Teaching Common Core English Language Arts Standards. Patricia M. Cunningham
be an excerpt from a longer text, and it should have at least one explicit name, word, or phrase for you to display as the answer to an adequate number of questions for an effective Question It lesson. Decide on two or three vocabulary terms that are the most important for students to know when reading the text to introduce beforehand. Early Question It lessons will work better if the text you select is like the one the teacher chose in the sample lesson. In that lesson, everything the text said about amendments was explicit. Once your students are comfortable with the Question It lesson framework, they can work successfully with a text that has both explicit and implicit references to whatever name, word, or phrase you have chosen to focus the lesson on. Use the following six steps when teaching a Question It lesson.
1.Tell students the purpose of the lesson: they are going to read carefully and ask as many different questions as they can think of that the text answers with the name, word, or phrase you have displayed.
2.Teach or review the meanings of two or three vocabulary terms you believe may prevent some of your students from comprehending the text well.
3.For the first several Question It lessons, use the “I do, and you watch” and “I do, and you help” phases to model what you want students to do and to get them off to a successful start. In these phases, you can employ the same text they will read during “You do it together, and I help,” but use a different name, word, or phrase from the one you will display for the students to seek questions for.
4.Have students work together in trios to come up with questions that the word you are focusing on answers (“You do it together, and I help”). Assign (or let students choose) a scribe for each trio so only one student writes down responses for the group.
5.Circulate among the trios and conduct formative assessments by listening in on their interactions. Encourage students to ask each other for evidence from the text and an explanation whenever the text doesn’t explicitly answer the question. This will prepare the trio to defend its questions as good ones when the whole class gathers to tally the questions.
6.Assemble the class, and have trios take turns sharing questions. When a trio suggests a question that isn’t explicit in the text, ask for a volunteer to read the part of the text that question is based on and explain the trio’s thinking behind the question. If you and the class do not agree that there is evidence the question can be answered based on the text, do not count it in your running tally. Once the trios have exhausted the questions they wrote, ask any others that you have thought of, and make it clear why they are countable questions.
Question It Lessons Across the Year
In later Question It lessons, as students demonstrate their ability to ask questions that the text would answer with the displayed term, gradually fade to independence where “You do, and I watch” is the only procedure you use. Eventually, you’ll want to be able to present a grade-appropriate text to your class that is short, dense, and challenging and have each student read it closely and then respond well orally or in writing to the general question, “What does this text tell us about ———?”
How Question It Lessons Teach the Standards
Question It lessons teach Reading anchor standard one (CCRA.R.1) because the major emphasis in Question It is teaching students to read closely until they have exhausted what a short, dense, and challenging text says explicitly or implicitly about a subject. Additionally, beginning in third grade, they are expected to cite explicit textual evidence to support that their questions have that answer. These lessons also teach Language anchor standard six (CCRA.L.6), because Question It has the teacher preteach a few general academic and domain-specific words and phrases from the text that are essential for students to read it closely with comprehension. The lessons teach Speaking and Listening anchor standard one (CCRA.SL.1) because the students collaborate with the teacher in the second phase and work together in the third phase of the gradual release of responsibility model.
CCSS in a Gist Lesson
Gist is a lesson framework for use with a short text. When you lead students through this lesson several times and gradually release responsibility to them, you are helping them learn the reading and speaking and listening skills in the following standards.
Reading
CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text, and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
Speaking and Listening
CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Source: Adapted from NGA & CCSSO, 2010, pp. 10, 22.
CHAPTER 4
Gist
When friends start to tell you about a movie they’ve seen or a book they’ve read, and it seems like they are going to talk for a while, you may ask them just to give you the gist. The gist is the main part or essence of something. It is the nub, the core. In reading, a gist is a one-sentence summary of the text (Cunningham & Moore, 1986). In order for readers to compose a good gist, they must be sensitive to the various clues in the text that indicate which ideas are most central and important. For example, an idea referred to throughout a text is more central and important than an idea only communicated in one place. Being able to grasp the gist of a text is essential. To comprehend a text, readers need to understand more than each sentence or paragraph. The reader must also understand what those sentences and paragraphs add up to.
The major emphasis in Gist lessons is helping students identify central and key ideas in a particular text. Gist lessons also teach students to read closely until they have exhausted what a short text says explicitly or implicitly about a subject. Beginning in third grade, with Reading for literature and informational text standards one (RL.3.1 and RI.3.1), students must be able to cite textual evidence to explain any words in their Gist statements that you or another student questions: “Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers” (NGA & CCSSO, 2010, pp. 11, 14). Using the gradual release of responsibility model of instruction, Gist lessons combine student trios and teacher-led collaborative conversations to discuss various aspects of the text’s content.
A Sample Gist Lesson
This is the first Gist lesson this class has experienced. Because Gist is challenging for most students, Mr. O. will follow the gradual release of responsibility model of instruction through a series of Gist lessons. For the first few Gist lessons, he will only use the “I do, and you watch” and “I do, and you help” steps.
Purpose Setting
Mr. O. says, “Today, we’re going to work on how to summarize a passage in one sentence. This will be hard work because the passage has 176 words in it, but the one-sentence summary we write can’t have more than fourteen words in it. In a minute, I am going to show you the beginning of the text. We’ll start by summarizing just this first part. Then, I’ll show you both the first and second parts, and we’ll summarize those in one sentence. Finally, I’ll let you see the entire passage, and we’ll try to summarize it all in a sentence with fourteen or fewer words.”
TIP
Gist is an instructional strategy for use in grades 2 and up. Students get gradually better at reading and writing longer sentences as they move up through the grades. A good rule of thumb for the length of