Recommended Practices for Adolescent ELA Programs

The Fifteen Elements of Effective Adolescent Literacy Programs (Reading Next, 2006) & 11 Elements for Effective Writing Programs (Writing Next, 2007)

These recommendations are taken from two reports: Reading Next and Writing Next.  I have attached a few recommended practices associated with each of the elements.  This list is incomplete.

I.               Instructional Improvements

Elements	Recommended Practice(s)
1.    Direct, explicit comprehension instruction, which is instruction in the strategies and processes that proficient readers use to understand what they read, including summarizing, keeping track of one’s own understanding, and a host of other practices	Questioning the Author Reciprocal Teaching Reading Apprenticeship ArtsLiteracy Handbook (Performance based methods) Summarizing Strategy UDL Classroom ToolKit Learner.org Videos: Making Meaning in Literature: A Workshop for Teachers, Grades 6-8 Apps for Literacy Support (Greg O’Connor)
2.    Effective instructional principles embedded in content, including language arts teachers using content-area texts and content-area teachers providing instruction and practice in reading and writing skills specific to their subject area	Dialogic Notebook Strategic Instruction Model UDL Classroom ToolKit Learner.org video Connect with the Arts: A Workshop for Middle Grade Teachers Alexandria City Literacy Framework  Vocabulary and Adolescents Slideshare
3.    Motivation and self-directed learning, which includes building motivation to read and learn and providing students with the instruction and supports needed for independent learning tasks they will face after graduation	Scoop it: Adolescent Literacies (independent reading recommendations) Video Series from Learner.org: Reading 3-5 Workshop; Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for the Middle Grades; Making Meaning in Literature: A Workshop for Teachers, Grades 6-8 UDL Classroom ToolKit  Game Playing
4.    Text-based collaborative learning, which involves students interacting with one another around a variety of texts	UDL Classroom ToolKit  ArtsLiteracy
5.    Strategic tutoring, which provides students with intense individualized reading, writing, and content instruction as needed	Assistive Technologies: Cast Strategy TutorAccessibility in your browser FireFox with Accessibility A collection of free accessibility add-ons available from Firefox. FoxVox and CLiCk-Speak are great. Accessibility on the PCs with MS Office WordTalk,  Balaboka, or Windows Speech Recognition Accessibility with mobiles VLingo (Android - free, BlackBerry - cheap) Dragon (iOS - free) on handhelds or tablets. UDL Classroom ToolKit Improving Adolescent Literacy: Interventions (Report/Sideshare)
6.    Diverse texts, which are texts at a variety of difficulty levels and on a variety of topics	Scoop it: Adolescent Literacies
7.    Intensive writing, including instruction connected to the kinds of writing tasks students will have to perform well in high school and beyond	Self Regulated Writing Strategy Summarizing Strategy Technologies that can help to facilitate collaborative writing on-line: Google Docs, MixedInk, Protagonized, Glypho, Writeboard, TitanPad, Sync.in, Sean Nash’s Collaborative Writing SlideShare Video Series from Learner.org: Inside Writing, Grades 3-5; Write in the Middle: A Workshop for Middle School Teachers Sentence Combining Lewis & Wray’s (1995) Writing Frames Web 2.0 Composing: Composing apps Ideapaint SketchBookPro UDL Classroom ToolKit CAST
7a. Writing Strategies, which involves teaching students strategies for planning, revising, and editing their compositions
7b. Summarization, which involves explicitly and systematically teaching students how to summarize texts
7c. Collaborative Writing, which uses instructional arrangements in which adolescents work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions
7d. Specific Product Goals, which assigns students specific, reachable goals for the writing they
7e. Word Processing, which uses computers and word processors as instructional supports for writing assignments
7f. Sentence Combining, which involves teaching students to construct more complex, sophisticated sentences
7g. Prewriting, which engages students in activities designed to help them generate or organize ideas for their composition
7h. Inquiry Activities, which engages students in analyzing immediate, concrete data to help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task
7i. Process Writing Approach, which interweaves a number of writing instructional activities in a workshop environment that stresses extended writing opportunities, writing for authentic audiences, personalized instruction, and cycles of writing
7j. Study of Models, which provides students with opportunities to read, analyze, and emulate models of good writing
7k. Writing for Content Learning, which uses writing as a tool for learning content material
8.    A technology component, which includes technology as a tool for and a topic of literacy instruction	Embedded. New Literacies Page from this Blog  Edutopia TechMatrix: Reading, Writing, PD NCREL Essential Elements of Digital Literacies  How Does Reading Change on the Internet? Fields of Creation    Critical Literacies Online Tools
9.    Ongoing formative assessment of students, which is informal, often daily assessment of how students are progressing under current instructional practices	SEDL assessment matrix Cloze Reading Assessment Assessing Reading Fluency (Tim Rasinski) SRI Interactive National School Reform Faculty: Protocols, Reflection sheets, etc.  UConn's Assessment in Literacy

II Infrastructure Improvements

10. Extended time for literacy, which includes approximately two to four hours of literacy instruction and practice that takes place in language arts and content-area classes

11. Professional development that is both long term and ongoing

12. Ongoing summative assessment of students and programs, which is more formal and provides data that are reported for accountability and research purposes

13. Teacher teams, which are interdisciplinary teams that meet regularly to discuss students and align instruction

14. Leadership, which can come from principals and teachers who have a solid understanding of how to teach reading and writing to the full array of students present in schools

15. A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program, which is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental and may even coordinate with out-of-school organizations and the local community

Two Professional Texts That Influence My Thinking

I want to recommend two texts that currently are influencing my thinking and hope you might leave a few recommendations.

1.  Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown's (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change.

Here are a few quotes from the text:

The new culture of learning actually comprises two elements. The first is a massive information network that provides almost unlimited access and resources to learn about anything. The second is a bounded and structured environment that allows for unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within those boundaries. The reason we have failed to embrace these notions is that neither one alone makes for effective learning. It is the combination of the two, and the interplay between them, that makes the new culture of learning so powerful (Kindle Locations 78-81).

The ultimate endpoint of a mechanistic perspective is efficiency: The goal is to learn as much as you can, as fast as you can. In this teaching-based approach, standardization is a reasonable way to do this, and testing is a reasonable way to measure the result...We believe, however, that learning should be viewed in terms of an environment—combined with the rich resources provided by the digital information network—where the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a mutually reinforcing way (Kindle Locations 331-338).

In communities, people learn in order to belong. In a collective, people belong in order to learn. Communities derive their strength from creating a sense of belonging, while collectives derive theirs from participation (Kindle Locations 622-623).

Students learn best when they are able to follow their passion and operate within the constraints of a bounded environment (Kindle Location 1055-1056).

 2. James Paul Gee & Elizabeth Hayes's (2011). Language and Learning in the Digital Age.

(The entire section about School Content is important: Here are some highlights:)

academic disciplines produce content with methods, tools, practices, and controversies that are essential to its production and necessary for evaluating that knowledge (as “content”). But schools present the content without the methods, practices, and controversies (p. 66).

cutting edge academics today often work collaboratively on themes or challenges that transcend a single discipline (p. 66).

a considerable amount of important knowledge today is produced outside of academic institutions, sometimes well outside them...Today students can engage in knowledge production outside of school, but often only engage in fact and information consumption in school (p. 67).

“content” (meaning information and facts) is today “cheap,” that is, easy to get. It can be found all over the Internet. Understanding the methods for producing such content and reasons for trusting it (or not) is, however, not cheap or easy. School is still often about the former and not the latter (p. 67).

a tremendous amount of school “content”—“what every educated person should know”—is, in fact, not true or it is so oversimplified as to be misleading (p. 67).

School abstracts the content from the problems and we get students who can pass tests, but not solve problems (p. 67).

Much of the “content” any educated person will need to know in the future, out of school, has not yet been discovered. People need to be more adept at learning new things than storing old, oversimplified, sometimes false “facts.” Increasingly school needs to prepare students for future learning (Bransford & Schwartz 1999) (p. 67).