EDGE+Training

Notes from the EDGE Training that took place 7/27-7/31
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 * Day 1:**
 * Focus on the Framework and Standards
 * Discussion on the English-Language Arts Framework (follow link for notes on Framework information--lots of information)
 * All standards are not created equally (school districts decide which standards to focus on)
 * Standards organized by Domain>Strand>Substrand>Standard
 * __**Unpacking a standard**__
 * **Ex.: Grade 7 Writing Strategies 1.7** "Revise writing to improve organization after checking the logic of ideas and the precision of the vocabulary."
 * Key Components (breaking up based on verbs)
 * Revise...
 * Improve...
 * Check...
 * Expectations (what students need to learn, very specific--like our Learning Objectives)
 * **Practicing with Literary Response and Analysis 9th/10th 3.12** "Analyze the way in which a work of literature is related to the themes and issues of its historical period."
 * Key Components
 * Analyze themes of literature.
 * Identify issues of historical periods.
 * Relate the literature's themes to the historical issues.
 * Expectation (know or be able to do)
 * how to make comparisons
 * how to identify themes
 * knowledge of historical issues
 * how to compare information gathered in a nonfiction reading to themes presented in a work of literature
 * __**EDGE**__
 * Fundamental
 * 1st-3rd grade
 * Beginning to Early Intermediate
 * BR-700 [|What does the Lexile Measure Mean?]
 * A
 * 3rd-5th grade
 * Intermediate
 * 500-950 [|What does the Lexile Measure Mean?]
 * B
 * 5th-7th grade
 * Early Advanced
 * 750-1075 [|What does the Lexile Measure Mean?]
 * C
 * 7th-9th grade
 * Advanced
 * 950-1150 [|What does the Lexile Measure Mean]


 * Day 2:**
 * **Focus on Reading**
 * __HW Review (**Reading pages 26-45 of the Handout Notebook**):__
 * Main Idea: The article focused on helping ELLs learn academic language. ELLs need explicit and continuous instruction to acquire academic language. "Supporting and promoting the reading development of the growing population of ELLs is both a challenge and a necessity for educators across the nation." (p. 44)
 * 6 Recommendations
 * ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics in order to build decoding skills.
 * K-12 classrooms across the nation must increase opportunities for ELLs to develop sophisticated vocabulary knowledge.
 * Don't give new concepts //and// new words at the same time--give students one then the other.
 * Include root/suffix/prefix instruction.
 * Reading instruction in K-12 classrooms must equip ELLs with strategies and knowledge to comprehend and analyze challenging narrative and expository texts.
 * Instruction and intervention to promote ELLs' reading fluency must focus on vocabulary and increased exposure to print.
 * In all K-12 classrooms across the US, ELLs need significant opportunities to engage in structured, academic talk.
 * Independent reading is only beneficial when it is structured and purposeful, and there is a good reader-text match.
 * __Reading **Best Practices and Research Base** (via jigsaw activity) from EDGE:__
 * "Motivating Adolescent Readers" - Smith
 * Focus on the Essential Questions
 * Lots of discussion (about the EQs) to engage readers
 * **Factors that motivate reading**: value, relevance, relationship to essential questions
 * Motivation is a function of both one's expectation for success and the value one places on a task.
 * "Enabling Texts: Texts that Matter" - Tatum
 * Enabling Text: "...includes academic, cultural, emotional and social focus that moves students closer to examining issues they find relevant to their lives." (PD 4)
 * Disabling Text: "... reinforces a student's perception of being a struggling reader...ignores students' local contexts and their desire... for self-definition." (PD 5)
 * "Use the text to teach the text"
 * EDGE has students reading a small portion of the text beforehand in order to see how to use the reading strategy being taught. Work through this activity with students in order to help students see the strategy used in an authentic setting.
 * "Reading Comprehension Strategies" - Moore
 * 7 strategies that successful readers use:
 * Plan and Monitor
 * Determine Importance
 * Ask Questions
 * Make Inferences
 * Make Connections
 * Synthesize
 * Visualize
 * Best Practices:
 * Teach one strategy at a time, so each unit focuses on one reading strategy.
 * Guide students to the strategy, model the strategy--__**show**__ students how to use the strategy.
 * Connect the reading selection to the students' lives.
 * Give students opportunities to practice the strategy across the curriculum.
 * Give students time to collaborate to discuss how they use the strategy. (we need to do this more)
 * __**Overview of EDGE Unit Structure**__ (Fundamentals has fewer workshops)
 * Include all lessons numbers and workshops in your instruction
 * Unit Launch (EQ and How to Read)
 * Cluster 1 (main and adjunct selections)
 * Workplace Workshop
 * Vocabulary Workshop
 * Cluster 2 (main and adjunct selections)
 * Listening and Speaking Workshop
 * Cluster 3 (main and adjunct selections)
 * Unit Wrap-Up
 * Writing Project
 * __**Design Elements of Reading Instruction in EDGE**__
 * Essential Questions
 * Focused Instruction (be sure to complete each lesson)
 * Apply Reading Strategy Across Multiple Texts
 * Core Set of Reading Strategies
 * Interactive Reading
 * Promotes hands-on approach to reading


 * Day 3:**
 * __**Review HW: Reading "Double the Work" (Short & Fitzsimmons)**__
 * [[file:DoubleWork.pdf]]
 * Review the reading through the "Give One, Get One" strategy.
 * Focus on the difference between different kinds of struggling readers. See figure 3 from the above article.
 * ELLs
 * Native English Speakers
 * __**ELA & ELD Standards**__
 * Looking at the document provided by the WestEd organization (ELD and ELA side-by-side).
 * Jigsaw activity
 * How do ELA standards relate to ELD standards?
 * What are potential challenges (int. level)?
 * [|Viewing the video about Lexile]
 * When you know a student's Lexile measure, you can match students to books
 * A student's reading range is 50 above, 100 below the student's Lexile
 * [|Lexile Database]
 * If you want to know a student's Lexile level, you can give them the **EDGE Placement Test**
 * __**Inside USA Presentation from HB Representative**__
 * Specifically designed for older students
 * The program has 10 units
 * Each unit will last about 2 weeks.
 * The program could be used for a semester, then transition to Fundamentals
 * This is a very basic program--much of the vocabulary students will get simply living in the US (i.e., We call this "bread"; We call this "cheese")
 * There are examples of language function lesson--teaching conventions such as "Those are..." and "What are these?"--so students will be able to practice speaking and using determinant pronouns, but they will probably get that anyway through our instruction.
 * Contact information for getting materials (like Inside Phonics--which we need)
 * Lynn Graver
 * 150 Palm Avenue
 * Coronado, CA 92118
 * 619-435-1596
 * edulynng@aol.com
 * __**EDGE Interactive Practice Book -- Each Cluster's Outline:**__
 * Major Selection
 * Prepare to Read
 * Key Vocabulary
 * Before Reading
 * Literary Analysis
 * Reading Strategy
 * Selection Review (questions)
 * Adjunct Selection
 * Interact with the Text
 * Literary Analysis
 * Reading Strategy
 * Selection Review (questions)
 * Comparison of 2 Texts
 * Reflect and Assess
 * Writing
 * Integrate the Language Arts
 * Literary Analysis
 * Vocabulary Study


 * Day 4:**
 * __**Review HW: Reading "Approaches to writing instruction for adolescent English language learners" Click below**__
 * [[file:apprchwrtng.pdf]] Review using **"Save the last word for me"** strategy
 * 1) Take out a sheet of paper
 * 2) On the front of the paper, at the top, write the title of the article
 * 3) Below that write the author
 * 4) Below that write a quotation from the article--3 to 4 sentences
 * 5) Below that write a paraphrase of that quotation
 * 6) On the back of the sheet write a personal response to the quotation: Why did you choose that quotation?
 * 7) Then students share their quotation and paraphrase in groups
 * 8) The person next to the reader then responds to the quotation
 * 9) The person who did the original reading cannot comment on all the other responses to his/her quotation until after everyone else has commented and shared
 * 10) Then go around the group again with the next person reading his/her quotation and paraphrase
 * Good strategy to get all people participating in a discussion
 * __**Which EDGE resources promote...**__
 * ...understanding of language transfer?
 * ...learning language functions?
 * ...learning language forms?
 * ...learning how to learn language?
 * Language and Grammar Lab
 * Lang. Function Transparencies
 * Lang. Function Scripts
 * Grammar Transparencies
 * Language CDs
 * Language Acquisition Rubrics
 * Language and Learning Handbook
 * **__Writing Projects in the EDGE__**
 * Occur at the ends of the units, however there are writing activities throughout the unit
 * Student friendly explanation for the type of writing
 * Connect Writing to your Life
 * Helps students connect personal experience to the skills they need to perform this kind of writing
 * TE gives advice on how to get students to share and build on students' experiences (see Engage and Connect in the margins of the TE)
 * See the Teach section in the margins of the TE -- very informative, helps guide instruction
 * Be sure to cover the Academic Vocabulary lesson that goes along with the writing lessons (in the margins of the TE)
 * The presenter advocates completing the writing activities at the end of the units
 * Previously, we skipped the EDGE writing activities and went with our own writing lessons (Formative Assessments and Benchmarks).
 * Perhaps we can work harder to try to include some of the writing activities from the EDGE
 * **There are also Writing Transparencies that follow along with the writing units in the EDGE**
 * This would add to writing instruction (not a bad thing)
 * The writing unit focuses on writing as a process--something we want our students to understand through our Formative Assessments
 * __**Important Note:**__
 * Anything with a "T" next to it in the TE is tested on the Unit and Cluster Tests


 * Day 5:**
 * __**Review HW: "Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth" and "Challenge #2" from "Double the Work"**__
 * [[file:DoubleWork.pdf]]
 * [[file:executive_summary.pdf]]
 * Reviewing Assessment (from the Framework--see link above)
 * Looking at CST ELA Grade 9 & 10 blueprints
 * 9th grade
 * same as 10th grade
 * 10th grade
 * 2.0 Reading Comprehension 24%
 * 1.0 Writing Strategies 27%
 * Looking at which standards are assessed most heavily on the CAHSEE
 * Reading Comprehension (specifically evaluating the credibility of arguments, 2.8) is assessed heavier than writing--however the CAHSEE also has an essay portion (lower percentage of writing question, but there is an essay--which the CST doesn't have)
 * Many questions on revising--so we really need to push the writing process
 * **CAHSEE writing and reading elements corelate to EDGE Unit Test Writing/Reading items**