Group items tagged

To design the text set, each person thought about a theme in the anchor text to explore. In this way, different people designed different text sets around a common anchor text. Next, each preservice teacher began to put a text set together. These requirements framed the assignment: The text set needed to include 6-8 texts, including the anchor text. The text set had to include both narrative and informational genres. The text set had to include both print and digital texts. The text set needed to include texts of varying complexity.

The authors inspired us to include both narrative and informational texts. The goals of this assignment were to help preservice teachers (1) understand what a text set is and (2) experience putting a text set together. Although the task seemed daunting at first, most preservice teachers were satisfied with their outcomes. The challenges we ran into included: Selecting an anchor text; Deciding on a theme in the anchor text to explore through the text set; Making informed choices about other texts to include.

These standards can seem daunting to preservice teachers. A text set assignment like the one described here is one way  teacher educators can help prepare our university students to plan curriculum and instruction that helps students make deeper connections.

What is informational text? Common Core uses “informational text” as another term for “nonfiction text.”  This category includes historical, scientific, and technical texts that provide students with factual information about the world. Typically, they employ structures such as cause and effect, compare and contrast, and problem and solution. They also contain text features like headlines and boldface vocabulary words.  Because of their narrative structures, biographies and autobiographies do not look like other nonfiction texts. In fact, they are often classified as literary nonfiction. But the Common Core considers them to be informational text as well.  Another category of informational texts includes directions, forms, and information contained in charts, graphs, maps, and digital resources. Simply put, if students are reading it for the information it contains, it’s informational text. 

Putting It Into Practice  With an understanding of what the standards are calling for, it’s time to start thinking about what instruction in informational text could look like in your classroom. Here are a few ideas.

. The phrase “academic and domain-specific vocabulary,” which appears several times, refers to words readers often encounter in textbooks across all subject areas.

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Gross, Mr. Olsen and their students explored how they might pair Times content with basic computer coding to practice Common Core skills. This week they show how the news and the standards can be jumping-off points for exploring video design and gaming. Here are three recent STEM-related articles, related writing prompts, and links to the student projects that resulted–from an undersea-themed game to pop-up analyses of viral videos to interactive biographies of inspiring innovators.

A recent post focused on connecting the trait of Ideas with the Common Core. This time around, we’ll look at Organization: ordering ideas to make them both clear and interesting. We’ll define the trait, link it to the CCSS for writing, and suggest favorite books to use as mentor texts in teaching important elements of Organization—including leads, endings, and transitions.