Supporting informational writing in the elementary grades

Donovan, Carol A., & Smolkin, Laura B. (2011). Supporting informational writing in the elementary grades. The Reading Teacher, 64(6), 406-416.

Donovan and Smolkin outline a helpful, practical framework for looking at the various kinds of text structures found in informational texts for children. This framework is much more useful than some of the categories of text structures found previously in the literature and in reading methods texts. The typical categories of text structures (e.g., Listing, Time Order, Comparison/Contrast, Cause/Effect, etc.) have been less than helpful for my own teaching because those categories examined informational text structures on too large a scale—a macro level, almost—when in reality informational text is much more complex than that, with multiple smaller structures occurring in any given text. When my students (both children and preservice teachers) looked for examples of the old macro-type text structure categories in informational texts, they often had a hard time finding them. Donovan and Smolkin’s categories CAN be found in typical children’s informational books; I know, because after I read this article, I looked in a number of exemplary children’s informational books and easily found examples of all of Donovan’s categories there. My mind immediately began racing with the possibilities of using these categories instructionally, and I could not wait to try those possibilities out with learners. When a framework creates that reaction in me as a teacher, I know it is a “keeper.”

There are eight categories in Donovan and Smolkin’s framework, and they are arranged along a developmental continuum, with the first category, Labels, presented as the simplest type of informational text at the most basic developmental level, and moving through increasingly “mature” developmental categories. We move from Labels , to Fact Statements, to Fact Lists, to Couplets (often connected by pronouns), to Fact List Collections, to Couplet Collections ,to Single and Unordered Paragraphs, to the most sophisticated structural category, Ordered Paragraphs. The continuum, which is outlined in the very helpful Table 1 (pp. 408-409), along with examples of each category, can be used in several ways. The authors suggest using it as a way of determining children’s informational text writing “levels” and then planning instruction to move the children from one developmental level to the next. For example, if a child has mastered Labels (“This is a bat.”), then he or she is ready to be scaffolded to move on to Fact Statements (“Bats are mammals.”). A Fact List (“Bats are mammals. Bats eat insects. Bats can fly.”) is the next step, and then it is on to the much more sophisticated Couplet structure (“Bats have wings with long fingers. These fingers help the bat move through the air.”). The sequence could move a child through all eight developmental levels over time. The developmental nature of Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum is potentially useful for both pre- and post- instruction assessment, and for instruction, not just in writing informational text as the authors intend, but also for helping children read and comprehend instructional text. Although the authors’ research was done with elementary age children, the categories and the developmental continuum can also be applied to older children in middle school and even high school, and the informational texts they read and write.

A Dozen Discussion Prompts:
1. Why is it important to teach children to read and write informational text from a young age? Why has informational text not been emphasized in the early elementary years until recently?

2. Look at Donovan and Smolkin’s developmental continuum and its eight categories. Find a good children’s informational book by an accomplished author of the genre (Suggestions: Gail Gibbons, Seymour Simon, Sandra Markle, Kathryn Lasky) and attempt to find examples of some of the categories within the continuum. What did you discover?

3. How can learning about informational text structures like those in the continuum help children learn to write informational text?

4. What do you think about using Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum as an assessment tool? How would that kind of assessment actually be done in the classroom? What kinds of data would result, and how would they be communicated?

5. Think about how a lesson designed to move children from one level to the next would look in the classroom. For example, how would you design a plan to move young children from Labels to Fact Statements? Or, select any two levels of the continuum and describe how you might help children move from one to the next.

6. Couplets seem to involve a fairly large developmental leap; literacy research has documented that readers and writers can struggle with the relationships between pronouns and their referents, which is what is involved in couplets. English Learners often have difficulty with these kinds of structures. What might be the best way to help learners understand how they work?

7. Can Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum be applied to students beyond the elementary grades? Why or why not?

8. Do informational texts in various subject areas (science, history, math, etc.) have their own specific text structures? Are any of the categories in Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum more prevalent in certain subject areas? If you are a middle/secondary teacher, think about the subject area(s) you teach. Which of Donovan and Smolkin’s categories are most prevalent?

9. Are there any categories you might add to Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum? Did they leave out any informational text structures that you think should be there?

10. If you work at the middle/secondary level, and you believe the continuum could be extended beyond Donovan and Smolkin’s highest level, Ordered Paragraphs, what would the next level (s) be if you continued the continuum?

11. In what jobs/professions do people need to write informational texts? What kinds of texts do people write “on the job” and what sorts of structures are seen in them? Relate this to Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum if possible.

12. What are some good uses of a developmental continuum like Donovan and Smolkin’s? What are some potential misuses?

Learning to read the numbers: A critical orientation toward statistics

Whitin, P., & Whitin, D. J. (2008). Learning to read the numbers: A critical orientation toward statistics. Language Arts, 85(6), 432-441.

The Whitins show how even very young children can be taught to "interrogate" texts that contain embedded data. Two case studies are presented, one with fifth graders who polled peers n their "least favorite chores," and one with kindergartners who graphed their favorite kinds of apples. In both cases, the children made rather stunning observations and noticed the ways that data may be shaped to privilege some voices and agendas and silence others.Table 1 is an extremely helpful guide to the processes used with the children. In it, seven "Dimensions of the Process" are given, defined, and "questions to consider" at each step are provided. Looking at these seven dimensions underlines the many ways that data may be shaped. It's a lesson that can be learned at all ages, from kindergarten to graduate school, as the Whitins make clear here. As we really start to think about "new" literacies and mutimodal texts, this article adds some useful ideas to try.

A Dozen Discussion Prompts:

Directions: Post a comment on any of the twelve prompts below. Please tell us the question number you are commenting on in the first sentence of your post. If you post three or more comments and would like a participation certificate, send an e-mail to klofflin@gmail.com and you will be e-mailed a certificate.

1. Compare and contrast the approach the Whitins used with fifth graders versus their approach with kindergarteners. What are common threads across grade levels in their approach? How does their approach with fifth graders differ from their approach with kindergarteners?

2. Look up your state’s standards or grade level expectations used for accountability and testing. Here is a link to the ones for Missouri: http://www.dese.mo.gov/divimprove/curriculum/GLE/
Attempt to fit the Whitins’ learning activities with both fifth graders and kindergarteners within those grade-level expectations. What standards are met for language arts (called Communication Arts in Missouri) and for math at each grade level?

3. Look up Bloom’s Taxonomy and attempt to place the kinds of tasks the Whitins describe within the levels of that model. Here is one good link:
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/pedagogical/blooms-taxonomy/

4. Look up the Depth of Knowledge model and attempt to place the kind of task the Whitins describe within the classifications of that model. Here is one good link:
http://www.pdesas.org/main/fileview/Instruction_Depth_of_Knowledge.pdf

5. The Whitins list four different roles a reader can take: code breaker, meaning maker, text user, and text critic. The roles form a sort of continuum. What kinds of instruction foster each kind of role? What types of instruction are most common in the elementary school classrooms you are familiar with?

6. What do you think it means to “interrogate” a text?
What kinds of texts are most in need of “interrogation” by readers?
What is risky about “interrogating” texts and teaching students to do so?
What risks do we run by NOT “interrogating” texts or teaching students to do so?

7. Look at a text intended for young children (maybe a story from a published reading program, or a content area textbook, or even a picture book) and attempt to “interrogate” it.
Ask yourself: Whose voice(s) do we not hear in the story? What do you think they would say? What voices or viewpoints are privileged in the text? What agenda or agendas might the author and/or illustrator have had when creating the text?
Describe how you think such a discussion might go with a group of children at the elementary level. Tailor your answer to fit the level where the book would likely be used.

8. Look at Table 1 on page 435. Find a text in a popular publication (newspaper or magazine) that includes a graph of some sort incorporating numerical data. Use Table 1 to “interrogate” that text. Which of the “Dimensions of the Process” did you find most challenging to apply to your text?

9. “We live in an age that is inundated by data.” The Whitins make this statement early in the article. They also state that this is both a “boon and a bane”. What are a few ways the knowledge explosion is a boon? What are a few ways it is a bane? Think of some specific examples of both cases, preferably from your own experience. What are the implications for teachers of this plethora of easily-available knowledge?

10. Whitin and Whitin write about “innumerate” individuals in a way similar to the way we hear about “illiterate” individuals. What do you think it means to be “innumerate”? What is a necessary level of numeracy for an elementary age student? a high school graduate? an adult citizen and worker? a professional person? Address any or all of these numeracy levels.

11. The Whitins describe how both gun-control supporters and the NRA have framed survey questions in biased ways (e.g., “Do you favor cracking down on illegal gun sales?” vs. “Would you favor or oppose a law giving police the power to decide who may or may not own a firearm?” In each case, what are the specific words that tip the question toward a certain bias? If you know of other examples of such biased questions that you have actually encountered in surveys, please share those with us.

12. What kinds of entities might prefer that we NOT teach a critical orientation to texts in our schools? What do these kinds of entities stand to gain by a limited numeracy in the majority of the people in a society? How might these kinds of entities influence public policy to prevent the teaching of a critical orientation?

Academic Literacy: Annotations for Fall 2010

Recommended articles:

Making the very most of classroom read-alouds to promote comprehension and vocabulary
Santoro, L. E., Chard, D. J., Howard, L., & Baker, S. H. (2008). Making the very most of classroom read-alouds to promote comprehension and vocabulary. The Reading Teacher, 61(5), 396-408.

The authors outline a framework for incorporating reading comprehension strategy instruction with read-alouds. The target audience was first graders. What I liked about the framework:
· its smooth incorporation of well-known strategies and models
· its theory base
· its stress on higher-level comprehension
· its use of authentic texts
· its incorporation of standards
· its practical appeal and clear description
The whole idea is finding ways to incorporate meaning-based comprehension in testing-dominated classrooms. Here, science and social studies texts, both narrative and informational, are used, which is also a strength.My only fear here is that we'll destroy the act of reading just for enjoyment, just for the love of books. The authors recommend we still do that, but I wonder, will we make the time?

Learning to read the numbers: A critical orientation toward statistics
Whitin, P., & Whitin, D. J. (2008). Learning to read the numbers: A critical orientation toward statistics. Language Arts, 85(6), 432-441.

The Whitins show how even very young children can be taught to "interrogate" texts that contain embedded data. Two case studies are presented, one with fifth graders who polled peers on their "least favorite chores," and one with kindergartners who graphed their favorite kinds of apples. In both cases, the children made rather stunning observations and noticed the ways that data may be shaped to privilege some voices and agendas and silence others.Table 1 is an extremely helpful guide to the processes used with the children. In it, seven "Dimensions of the Process" are given, defined, and "questions to consider" at each step are provided. Looking at these seven dimensions underlines the many ways that data may be shaped. It's a lesson that can be learned at all ages, from kindergarten to graduate school, as the Whitins make clear here. As we really start to think about "new" literacies and mutimodal texts, this article adds some useful ideas to try.

A framework for supporting scientific language in primary grades
Honig, S. L. (2010). A framework for supporting scientific language in primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 64, 23-32.

Yes, young children can learn scientific vocabulary and they can comprehend informational text and academic discourses. Honig presents a detailed framework for doing this kind of instruction, with examples of how it worked for science units done with second and third graders.In addition to some detailed descriptions, we get some excellent figures and tables that organize the information well. Figure 1, a graphic organizer that links theory about word knowledge with specific classroom practices, is especially helpful. Teachers will also appreciate Table 6, which outlines four days' worth of activities from a unit on plants. The activities are all easily adaptable to other topics and other content areas. Some activities will be familiar to many teachers, including the venerable KWL, plus "sticky-notes" activities and other that are reminiscent of some of Fountas and Pinnell's comprehension strategies.An emphasis on academic language, information literacy, and multimodal literacy in the early grades is long overdue. For too long, narratives have been privileged and emphasized over other kinds of texts. If we are to develop scientists and social scientists, we must begin early.

Breaking down words to build meaning: Morphology, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in the urban classroom
Kieffer, M. J., & Lesaux, N. K. (2007). Breaking down words to build meaning: Morphology, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in the urban classroom. The Reading Teacher, 61(2), 134-144.

The generative power of knowledge of morphology has always struck me, and this article provides convincing evidence of that power for fourth and fifth grade urban students (many of them ELL's).I find that the ability to break words into "chunks," both meaning chunks (morphemes) and sound chunks, is a key to developing skill in decoding, especially as children get older and start to encounter more and more multi-syllable words. At that point, the combination of "sounding out" words and using context is no longer completely adequate.The authors here describe a study where knowledge of morphology (defined as the ability to pull a root word out of a larger word) was strongly related to reading comprehension. The recommend explicit instruction in morphology, and provide some helpful guidelines describing what effective morphology instruction might look like.

Effective content vocabulary instruction in the middle: Matching students, purposes, words, and strategies
Flanigan, K., & Greenwood, S. C. (2007). Effective content vocabulary instruction in the middle: Matching students, purposes, words, and strategies. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 51(3), 226-238.

I like the clarity of this article -- the way the authors lay out their main points in a way that is easy to absorb. They present a four-level framework for teaching content area vocabulary. The framework helps teachers categorize vocabulary words according to the nature of those words and their relationship to both instructional goals and student knowledge. Once words are categorized, appropriate instructional strategies can be chosen, and the authors provide concise tables of suggested strategies for each word "level." Then they provide an example of how a typical teacher might use the framework to build better vocabulary instruction.The key ideas here are that all vocabulary words aren't created equal, that time spent on any word depends on instructional purposes, and that quality vocabulary instruction is better than teaching a large quantity of words.

Morphing into adolescents: Active word learning for English-Language Learners and their classmates in middle school
Keiffer, M. J., & Lesaux, N. K. (2010). Morphing into adolescents: Active word learning for English-Language Learners and their classmates in middle school. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 54(1), 47-56.

This is one of those rare "keeper" articles. The authors provide a clear, concise summary of research on the teaching of morphology and its uses to build academic vocabulary. They detail an approach they devised and tested with urban sixth graders. The approach is designed to be effective with English Language Learners, but is meant to be used with all students. The authors describe how they used their approach to teach sixth graders about suffixes, but other types of morphemes could also be targeted.Several portions are especially interesting and helpful. The best part is the segment entitled "What Does Good Morphology Teaching Look Like?" (pp. 50-55) This segment is organized around four basic principles that are theory based, and practical as well.The two tables are also helpful. One gives examples of various levels of difficulty in "decomposing" words (". . .not all morphemes are created equal" p. 52); the other presents a concise scope and sequence for suffix instruction.

A lesson cycle for teaching expository reading and writing
Montelongo, J., Herter, R. J., Ansaldo, R., & Hatter, N. (2010). A lesson cycle for teaching expository reading and writing. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 53(8), 656-666.

This is a clear summary of a detailed instructional framework for teaching middle school students to understand text structures and use that understanding to comprehend the main ideas and details of expository text, and to write summary paragraphs that capture that understanding.The positives here: Strong evidence is presented that the framework increased student achievement. The target population was summer school students who had failed several classes, which makes the improvement shown extra impressive. Also, this was action research done collaboratively by two university teacher educators and two novice teachers, in an authentic setting, which is a good trend and lends credibility to the findings.The model is very much in the direct instruction mode, though the skills taught are more holistic (on the paragraph level rather than the sentence level) than is often seen. The model is clearly delineated and could be replicated. My only reservation about such teaching is that actual texts may be "messier" than is implied by the discrete teaching of text structures.

About the food

What food would you have brought to our study group Thursday night? We'll have to enjoy it virtually...

Critical inquiry and multiliteracies in a first grade classroom

Crafton, L. K., Brennan, M., & Silvers, P. (2007). Critical inquiry and multiliteracies in a first grade classroom. Language Arts, 84(6), 510-518.

Here is the story of a first grade class that did some really significant, high level literacy learning, and computers were a tool that furthered that learning. The students responded to a newspaper story about an elderly woman (“Grandma Ruth”) who was being forced from her home by a real estate development. These young children really got into issues of social justice and did some authentic reading, writing, and thinking. Although the article is more about “critical literacy” than about multimodal texts, electronic technology was used productively to build these very young children’s literacy.

It was significant that I read this article on a day when I spent some time visiting in our local elementary schools, so reality was strong as I read. The thing that struck me most about the article, and about the school days I was observing at the time, was that teachers often do not know how to incorporate technology in a meaningful way into their classroom practice, especially with the youngest students. There is worry that such young children won’t be able to handle computers, and, having spent some time with a very brave second grade teacher who did an ambitious project with a class in a large computer lab, I fully understand the challenges! Though a few of those second graders were more “tech-savvy” than I was, most needed constant monitoring and help. Two adults could barely handle all of the “how-do-I?” questions that arose during our computer lab sessions. So I see what primary teachers are worried about, though I do think the rewards outweighed the hassles in the case of the project I was involved in. If the brave second grade teacher I worked with is reading this, she will recognize herself, and I invite her to put in her own two cents worth here as to whether the efforts we put in ultimately paid off in learning.

I think teachers should try high-level, technology-supported projects, even with primary grade students, and even with the challenges. Computers are becoming increasingly common in classrooms, but I see too many cases where the computers sit on one side of the classroom and are not utilized. Many of the preservice teachers I work with describe seeing hardware in classrooms, but rarely seeing them used by students or for instruction, though the teachers may use them for various management purposes. Computers may not even be in the classroom, but may be confined to a computer lab which must be reserved. If young students do get to use computers, it’s to play drill-type software on lower-level skills or as part of a center with games to be used “if there is time.” Rarely do I see computers used for authentic communication or research in elementary classrooms, and especially not in the primary grades.

I see even less interest in incorporating critical inquiry in elementary schools in my local area than I do in incorporating authentic uses of technology. Do we believe we “don’t have time” because of testing pressures? Is it because we are afraid of encountering difficult social issues and political agendas, and of not always being able to answer our young students’ hard but important questions? Are we worried about upsetting children (or maybe about upsetting ourselves?), so we’d rather pretend all is right in the world and read pleasant stories to primary-grade children? Do we think they are incapable of understanding and dealing with injustice? The teacher in this article took a big, brave step and had her first graders use the computers to communicate with others about a case of injustice they had read about in the local newspaper. These first graders showed they were capable of handling difficult issues and using technology to learn more. It was a case of high expectations being met.

Please react to the Crafton et al article and/or my annotation above. If you need help to start thinking, address one or more of the prompts below, but it’s not required if you don’t need them. As always, it’s better if you read the article first, but all discussion is helpful. Maybe our discussion might make you want to read the article if you didn’t before!

• How are computers used in the elementary schools you know? Is it just skill and drill or are any meaningful projects being tried? What about access? And is the hardware used fully or does it often sit idle? What about tech support?
• Teachers and future teachers, what kind of technology education did/do you get? What would you like to learn more about?
• Why don’t we do more meaningful projects like the one in the article with primary grade children?
• What barriers might there be to doing projects like this?
• Is social justice something that should be part of the school curriculum?
• What do you think of the “Grandma Ruth” project?
• If possible, look at the four “core questions” used in the “Grandma Ruth” project and try to imagine yourself using them with first graders.
• Look at the list of children’s “Trade Books That Support . . . on p. 513. Several of these books are well known and you may have them or be familiar with them. Either choose one you know or find one at a library. Why was your book included here? How does it support critical inquiry? Try using the four “core questions” with them.
• Do we run the risk of promulgating particular social agendas when we do critical inquiry with children, who are, after all, captive audiences? If so, how can we be ethically responsible and keep our classrooms from becoming political podiums?
• What about the “side” of the developers in the “Grandma Ruth” case? Was it covered here? Did it need to be?
• Are first graders “too young” to become competent with electronic texts?
• How do we keep young children “safe” on the Internet? The reporter that the children in the article communicated with turned out to be safe and supportive, but that wouldn’t always be the case.
• Are first graders “too young” to discuss and propose solutions to difficult social problems?
• Computers can be used for either mindful or meaningless purposes. Describe examples of either that you know of.
• React to the following quote: “Teaching them to read must mean more now than just following the curriculum and using leveled texts.”
• Do computers and electronic texts really facilitate critical inquiry better than print texts and pencil and paper writing?
• The authors noted that there was a gender gap in computer literacy in the elementary grades: “boys tended to be the experts and girls the learners” (p. 512). How do you account for this? Have you observed such a gap?
• According to today’s literacy theorists, “text” isn’t just language any more, but can include images, sign systems, symbols, movement, sounds, and many other modalities. With the growing the emphasis on non-print texts in today’s multi-media, is written language no longer dominant? What might that mean for schools, where written language has traditionally been dominant? What might that mean for teaching children to “read and write”?
  
  
  

Scrutinizing the cyber-sell: Teen targeted websites as texts

Crovitz, D. (2007). Scrutinizing the cyber-sell: Teen targeted websites as texts. English Journal, 97(1), 49-55.

Sometimes I wonder about our society. We seem to be spending a lot of time passively absorbing material on screens—whether it be TV, or increasingly, Internet sites as described in the article. Much of that input in either form is infused with advertising. The world seems to be all about selling, and about defining oneself with products and brands. Remember the two yuppies in the Christopher Guest movie “Best in Show” who described themselves as “J. Crew people”? The author of this article attempts to face these phenomena by helping teachers in training develop lessons for high schoolers that treat corporate websites with products targeted toward teens as texts to be interrogated and critically examined. Several examples of such product sites are given.

I’m all for this sort of critical literacy instruction. Awareness may help counter some of the messages, but they’re still extremely powerful. I wonder if any of the teachers in Crovitz’s classes encountered teen resistance to such lessons. To some teens, their products are part of their identity. I wonder also if teens are really so gullible as advertisers and even educators think they are. The teens I know are pretty savvy about advertising and how it works. After all, they’ve been bombarded with these messages since they were babies.

Please react to the Crovitz article and/or my annotation above. If you need help to start thinking, address one or more of the prompts below, but it’s not required if you don’t need them. As always, it’s better if you read the article first, but all discussion is helpful. Maybe our discussion might make you want to read the article if you didn’t before!

• Should teaching teens to look critically at the “cybersell” be a part of the secondary school curriculum? If so, where would it fit? Can we justify spending time on this in this age of standards and testing?
• What are some potential barriers to teaching as Crovitz recommends?
• Think of some examples when you recently have been “cybersold”. Some of this is blatant, as in pop-up ads, but some of it is more subtle, as in “product placement” in the media (e.g., a reporter wearing a shirt or windbreaker with an obvious logo or a character on a popular show wearing a certain kind of pricey shoes). How convincing was it? Did you find yourself convinced?
• Go to some product web sites and take a look at them (can probably find these easily by typing the name of your product into a search engine). Comment on the persuasive techniques used there. Would you have any concerns about young people visiting these sites?
• In the article (page 50), Crovitz lists some guiding questions to use with students. Evaluate those questions. If you have experience with teens currently or in the past, imagine yourself discussing advertising with teens using those questions.
• What do you think about the “sham sites” Crovitz writes about? Have you visited any of these kinds of sites?
• How does advertising on Internet sites differ from advertising on TV?
• React to this quote: “Does a corporation bear any responsibility for modeling correct language use and safe behavior in advertising its products?”
• React to this quote: “How do we balance a company’s right to sell a product with the public’s right to make healthy decisions?”
• Transience seems to be an essential feature of web sites; they are constantly changing. What effect does this have on consumers?