College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Students · College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Students . Susan Pimentel

College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Students

Susan Pimentel

www.achievethecore.org

College and Career Readiness (CCR) for Adult Students &

the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

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How Can CCR Standards Built for K-12 Work for Adult Education?

OVAE created a deliberative, multi-layered process to find out:

• Convened two review panels with a wide cross-section of

experience and expertise

• Deliberated for nine months

• Gathered feedback from colleagues around the nation

• Gathered feedback from some of the lead Common Core

writers

• Established an evidence-based process

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Why Apply the Common Core to Adult Education?

• CCSS is built on the empirical evidence of what employers and educators actually demand of prospective employees and students.

• To create consistent expectations between K–12 and adult education systems for all students—whatever their pathway—to be prepared to enter credit-bearing freshman courses.

• To take advantage of the resources and human capital in support of their implementation (46 states):

• Common instructional tools and materials

• Common professional development

• Common college and career assessments

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Three Questions Guided Review by the OVAE Panels

1. Using evidence, what CCSS content in the area of ELA/literacy is relevant to preparing adult students for success in higher education and training programs?

2. Using evidence, what CCSS content in the area of mathematics is relevant to preparing adult students for success in higher education and training programs?

3. Using evidence, which standards in each content area are most important for adult students?

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Evidence Relied on by the Panels

• Judgments of postsecondary faculty on the importance and relevance of a variety of concepts and skills (ACT, EPIC).

• Judgments of employers on the importance and relevance of specific knowledge and skills (P-21).

• Content currently part of (or planned for inclusion in) assessments relevant to adult students (e.g., new GED®, ACCUPLACER, COMPASS, new Consortia tests).

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Standards Organized for Adult Education

• Panelists bundled the selected standards into five grade-level groupings to more closely reflect adult education levels of learning:

• ELA/Literacy - A (K–1), B (2–3), C (4–5), D (6–8), and E (9–12)

• Math - A (K–1), B (2–3), C (4–5+6), D (6+ 7–8), and E (9–12)

• Standards omitted from CCSS primarily when they were too specific, redundant, subsumed by other standards, or handled sufficiently in an earlier level.

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Results: College and Career Readiness for ELA/Literacy

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Structure of the Literacy Standards

Four Strands: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language

Each strand has Anchor Standards: 10, 9, 6, and 6

Standards are listed by level: A (K-1), B(2-3), C (4-5), D (6-8), and E (9-12)

Strand

Anchor Standard

Level-Specific

Standards

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Key Advances in Instruction Prompted by the CCR Standards for Adult Education

1. Complexity: Regular practice with complex text (and its academic language)

2. Evidence: Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text

3. Knowledge: Building knowledge through content-rich informational texts

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Key Advances Build Toward College and Career Readiness for All Students

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Engage with Complex

Text

Extract and Employ

Evidence

Build Knowledge


Key Advance One: Regular practice with complex text (and its academic language)

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Google Trends “Text Complexity”

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Key Advance 1: Complex Text

Why relevant and important?

• What students can read, in terms of complexity is greatest predictor of success in college (ACT study)

• Gap between complexity of college and high school texts is huge (4 years!)

• Too many students are reading at too low a level. (<50% of graduates can read sufficiently complex texts)

Deficiencies are not equal opportunity. . .

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• Reading Standard 10 includes a staircase of increasing text complexity, level by level, from ABE 1 through ASE.

• Anchor Standard 10 reads, “Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.”

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Where is “Complex Text” in the standards?


Lexile Alignment to College & Career Readiness to Close the Gap

Grade/Level Band

Old Lexile Ranges

CCR Lexile Ranges

ABE I (2-3) 450-725 420-820

ABE II (4-5) 645-845 740-1010

ABE III (6-8) 860-1010 925-1185

ASE I (9-10) 960-1115 1050-1335

ASE II (11-CCR) 1070-1220 1185-1385

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What are the implications for instruction?

• To be aligned, reading passages in materials should have appropriate complexity. (The Standards have raised the bar for what students should read and understand at each level.)

• Accordingly, passages should be of high quality so that they are worthy of close reading. Passages should be previously published or, at minimum, show evidence of professional editing.

• A powerful link exists between text complexity and text quality:

o Only by starting with a complex text is one able to increase reading proficiency.

o When passages are not complex, they lack full development of ideas, and thus they lack the complexity needed for CCR-aligned questions.

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Challenges of Complex Texts

• Why provide students with regular practice with adequately complex texts?

• Vocabulary needed for success can only be learned from complex texts.

• Mature language skills needed for success can only be gained by working with demanding materials.

• Simplified texts are often synonymous with restricted, limited, and thin in meaning and won’t prepare students.

• No evidence that struggling readers catch up by gradually increasing the complexity of simpler texts. . .

• Use leveled texts as supports not as the central strategy.

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Shared Challenge: What Can We Do?

Bust myth that growth of reading skills must be sequential—allow students to practice with complex texts while they get extra support and do so by:

• Chunking the text (teach a little at a time)

• Reading text aloud while students follow along

• Slowing down, reading and re-reading

• Offering sequences of engaging questions (not explanations)

• Providing coherent sequences of texts (gradated)

• Placing a premium on stamina and persistence

• Providing support while reading rather than just before; offer extra support to students who need it

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Features of Complex Text

Quantitative measures or readability formulas stand as proxies for semantic and syntactic complexity:

• Complex sentences (sentence length) and text length • Uncommon vocabulary (word length, word familiarity/frequency) • Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences • Subtle and/or frequent transitions; Lack of words, sentences or

paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student

Qualitative measures complement and sometimes correct quantitative measures:

• Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes • Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures • Uncommon and archaic language features • Unfamiliar settings, topics or events that create knowledge demands

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Determining Complexity

• Quantitative and qualitative measures are at once useful and imperfect:

• Quantitative measures are less valid for certain kinds of texts (e.g., Lexiles, Atos)

• Qualitative measures are on a continuum (not band-level specific) and most useful working in conjunction with quantitative measures

• General Rule: Use the quantitative measures to place a text within a band and qualitative measures to place the text at the top, middle or bottom of the band.

www.ccsso.org/Navigating_Text_Complexity.html

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http://www.ccsso.org/Navigating_Text_Complexity.html�









Key Advance Two: Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence

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Key Advance 2: Evidence!


• Most college and workplace writing requires evidence.

• Ability to cite evidence differentiates strong from weak student performance on national assessments.

• Being able to locate and deploy evidence are hallmarks of strong readers and writers.

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Where is “Evidence” in the standards?

• The standards prioritize students’ command of evidence across the domains of reading, writing, speaking & listening:

o Rigorously cite evidence from texts to support claims/inferences (Reading Standard 1)

o Draw evidence from texts to support analysis, reflection and research (Writing Standard 9)

o Engage in purposeful evidence-based talk (Speaking and Listening Standard 1)

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• Overwhelming percentage of reading Q’s should be text-dependent, requiring students to follow the details of what is explicitly stated and also to make valid inferences that square with textual evidence:

o Q’s should enable and require students to linger over the specifics and particulars of texts, leading back to the text for close reading.

o Q’s should not require information or evidence from outside the text.

• Took an informal look at major K-12 textbooks and they showed that between 30–70% of Q’s were non-text dependent. Needs to change!

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Implications for instruction, cont’d

• Writing assignments should require students to:

o Respond to text-dependent Q’s

o Draw evidence from texts rather than write to

decontextualized expository prompts

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The Nature of Text-Dependent Questions

• Text-dependent questions provide students a wholly text-dependent experience when reading complex informational text.

• There is no reliance on personal experience or knowledge to construct appropriate, evidence-based answers. Personal bias is minimized in favor of the text evidence.

• Text-dependent questions privilege the text and allow students to deal with information that is directly before them.

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Drawing Evidence from Texts

In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something.

In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair.

From “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” have students identify the different methods of removing warts that Tom and Huck talk about. Ask students to devise their own charm to remove warts. Are there cultural ideas or artifacts from the current time that could be used in the charm?

What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous?

What can you infer from King’s letter about the letter that he received?

Why does Tom hesitate to allow Ben to paint the fence? How does Twain construct his sentences to reflect that hesitation? What effect do Tom’s hesitations have on Ben?

Not Text-Dependent Text-Dependent

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Which Prompt Exhibits Writing to Sources?

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King:

1. Gives several reasons to justify his presence in the city at that time. Write an essay in which you relate a similar situation in your own life. Tell about an experience in which you had to justify your reasons for being in a particular place at a particular time.

2. Describes a process that he and his followers have recently undertaken. Write an essay in which you describe this process and tell how the letter shows that this process is important to the civil rights movement.

3. Is specifically responding to criticism about the goals of the civil rights movement. Write an essay in which you relate these goals to aspects of the modern-day civil rights movement.

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Which Questions Require Rigorous Analysis of Complex Texts?

1. When the author states that “Lee was acting like an angry bear,” is he using simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or onomatopoeia?

2. What is the setting of the story about Lee’s adventures?

3. What is the relationship between the setting of the story and the main event of the plot?

4. How did Lee’s decision to stay affect the outcome of the story?

5. Which of the following words describes Lee: brave, determined, careful, or hopeful?

a. Questions #1 and #2

b. Questions #2 and #3

c. Questions #3 and #4

d. Questions #4 and #5

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Key Advance Three:

Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction

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Key Advance 3: Building Knowledge


• Non-fiction makes up the vast majority of required reading in college/workplace.

• Informational text is harder for students to comprehend than narrative text.

• Males lag females in reading… research shows males prefer reading informational texts over narrative fiction.

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Where is “Building Knowledge” in the standards?

• CCR pertains to literacy across the disciplines of science, social

studies, and technical subjects.

• Include study of US Founding Documents and the Great

Conversation that has followed (Reading Standard 9).

• Conduct short, focused research projects (Writing Standards 7-9).

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• Emphasize content-rich informational texts—texts worth reading and re-reading—in curriculum.

• Provide students with coherent selections of strategically sequenced texts so they can build knowledge about a topic.

• At all levels, include: o Coherent sequences of texts

o Effective sequences of questions so students stay focused on

the texts and learn fully from them

o Regular opportunities for research

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The Three Advances in Literacy Boil Down to. . .

Texts worth reading,

questions worth answering, and

work worth doing!

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Implications for New Assessments

FROM: TO: Focusing only on reading skills

Focusing on complexity of what students can read too

Content-free Assessing US Founding Documents & the Great Conversation

Accent on literary terminology Accent on academic vocabulary

Writing to de-contextualized prompts (personal narratives)

Writing evidence-based analyses (arguments & informative essays)

Measuring mainly literature Emphasis on informational text across the disciplines

Measuring only through traditional selected response

Measuring through Evidence-Based Selected Response and Technology-Enhanced Items


Evidence-Based Selected Response The following question has two parts. Part A: How does Arthur respond when Miss Lesley asks Grace to help write the letter?

• He is happy to have Grace help him think of details and appreciates her ideas.

• He is upset because Grace thinks children should work at the mill to help their families.

• He is resentful that Grace has joined the activity and fears she may betray the secret.*

• He is curious to know if Grace has heard of the Child Labor Committee.

Part B: Which sentence from the story best shows Arthur’s reaction? • “Grace, hush for once in your life and listen.” • “That’s as far as we got,” Arthur says. • “Stop arguing,” Arthur says to me. • “You’d better not tell.”* • “The mill owners,” Arthur spits.

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Technology-Enhanced Item The passage gives reasons that explain why Marco Polo may have been truthful in his book and also gives reasons that explain why he may have made up his stories about China. The headings in the chart below list these two different ideas from the text. Complete each row of the chart by dragging and dropping facts and details from the text to support each idea.

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Evidence from the text that Marco Polo may have told the truth in his book

Evidence from the text that Marco Polo may not have told the truth in his book

But a list of his belongings around the time of death suggests that he did leave behind one of Kublai Khan’s gold tablets.

He said the Chinese city of Hangchow had twelve thousand bridges, but it had far fewer.


Top Ten Actions to Take:

1. Take Complexity Inventory of what your students are reading and make adjustments

2. Ask students to stretch to read more complex texts—especially short texts--beyond their reading level (with supports)

3. Place a premium on student stamina and persistence (productive struggle)

4. Teach students to read strategically. . .to slow down to understand key points and to re-read passages

5. Adjust balances of texts so students have more experience with a range of informational texts

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Top Ten Actions

6. Evidence! Evidence! Evidence!

7. Ask students to write about everything they read

8. Ensure alignment of the materials teachers use by tying all purchasing of materials to the key shifts

9. Substitute text-dependent questions for non text-dependent questions in existing materials

10. Focus teacher observational tools in literacy on specific measurable practices that cultivate the “core”

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