze more deeply about a text.  For example, a prompt used at this level may be, What is the character's purpose for doing this?  Kristina Smekens mentioned the Critical Consideration level is where teachers often start to lose kids in terms of comprehending a complex text.  However, once students are more secure at this level, asking them to begin synthesizing across multiple texts can begin to happen.  Synthesizing happens in the Discerning Greater Meaning level.  This last level on the continuum is where students are asked to do something with what they learn during reading.  

Underneath the continuum, you'll notice DOK Levels, which stand for Depths of Knowledge Levels. Students need to be able to think at a variety of levels.  Click here to learn more!

Phase 1 is considered *Simplistic Thinking* where students are asked to recall, draw, list, illustrate, etc.  It's important for students to start at this level.  As teachers, don't jump into complex thinking questions during the first read!  Stick to the standards- R2.1, R2.2, R2.3 and have the students reread a text multiple times.  Always ask face-value questions when students first read a text.  

Phase 2 is known as *Moderately Complex Thinking* where students are asked to assess, compare, conclude, revise, etc.  In this phase, students need to question the author and analyze his/her choices of why certain portions of the text were added, as well as think about figurative and technical meanings, author's purpose, and vocabulary.

Phase 3 is *Complex Thinking*.  Students need to apply concepts, analyze, connect, create, critique, prove, etc. during reading.  This is the point where students go complex!  Teachers need to get students to zoom in on some portions of a text, but zoom out again to synthesize information across multiple texts.  For example, students may be asked to look at arguments in various informational books or make text-to-text connections.  Teachers may want to give students books on the same topic to compare or books written by the same author or with the same theme.

Anchor charts are known to support students' thinking on more complex levels.  Students usually are able to retell what happens in a text, but teachers need to get them to discuss, for instance, how the characters interact with one another, too.  They need to be able to track events in sequential order.  Start simple by asking students to discuss a particular character: How is the character acting?  Then move them onto more complex questions about multiple characters: How are characters interacting with one another? What sort of relationships do they have? Below is the Interaction Tracker used as an example at the retreat.  Click on the image to download two available versions.

Students are used to What is the answer?  However, the times have changed, as we all know.  With the Common Core State Standards, teachers need to ask students What is the answer? Why? What's the evidence to support your thinking?  This is a HUGE shift in thinking.  Krista Smekens said "Do not be satisfied with students' *right answers* to your questions because they could have been a guess.  Instead ask, Where in the text are you getting this?"  

Discussions about textual evidence were a strong focus in this session.  The retreat attendees were warned to remember: All evidence is a detail, but not all details are evidence!  Teachers need to make students become aware of what constitutes as strong evidence.  Just because it's in the text doesn't mean it backs up and supports the evidence.  Writing details from a text is NOT EVIDENCE, but citing directly from the text IS evidence.

Kristina discussed various mini-lessons to bring back to the classroom.  Many of the ideas to get students to achieve complex thinking during reading were directly taken from my favorite Chart Sense books.  I used my copies of the books to take pictures of some charts mentioned at the retreat.  If you're interested in a viewing a previous post I wrote regarding textual evidence using a few of the charts, click HERE.  This post will also lead you to a textual evidence freebie I've created. :)   

One of the best highlights about the Literacy Retreat was the giveaways.  The attendees were given numerous goodies.  One of the goodies was a set of bags called Finding Author Evidence.  I love them!  I'm looking forward to this activity in the Fall.  Even if you don't have a set, any gallon-sized Ziploc Bags will do.  You can have your students create their own. :) 

For this activity, once students finish reading a text, the teacher should start by providing a claim or inference for the students.  Be careful not to start off too complex by having students think up their own claim or inference.  As an example, the teacher may state the claim: "I think this character is a bully!"  Have students work together in small groups to support the given claim.  

Kristina stated that finding textual evidence should be a kinesthetic activity.  Students should record text evidence on sentence strips, notebook paper cut into strips, Post-It Notes, or whatever else you can find.  They must be able to move sentences around and discuss their reasoning for the evidence with peers.  Sorting sentences to prove the claim (ex: the character is a bully) will allow students an opportunity to rank the evidence in order of importance.  The discussions with peers is what gets the ideas and learning started.  Students need to see others' perspectives!  I've provided the corresponding graphic organizer for this activity, if you would like to give it a try with your students, too.  Just click on the image to download.

Last, but not least, below are some online resources teachers can use with students in the classroom to develop complex thinking skills.  I'm only familiar with Time for Kids, so the other resources are on my list to investigate when school starts again. 

• VOKI: Have students apply Point Of View in Finish the Story narrative prompts with VOKI.  Use this online resource to design an avatar emulating a character.  Voices are recorded into a computer and recited back as a character.  Fun! 

• Time for Kids and ProCon.org are great resources for students to analyze and evaluate arguments.  According to Kristina Smekens, students need to learn to distinguish claims versus reasons versus evidence.  These online resources were recommended when teaching students how to track an author's claim with his/her reasons and support.

I hope you found this information useful.  If you liked what you learned, stay tuned to Literacy Loving Gals via Bloglovin', so you don't miss a post.  As I revealed, I'll be sharing information from each session attended at the Literacy Retreat.  Before I go, I want to thank A Little Piece of Africa for the arrow graphics and Kimberly Geswein for the fonts in my images. :)

Thinking About the Text: Using Textual Evidence When Responding to Reading- Freebie Included!

I'm linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday to share my Thinking About the Text: Using Textual Evidence When Responding to Text freebie.  This is a *throwback* post I shared on Adventures in Literacy Land as a guest blogger, in case you missed it.  

As we all know, the Common Core State Standards declare students should be able to *read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it* as well as *cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text*.  That may be very difficult for students to do.  The majority of struggling readers and writers in my RtI groups often respond to their reading with brief, fragmented statements without text evidence supporting their thoughts.  Getting them to support an analysis of their reading with textual evidence takes much EXPLICIT guidance before they are able to be successful on an independent level.  

Students are not able to answer questions purely based off of their prior knowledge or personal experience.  Making personal connections to the text is still important, however, text-to-self connections are no longer a focus when responding to reading.  Students need to stay within the four corners of the text.  They need to carefully read and answer questions only referring explicitly to the text.  When discussing texts with my students, I pre-plan the direction I'd like to take them.  Under the proverbial umbrella of text-dependent evidence falls questions that can 1.) get to the general understanding or gist of the text 2.) be literal, but must also involve evaluation, synthesis and analysis and 3.) focus on particular vocabulary words, sentences, paragraphs, events and themes.  

When planning lessons to get my students to think more concretely about their reading, I often turn to K-2 Chart Sense: Common Sense Charts to Teach K-2 Informational Text and Literature and Chart Sense: Common Sense Charts to Teach 3-8 Informational Text and Literature.  I purchased these books at the tail end of last year and have not regretted it!  These books are fabulous and can really help guide teachers in implementing anchor chart visuals for students that encompass every reading standard.  Yes, anchor chart ideas for every Common Core reading standard, both informational text and literature, is addressed in these books!  Wow, right?

Below are some of the tools my students use, a text-evidence chart example taken directly from Chart Sense, pictures of my students using the chart and a brief description of the procedures I use with them. 

Behold the power of "Text-Evidence Detective Tools"! 

After much discussion, the students were asked to become *Text-Evidence Detectives*.  "Prove it with text evidence!" was a phrase they heard me say over and over again.   I gave them eye-lighters and magnifying glasses to locate the evidence for the first few go-arounds to get them excited for the hunt. ;)

For this particular activity, the students orally explained their thoughts and located text evidence to support them.  Because they were busy with the eye-lighters and magnifying glasses during this activity, I wrote their responses onto Post-It notes for the students to place on the chart.  Each day, we'd recap the previous day's notes as a review.  We'd then continue with our next text, using the previous day's notes as a reminder.  The various colored Post-It notes represent three texts read and discussed throughout the week. 

Since I work primarily with the texts in Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention kits which contain series of books, I also created anchor charts dedicated to the series' characters we often read about.  Some of the series within the F&P LLI kits include Moosling, Froggy, Fox Family and the Fix-It Family.  For this post, I chose to use our Moosling anchor chart as an example.

Since I can't claim to be an artist, I photocopied the cover of a Moosling book to place in the center of blank chart paper.  I then put "Moosling is..." and "Prove it with text-evidence!" at the top of the chart.   Easy enough, right? :)  Then, using a character trait poster, the students discussed possible traits Moosling possesses in the texts we've read thus far.  The students were given a few pre-read titles in the series to locate text evidence to support Moosling's traits.  They were responsible for writing down their evidence on the Post-It notes for this activity, so no "eye-lighters" or magnifying glasses were used during this part.  The students had a great time with this.  They took their job as "Text-Evidence Detectives" very seriously and were quite successful with it! :)  

After much guided practice my students were ready to test their skills independently!  For independent practice of citing textual evidence, I created a simple graphic organizer for my students to use, as well as a prompt poster for them to reference when responding to their reading.  You can see them in action below!

Student using the Textual Evidence Sentence Starters poster below
for her written response...

I created the organizer to mimic what we were doing together in a small group on the large chart paper, so it correlated with what they had been practicing.  My graphic organizer and prompt poster are FREEBIES, if you'd like to download them from my TPT store.  

My product includes black & white as well as color versions of both the graphic organizer and prompt poster.  I know teachers aren't always able to print in color. :)  

So, there you have it...a few simple and easy-to-implement ideas for your classroom to get students thinking inside the four corners of the text.  What are some ways you get students thinking about and citing from the text? 

Enjoy your day and don't forget to grab your freebie!