Title: The English Language Arts Framework Revisions and 21st Century Skills
1The English Language Arts Framework Revisions and
21st Century Skills
- First Annual Summit on Curriculum, Instruction,
and Assessment - Marlborough, MA
- December 10, 2008
- Heidi Guarino, Chief of Staff, Commissioners
Office - Susan Wheltle, Director of the Office of
Humanities - Cheryl Liebling, Director of the Office of
Literacy
2A Vision of K-12 Students Todayhttp//www.youtub
e.com/watch?v_A-ZVCjfWf8Are our schools
preparing students well enough for the present?
For the changes in their future?
3Objectives of this presentation
- Present the background of the Board of Elementary
and Secondary Educations Task Force on 21st
Century Skills and its recommendations for
standards - Review statewide achievement gaps in literacy and
selected resources designed to narrow these gaps
in the elementary grades - Introduce draft revisions to the English language
arts standards - Discuss your reactions to the Task Force
recommendations and the draft ELA standards
4The Global Economy is Driving Change
- By 2015, about 85 of new jobs will require at
least a two-year degree - Just 10 of the states employment opportunities
are in manufacturing - Employers say most critical job skills are
professionalism, work ethic, oral and written
communications, teamwork, collaboration, problem
solving and critical thinking - Recent MBAE study found a majority of high school
graduates and many college graduates were lacking
in most of those skills -
5Todays Jobs Require Different Skills
Source Preparing Students to Thrive in the 21st
Century. 2007, Richard Murnane
6Hourly Wage Gaps are Widening
Advanced Degree
4-year college degree
24 difference
12 difference
High School diploma
Some High School
7P21 Framework
8Partnership for 21st Century Skills
- 2007 MA joined the national Partnership for
21st Century Skills - 2008 - The Partnership published its
recommendations - Among the identified skills are critical thinking
problem solving, communication, and
collaboration, all of which are essential
elements of the English language arts
http//www.21stcenturyskills.org
9Massachusetts Task Force on 21st Century Skills
- 22-member task force formed by the Board of
Elementary and Secondary Education in May 2008 - Leaders in education, business and technology
- Charged with developing recommendations for ways
to integrate 21st century skills into K-12
curriculum
10Task Force on 21st Century Skills
- The Task Force had 4 subgroups
- Assessment and Accountability
- Curriculum Development, Instruction and Learning
Environments - Standards and Workforce Development
- Educator Quality and Support
- The Task Force Report is available at
http//www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/1108/item1.html
11Standards and Workforce Development
Recommendations
- Raise the states bar on rigor by embedding
complementary 21st century skills and content
throughout the Commonwealths curriculum
frameworks in every subject
12Recommendations Standards and WF Development
- Review and update all curriculum frameworks to
integrate and embed 21st century skills - Prior to BESE vote, review revised frameworks
with Achieve Inc.s American Diploma Project and
Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Create and promote new and existing scholarships
and incentives for proficiency in 21st century
skills - Encourage schools to offer online learning
options - Commit Readiness Centers to serve in part as 21st
century skills capacity-building centers to
assist in curriculum and instruction
13What Are Standards?
- Statements of what all students should know and
be able to do as they progress from
Prekindergarten to Grade 12 - Guides for local curriculum, instruction, and
assessment - In Massachusetts, the standards are also the
basis for the Massachusetts Comprehensive
Assessment System (MCAS) in English language
arts, mathematics, science, and history/social
science
14ELA Framework Revisions
- Current ELA Framework published in 2001
- Education Reform Act of 1993 requires periodic
review and updating of all 7 frameworks - November 2007 35 P-16 educators, business and
community members reviewed recent research on
reading, writing, media education standards from
other states, the College Board, Achieve, Inc.
and the NAEP frameworks for reading and writing - January 2009 A draft of revised standards,
available at http//www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/0109
/item6.html
15ELA Framework Revisions
- Next steps
- Expert review of draft standards by the panel,
scholars and benchmarking against standards of
high performing countries on international
assessments - A public comment draft published in June 2009
- Anticipated Board adoption of the Framework in
Fall 2009 - MCAS items based on the revised standards in
Spring 2012
162008 ELA MCAS Data
- 2008 ELA MCAS Aggregate performance at grades
3-5 declined, flat performance at grades 6-8.
Despite relatively strong performance at grade
10, many students leave high school ill-prepared
for college and the workforce - Substantial subgroup gaps persist with white
students and African-American/Black,
Hispanic/Latino, students with special needs, and
English learners
17How the ELA Framework Revision can help us
improve proficiency at grades 3-5
- Sharpen our focus for K-5 reading instruction on
vocabulary development and comprehension of
literary and expository text while enabling
development of the skills of phonemic awareness,
decoding, fluency - Fully integrate language literacy skills as
students read and write literary, expository,
persuasive text - Link grade level standards to instructional
practices resources in a grade level searchable
database format - Serve as the foundation for alignment with
formative/interim assessments as well as
on-demand MCAS
18Vocabulary Standards Revisions MA ELA Curriculum
FrameworkDraft 2009
- Contextual Analysis Articulated sequence of
skills to increase literary and domain-specific
vocabulary by relating unfamiliar words to known
words, concepts, content - Word Analysis Articulated sequence of skills to
increase general academic vocabulary through
morphological analysis of related words
19Why are we making these changes?
- Hart Risley (2003) estimate that by age 3,
children of professional families have heard 33
million words, almost 4 times as many as those
heard by children from families that receive
welfare assistance. - Given the large number of unique words in school
books, strategic vocabulary instruction is
required if the gap for students dependent on
schools for literacy is to be narrowed (Hiebert,
2008).
Hart, B., Risley, T.R. (2003). The early
catastrophe The 30 million word gap by age 3.
American Educator.
20 Words in American Schoolbooks
WordZonesTM
See Hieberts www.textproject.org Zeno et al.,
1995
21Word Zones
- Zones 0-2 930 unique words that account for 63
of all words in a million-word sample - Zone 1 able, important
- Zone 2 various, true
- Zone 3 Additional 1,676 words (e.g., actual,
upset) - Zone 4 Additional 2,980 words (e.g., possess,
theories) - Cumulative 5,586 words that account for 89 of
all words in a million-word sample by end of
grade 4, students should be familiar with these
words
http//www.textproject.org/resources/word-zones-li
st
22Example of a Grade 3 Vocabulary Standard
Contextual Analysis, MA ELA Revised Curriculum
Frameworks, Draft 2009
- Define new words in literary text that are
related to known words, themes, concepts, and
story structure (e.g., words related to a
characters good qualities) - Words not commonly used in spoken language
- Concept is familiar, but target word is
unfamiliar - Rare, uncommon words in a 100 word passage
- The higher the percentage of these unfamiliar
words, the more difficult it will be for students
to comprehend passage meaning
23Teaching Unfamiliar Vocabulary in Literary Text
Hiebert, 2008
24Teaching Unfamiliar Vocabulary in Literary Text
- The teacher uses Becks robust vocabulary
strategy of student-created definitions. For
example, students use a known word such as fuss
to help them identify the meaning of an unknown
word, rumpus. Students then use the new word in
a sentence. - Student A rumpus is when someone makes a big
fuss about something, it makes people mad. - Students sentence My mother caused a rumpus
when she made my little brother clean up his room
before coming downstairs for dinner.
25Vocabulary 21st Century Skills
- The teacher then extends the web of semantically
related words by having groups of students use an
online thesaurus to identify a set of related
words for each key word and create a semantic
word wall. Students then use these words in
writing and sharing narratives about times in
their lives when a rumpus occurred - Integration of reading, discussion, and writing
- 21st century skills - collaboration and precise
communication of meaning
26Example of a Grade 3 Vocabulary Standard
Contextual Analysis, MA ELA Revised Curriculum
Frameworks, Draft 2009
- Define topically related content words in the
grade 3 core curriculum in English language arts
(e.g. story elements, summarize), science (e.g.,
solar system), social studies (e.g., nation),
mathematics (e.g., graph, place value), the arts
(e.g., collage), and health/physical education
(e.g., injury) - In Tennessee, educators identified examples of
domain-specific vocabulary by grade level in the
states Academic Vocabulary Project
27Teaching Unfamiliar Vocabulary in Expository Text
Hiebert, 2008
28A MA pilot to promote integrated instruction
21st century skills
- Roots of Reading/Seeds of Science Lawrence Hall
of Science, UCBerkeley - Do it hands-on experiment, peer collaboration
view related media - Talk it solve problems, evaluate, decide
- Read books and online resources on the topic,
write up the experiment, summarize what was
learned from all sources - http//seedsofscience.org/
29Example of a Grade 4 Vocabulary Standard Word
Analysis, MA ELA Revised Curriculum Frameworks,
Draft 2008
- Morphological study of roots, prefixes, and
suffixes word origins, cognates - General academic vocabulary in literary and
expository text - K-Grade 12
- Morphology used to determine the meaning of
unfamiliar words when reading independently - See Coxheads New Academic Vocabulary List
30Teaching Unfamiliar General Academic Vocabulary
Standards in Grade 4
- Identify the meaning of frequently appearing root
words in general academic vocabulary (e.g.,
resource) - Explain changes in the meaning of root words due
to the addition of Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin and
Greek prefixes and suffixes (e.g., the Latin bi-
as in bicycle, the Greek oct- as in octopus, and
the Anglo-Saxon under- as in underground) - See, for example, a Thinkfinity lesson plan on
morphology http//www.readwritethink.org/lessons/
lesson_view.asp?id880 - See Word Central http//www.wordcentral.com/
3121st Century Communication Skills
- Vocabulary and Reading, of course, but also
- Speaking
- Listening
- Collaborating
- Making Oral and Media Presentations
- Research
- Writing
- Analyzing and Creating Media
32Skills for College and Career Success
- Students need for remedial coursework in
college is another facet of the achievement gap - Despite the fact that virtually all high school
students take 4 years of high school English, in
Massachusetts public colleges - 11 must take remedial reading
- 15 must take remedial writing.
- Source Massachusetts School-to-College Report
for the Class of 2005 - http//www.doe.mass.edu/research/reports/research.
html
33Skills for College are the Same as Skills for
Careers
- Communication skills and command of the English
language are repeatedly identified as important
skills and deficiencies among high school job
applicants - Employers observe that high school graduates
generally cannot articulate their skills,
abilities, and goals in an interview - Source Massachusetts Business Alliance for
Education, Preparing for the Future Employer
Perspectives on Work Readiness Skills, October
2006 - http//www.mbae.org/uploads/01122006111154MBAERepo
rt-WorkSkills.pdf
34Standards for Grade 12 in the 2009 ELA Draft
- Reading Informational Texts and Media
- Pose and answer questions in order to make valid
inferences about informational text and media - Identify and analyze ambiguity or contradiction
in arguments, images, or quantitative data - Evaluate the accuracy, clarity, conciseness, and
professional tone of work-related texts such as
resumes, emails, memos, letters, and proposals
35Standards for Grade 12 in the 2009 ELA Draft
- Composing Persuasive Texts and Media
- Write multi-paragraph, persuasive
compositions/media presentations that clearly
present a convincing point of view articulate
both sides of an argument support the argument
in a logical way, using effective detail,
sufficient description, and a clear conclusion
36Standards for Grade 12 in the 2009 ELA Draft
- Small Group Discussion and Collaboration
- Identify resources (financial, administrative,
intellectual) needed to complete a project,
anticipate potential barriers to completion, and
pose multiple solutions to barriers. - Plan and lead discussions among peers,
anticipating and addressing audience questions
and comments, and speaking extemporaneously.
37Standards for Grade 12 in the 2009 ELA Draft
- Oral Presentation and Performance
- Demonstrate proficiency in speaking formally to
an audience by giving an oral report that
summarizes information, provides supporting
details and illustrative material, has a coherent
organization, and uses appropriate academic and
content vocabulary.
38But there are some big questions
- How can 21st century skills be assessed,
especially those that deal with oral and media
presentations, collaboration, extended research
projects? - Should standards for communication be added to
all frameworks as they are revised? - How big a role should visual/media literacy play
in standards and assessments?
39Heres how to contact us
- Susan Wheltle, Director of Humanities, History
and Social Science,781-338-6239,
swheltle_at_doe.mass.edu - Cheryl Liebling, Director of Literacy,
781-338-6225, cliebling_at_doe.mass.edu - Heidi Guarino, Chief of Staff, Commissioners
Office,781-338-3106, hguarino_at_doe.mass.edu. - Thanks for your ideas!