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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Odell Education, author.
Title: Developing core literacy proficiencies. Grade 7 / Odell Education.
Description: Student edition. | San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016002098 (print) | LCCN 2016012513 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781119192565 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119192596 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119192572 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Language arts (Middle school)—Curricula—United States. |
Common Core State Standards (Education)
Classification: LCC LB1631 .O37 2016 (print) | LCC LB1631 (ebook) | DDC
428.0071/2—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002098
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: ©Danae Olaso/EyeEm/Getty Images, Inc.
Project director: Stephanie Smythe
Primary program designers:
Curriculum consultant: Nemeesha Brown
Unit developers—Texts, notes, and questions:
We are grateful for feedback we received on early versions of units from Achieve's EQuIP Review Process, under the direction of Christine Tell, Alissa Peltzman, and Cristina Marks.
We are also grateful for the students and teachers of the Bay Shore Schools who collaborated with us to pilot the curriculum. Thanks especially to LaQuita Outlaw, Elizabeth Galarza, Caitlin Moreira, and Jen Ritter (who personally renamed the Supporting Evidence-Based Claims Tool).
We are especially grateful for New York State and the Regents Research Fund for funding the development of the earlier Open Educational Resource version of this curriculum. Without the support we received from Kristen Huff, David Abel, and Kate Gerson, none of this work would have been possible.
“Literacy is the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.”
—Definition from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy
Becoming a Literate Person: Your school and teachers are trying to help you succeed in life—and to be the best you can be at whatever you choose to do. One of the ways they are doing this is by developing your literacy—but what do we mean when we talk about your literacy? A dictionary might simply tell us that developing literacy means building your skills as a reader, thinker, and writer—but it also might tell us that literacy is knowledge in an area of learning that is important to you. In addition, being literate involves ways of thinking and doing things—habits—that a person develops over time.
Being a literate person is even more important today—in our computer-driven world—than it was in the past, no matter what you want to do:
You will need to be literate whatever path in school and life you choose to follow. A recent study of the reading challenges faced by people in the United States found out that the textbooks students see in their first two years of college are much more challenging than the ones they use in high school—one reason so many new college students struggle. But the study also found that technical manuals, informational websites, and even newspapers demand a high level of reading and thinking skills as well as specialized knowledge and strategic habits—they demand literacy.
Core Literacy Proficiencies: The learning experiences you will discover in the Odell Education Program are designed to help you take control of your own literacy development and build the skills, knowledge, and habits you will need to be successful in life. They are also designed to excite your imagination and engage you in activities that are interesting and challenging.
The learning activities you will encounter will help you develop four key core literacy proficiencies. What do we mean by this term? We've already discussed the importance of literacy. Core suggests that what you will be learning is at the center—of your literacy development, your overall success in school, and your future life. The word proficiency is also important, because being “proficient” at something means you can do it well, can do it on your own, and have the confidence that comes with being good at something. Developing proficiency takes time, practice, and determination. However, becoming proficient is one of the great rewards of learning—whether you are learning to read closely, to play a musical instrument, or to do a difficult skateboard trick.
Literacy Proficiency Units: The core literacy proficiencies you will develop in each of four units are as follows:
Materials to Develop Literacy Proficiency In each of the units, you will use the supporting materials organized in this Student Edition:
Each unit includes a set of relatively short but challenging texts, which you will read, examine, and discuss.
Each unit has its own toolbox—a set of graphic organizers that help you think about what you are reading or writing and record your thinking so you can discuss it with others and come back to it later.
Each unit has a set of handouts, some of which will help you understand important things you are learning and some of which will help you be successful in completing the assignments in the unit.
Throughout the units you will be developing Literacy Skills and Academic Habits. You will use these skills and habits to monitor your own growth and give feedback to other students when reading, discussing, and writing. Your teacher may use them to let you know about your areas of strength and areas in which you need to improve.
| LITERACY SKILLS | DESCRIPTORS |
| ATTENDING TO DETAILS | Identifies words, details or quotations that are important to understanding the text |
| DECIPHERING WORDS | Uses context and vocabulary to define unknown words and phrases |
| COMPREHENDING SYNTAX | Recognizes and uses sentence structures to help understand the text |
| INTERPRETING LANGUAGE | Understands how words are used to express ideas and perspectives |
| IDENTIFYING RELATIONSHIPS | Notices important connections among details, ideas, or texts |
| MAKING INFERENCES | Draws sound conclusions from reading and examining the text closely |
| SUMMARIZING | Correctly explains what the text says about the topic |
| QUESTIONING | Writes questions that help identify important ideas, connections and perspectives in a text |
| RECOGNIZING PERSPECTIVE | Identifies and explains the author's view of the text's topic |
| EVALUATING INFORMATION | Assesses the relevance and credibility of information in texts |
| DELINEATING ARGUMENTATION | Identifies and analyzes the claims, evidence, and reasoning in arguments |
| FORMING CLAIMS | States a meaningful conclusion that is well supported by evidence from the text |
| USING EVIDENCE | Uses well-chosen details from the text to support explanations Accurately paraphrases or quotes |
| USING LOGIC | Supports a position through a logical sequence of related claims, premises, and supporting evidence |
| USING LANGUAGE | Writes and speaks clearly so others can understand claims and ideas |
| PRESENTING DETAILS | Inserts details and quotations effectively into written or spoken explanations |
| ORGANIZING IDEAS | Organizes claims, supporting ideas, and evidence in a logical order |
| USING CONVENTIONS | Correctly uses sentence elements, punctuation, and spelling to produce clear writing |
| PUBLISHING | Correctly uses, formats, and cites textual evidence to support claims |
| REFLECTING CRITICALLY | Uses literacy concepts to discuss and evaluate personal and peer learning |
| ACADEMIC HABITS | DESCRIPTORS |
| PREPARING | Reads the text(s) closely and thinks about the questions to prepare for tasks |
| ENGAGING ACTIVELY | Focuses attention on the task when working individually and with others |
| COLLABORATING | Works well with others while participating in text-centered discussions and group activities |
| COMMUNICATING CLEARLY | Presents ideas and supporting evidence so others can understand them |
| LISTENING | Pays attention to ideas from others and takes time to think about them |
| GENERATING IDEAS | Generates and develops ideas, positions, products, and solutions to problems |
| ORGANIZING WORK | Maintains materials so that they can be used effectively and efficiently |
| COMPLETING TASKS | Finishes short and extended tasks by established deadlines |
| REVISING | Rethinks ideas and refines work based on feedback from others |
| UNDERSTANDING PURPOSE AND PROCESS | Understands why and how a task should be accomplished |
| REMAINING OPEN | Asks questions of others rather than arguing for a personal idea or opinion |
| QUALIFYING VIEWS | Modifies and further justifies ideas in response to thinking from others |
In this unit you will develop your proficiency as an investigator of texts. You will learn how to do the following:
In this unit, you will learn about polar exploration and read texts written by some of the most famous explorers of the North and South Poles. You will discover that the first party to reach the South Pole was actually involved in a “great race” to get there with another exploration party from a different country. You will encounter images, videos, and websites that tell you more about polar expeditions and read what are called historical narratives—true accounts written by explorers about their experiences. You will also read a short story that will help you feel what it might be like to try to survive in extreme cold, as explorers must do.
You will start by examining two photo collages to develop your skills of looking closely for key details, then work on these same skills with a video and websites. When you read, the details you look for will be things such as key information or statistics, explanations, and mental pictures the author creates through images and sentences. You’ll also look for important words that you need to understand because they tell you something about the topic and how the author views it. You will learn how to use questions the way an expert investigator does—in this case to dig deeply into what you are seeing or reading. Those questions will also guide the discussions you will have with other students and your teacher. From your investigation of the texts, you will come to your own understanding of the topic of polar exploration—which you will then share with others through a final written explanation and a discussion you will lead.
In Reading Closely for Textual Details, you will begin to build your Literacy Toolbox by learning how to use the following handouts, tools, and checklists organized in your Student Edition.
To support your work with the texts and the tools, you will be able to use the following informational handouts:
This graphic helps you understand the relationship among the various steps you will follow as you use questions to read a text closely: approaching, questioning, analyzing, deepening, and extending.
This handout organizes a set of good, general questions to use when you are reading any text—called Guiding Questions. The questions are organized in rows that match the questioning process in the Reading Closely Graphic (approaching, questioning, analyzing, deepening, and extending) and also by four areas that we often pay attention to when we read a text.
This handout presents descriptions and examples of the kinds of details you might look for as you read a text, for example, facts and statistics, explanations of things, images and word pictures, technical terms, and so on.
This handout will explain to you what you will be doing in the two-part final assignment for this unit: (1) writing a multiparagraph explanation of an understanding you have come to about the topic and one of the texts and (2) participating in and leading a discussion of your text and how it compares to others in the unit. The handout will also help you know what your teacher will be looking for so you can be successful on the assignments.
In addition to using the handouts, you will learn how to use the following tools:
This two-part tool helps you prepare to read a text closely. It provides places to think about what you initially know about the text as you approach it—your purpose for reading, the author, publication date, and so on. It also lets you record several questions that you can use to do a first reading and then a rereading of the text.
This four-part tool supports you in developing and using the key skills of the unit: searching for and selecting key details or quotations, recording references from the text about where you found the details and quotations, analyzing what those details mean to you as a reader, and connecting the details to form your understanding of the text.
This graphic organizer will provide places for you to record questions you or your teacher want to think about as you read a particular text. You will be able to record general Guiding Questions and also questions that are very specific to the text you are reading. What you record in the Questioning Path Tool can help you initially approach the text, question it during a first reading and investigation, analyze it further, deepen your understanding, and extend your reading and thinking to other questions and texts.
For each text you will read, there is a Questioning Path Tool that has been filled out for you with questions to frame and guide your reading. These model Questioning Paths are just starting points, and your teacher or you may prefer to develop your own paths and questions. The model paths are organized by the steps from the Reading Closely Graphic (approaching, questioning, analyzing, deepening, and extending) and include general Guiding Questions from the Guiding Questions Handout and some questions that are specific to each text and its content. You will use these model paths to guide your reading, frame your discussions with your teacher and other students, and help you when you are doing the final activities in the unit.
You will also use this checklist throughout the unit to support peer- and self-review:
This checklist presents and briefly describes the literacy skills and habits you will be working on during the unit. You can use it to remind you of what you are trying to learn; reflect on what you have done when reading, discussing, or writing; or give feedback to other students. Your teacher may use it to let you know about your areas of strength and areas in which you need to improve.