The English Language Arts Framework Revisions and 21st Century Skills

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The 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

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A 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?
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Objectives 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

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The 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

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Todays Jobs Require Different Skills
Source Preparing Students to Thrive in the 21st
Century. 2007, Richard Murnane
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Hourly Wage Gaps are Widening
Advanced Degree
4-year college degree
24 difference
12 difference
High School diploma
Some High School
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P21 Framework
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Partnership 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

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Massachusetts 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

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Task 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

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Standards 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

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Recommendations 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

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What 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

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ELA 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

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ELA 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

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2008 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

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How 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

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Vocabulary 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

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Why 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.
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Words in American Schoolbooks
WordZonesTM
See Hieberts www.textproject.org Zeno et al.,
1995
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Word 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
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Example 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

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Teaching Unfamiliar Vocabulary in Literary Text
Hiebert, 2008
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Teaching 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.

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Vocabulary 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

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Example 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

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Teaching Unfamiliar Vocabulary in Expository Text
Hiebert, 2008
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A 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/

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Example 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

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Teaching 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/

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21st Century Communication Skills

• Vocabulary and Reading, of course, but also
• Speaking
• Listening
• Collaborating
• Making Oral and Media Presentations
• Research
• Writing
• Analyzing and Creating Media

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Skills 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

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Skills 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

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Standards 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

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Standards 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

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Standards 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.

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Standards 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.

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But 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?

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Heres 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!