Each teacher was asked to bring three papers to the discussion — one in the top of the class performance, one in the middle, and one in the bottom of the class performance. Papers were chosen before the team defined proficiency. After defining proficiency, teachers often changed their minds about how they ordered their papers. The online discussion will make that clearer.
Question:
Write a summary of the article “Persistence”
(Acrobat)
Top Classroom Response
What did the student understand?
- understood the importance of the idea of persistence
- identified some significant details about the astronaut
- Paul Richards embodies persistence
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What does the student still need to learn?
- Did not understand how the race and car resulted in a lesson about persistence
- Didn’t comprehend the intended meaning of the text
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Where would you go next instructionally with this student?
Discuss with the student how you unlock the meaning of the text
- How did you find the relationship between the main ideas?
- How are they related? Cause and effect?
Ask if the student understands the relationship between the car races and persistence
Walk through the prereading strategies
- What is this article about?
- How do you know?
- What is the author’s message?
- What is your purpose for reading?
- What are you going to find out at the end?
Walk through the during reading strategies
- What are you going to do to unlock the meaning of this text?
- What is it you’re going to have to do?
- How did this author, Paul Richards, become "the best"?
- How did he use persistence?
Work with her on finding the relationship between and among details
- Model the process using probing questions
- What’s happened here in the first part of his life?
- What happened after that?
- Have student take notes in the margin.
- Then we read the transition piece.
- What’s the relationship between the two parts?
- Then have the student rewrite the summary
Middle Classroom Response
What did the student understand?
- This child understands how the car is successful.
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What does the student still need to learn?
- She does not understand the full meaning of persistence.
- She has not identified the main idea.
- She didn’t understand what becoming an astronaut had to do with persistence.
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Where would you go next instructionally with this student?
- We have to go back and unlock the meaning of the text.
- Analyze the whole piece
- Relate the details to the main idea.
- She needs to understand what should be included in a summary of information text.
- Main idea
- Supporting details
Bottom Classroom Response
What did the student understand?
- This child understands what the definition of persistence is.
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What does the student still need to learn?
- He might not just be able to write a summary.
- He can’t relate any specific details from this man’s life to a summary with a main idea.
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Where would you go next instructionally with this student?
- I think a one on one dialogue with the child to discuss this article.
- What is this article about?
- What do you know about persistence?
- How does it apply to this man?
- From there, I could see that he does understand the text but doesn’t know how to write a summary. Or if he can’t verbally tell me how this man fits in, then I know I need to back track even further and I’ve got to teach the article.
- I would recommend showing students a summary and creating some exemplars if you don’t have any in your class.
- Show what a good summary looks like.
- Show mediocre one and give them an opportunity without a graded experience to tweak it, to go in and add details.
- Now I’m going to take mine and make it a good one.
