12th Grade - Gateway 1

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for anchor texts being of publishable quality and worthy of especially careful reading, and for considering a range of student interests. The anchor texts are of publishable quality and provide opportunities for rich analysis and modeling of the literacy skills focus for each unit. Student interest is subjective and the materials attempt to consider a range of interests by providing a variety of text types - multimedia video, audio, visual, printed text - to engage multiple learning styles in the topic focus for the content.

Anchor texts in the majority of chapters/units and across the yearlong curriculum are of publishable quality. Evidence is as follows:

• In Unit 1, students read the “First Amendment to the US Constitution” and Letter to the “Danbury Baptists by President Thomas Jefferson” as well as “Dhammapada, Ch. 24: “Thirst,” by Buddha.

• In Unit 5 Text Set 1 includes the following: “Audrey Hepburn’s Statement to Members of the United Nations Staff” (speech), “The State of the Poor: Where are the Poor, Where is Extreme Poverty Harder to End, and What is the Current Profile of the World's Poor?’ (report), and “Wealth Inequality in America” (video).

• In Unit 3, Part 1, Activity 2, students read Raymond Carver’s short story, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,” chosen in part because the author’s “content and style make it engaging and accessible reading for twelfth-graders, and provide an excellent context for deep analysis of literary technique.” (345).
• The inquiry-based research activities in Unit 4 are centered on a diverse set of text types--multimedia videos, visuals, as well as printed text--to allow for a range of accommodations for students’ learning and engagement styles. Texts are not included in the materials, but published in various professional sites and locations accessible through the Internet. The topic of the unit is the influence of design and a range of texts is provided as a starting point for research. These include texts from professionally recognizable publishing companies--Bloomberg Business, Fast Company, New York Times--and professional career publications in the business of design--Dezeen Magazine, the Landscape Architecture Foundation, and the Institute for Design at Stanford. The focus on anchor texts from a specific career field and the research on how it influences daily life should capture a wide range of student interests.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for texts having the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and relationship to their associated student task. Most grade 12 texts have the appropriate level of complexity according to quantitative and qualitative analysis and relationship to their associated student task. Anchor texts are placed at the appropriate grade level. Texts that are quantitatively above the stretch band are accompanied with appropriate supports (e.g. close reading and instructional notes to guide the teacher) and are appropriate for grade 12. Texts that are quantitatively below the grade level stretch band are paired with tasks that require students use higher order thinking skills. Qualitative analysis of the texts supports placement at this grade level. According to CCSS, by the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.

• In Unit 1, students read a series of texts related to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; these texts include but are not limited to the following:
  • First Amendment to the United States Constitution (Government document): 1000L
  • Letter to the Danbury Baptists (Letter): 1830L
  • Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (Supreme Court opinion): 1390L
  • Union Square Speech (Speech): 1560L
  • Democracy in America: 1841L

• The accompanying tasks allow students opportunities to develop their abilities to read closely for textual details. Texts that are quantitatively above the stretch band for grade 12 are preceded by texts that are below the students’ quantitative stretch band to allow them to access the text and read

• In Unit 1b, students are provided with a series of texts sets for additional practice of reading closely for textual details. These texts include but are not limited to the following, and Lexile levels are included for these texts by the publisher (177 -178):
  • Man’s Search for Meaning: “A Case for a Tragic Optimism” (Informational text): 1250L
  • Dhammapada, Ch. 24: “Thirst” (sacred text): 1190L
  • Excerpt from “The Examined Life” (Speech): 1070L
  • Excerpt from Meditations on First Philosophy, “Meditation IV: Of the True and the False” (Philosophical treatise): 1620
  • Excerpt from The Genealogy of Morals (Philosophical treatise): 1230L

• Unit 2’s central texts are two speeches used to model and then develop EBCs. A complexity measurement is provided by the materials; Reagan’s speech is given a Lexile measurement of 1090L, placing it in the 9-10 grade level range, and Clinton’s speech is given a 1340L, placing it in the higher 11-CCR range. The texts provide opportunities for the students to read closely for persuasive details in the form of ethical arguments, facts, and data organized by the orators, Hillary Clinton and Ronald Reagan. The materials expose students to complex, domain-specific vocabulary--for example, bulwark, special interest groups, and paradigm. Unit 2, Part 3, Activity 3, tasks students to identify the claim or argument of Clinton’s speech followed by two supporting points in the text and citing the explicit evidence that supports the points. Students read to understand the relationships between rhetorical elements in the speech as it stands alone and to make connections between the two texts. The texts are lengthy and dense enough for students to incorporate a variety of evidences on the included Organizing Evidence-Based Claims Tool.

• Unit 4 texts are intended to be used as a Common Sources Set of texts for students to practice research skills. A complexity measurement is not provided by the materials. The texts are purposefully chosen for the teacher to model the thinking behind a “particular Area of Investigation” that helps students understand the thinking process necessary for research skills. The materials do not provide copies of the texts. Guidance is provided to locate copies of the texts on the internet. Texts in this unit include complex animations directed by transitioning color schemes and texts, but not narrated vocals. Other texts include professional business articles and university publications. The vocabulary is very specific to the business industry and articles are geared to professionals in this career field.

• In Unit 5, the text sets are utilized for students to build evidence-based arguments. The texts include informational texts, political cartoons, seminal arguments, and additional arguments. In Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 2, though below the stretch band of CCSS quantitatively at 1060L, the text “The Duty of Hope” by President George W. Bush is part of Text Set 2 for additional background and the tasks that are connected with the text allowing students to use higher order thinking in relation to the texts. Qualitative analysis indicates the text is appropriate for students at this level. The Questioning Path Tool will allow students to deepen their understanding of the text and connect their learning to the other texts they have read in relation to the topic. For example, “What evidence does this text provide that influences my understanding of the issue of poverty and how or whether society should work to address the problem? In what ways” (605). The following are example of texts in Unit 5 within the CCSS grade level stretch band:
  • “The State of the Poor: Where Are the Poor, Where Is Extreme Poverty Harder to End, and What Is the Current Profile of the World’s Poor?”: 1380L
  • “The Why and How of Effective Altruism”: 1220L
  • “The American Welfare State: How We Spend Nearly $1 Trillion a Year Fighting Poverty—and Fail”: 1370L

• In Unit 5, Part 2, Activity 5, students are presented with a text “The Gospel of Wealth” that is quantitatively above the CCSS stretch band for grade 12 at a 1140L. Qualitatively the complexity is related to language features, such as sentence complexity and vocabulary. The Questioning Path Tool is designed to assist students in thinking more deeply about the text and the Text Notes for the teacher share that the “text might be broken up between students and then jigsawed between student discussion groups.” By completing the activities as included in the materials, students should be successful in accessing the text.

• Notably, the Teacher’s Edition states regarding topic and texts, “It is not required that students read all texts in all text sets in order for them to develop the skills associated with the unit or learn about the unit topic. This gives greater flexibility to teachers and students as they make decisions about student reading levels (texts have different complexities), student groupings and time limitations.” (581).

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials supporting students’ increasing literacy skills over the course of the school year. Series of texts are at a variety of complexity levels appropriate for the grade band.

Students utilize the close reading skills first developed in Unit 1 and honed to target specific purposes in following units--for writing and discussing EBCs to analyze informational texts, literary techniques, and research. As students become increasingly experienced with EBCs, complexity increases in the texts used for close reading. The texts provided include a variety of complexity levels appropriate for the grade band. Guidance is provided to teachers and students to allow all readers to access the texts at a higher level of complexity through the use of a Questioning Path Tool and discussions. The materials provide opportunities for student growth and to support students in reading independently at grade level by the end of the year as required by the CCSS.

The complexity of anchor texts students read provides an opportunity for students’ literacy skills to increase across the year, encompassing an entire year’s worth of growth. Evidence is as follows:

• Unit 1, Part 5, Activity 3, tasks students with leading a text-centered discussion. For this culminating unit, students focus on applying close reading and analysis skills they have practiced in previous activities with three texts--two speeches and an “academic text.”

• Unit 3, Part 5, Activity 4, tasks students with independently drafting an evidence-based essay about literary technique. Appropriately, the anchor text for this unit is Raymond Carver’s short story, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.” This is the first and only unit focusing on Literature genre. The short story is appropriate and relevant for the activities--students develop an essay focusing on analyzing a writer’s literary technique. The materials assess students’ uses of supporting evidence in writing and collaborative conversations. This is an ideal sequence to follow the previous unit-- Unit 2, students focus on EBCs and Unit 3 is an appropriate follow-up because it narrows the focus to literary technique and is the only unit dedicated to Literature and Fiction.

• Unit 5, Part 5, Activity 4, focuses on integrating and citing evidence from multiple sources to support an argument in writing and in discussion. This activity requires a culmination of skills developed and built upon by each preceding unit. Teachers assess the final, peer-reviewed argumentative essay. The provided rubric requires teachers to look for evidence of argumentative writing in four categories--Reading Skill Criteria, Developing An Evidence-Based Position, Evidence-Based Writing Criteria, and Final [General] Assessment Criteria.

The complexity of anchor texts support students’ proficiency in reading independently at grade level at the end of the school year as required by grade level standards.

• The texts in Unit 1 are of high complexity for the grade level--the first text measures at a 1320L, appropriate for the grade level, and the second text, Dorothy Day’s “Union Square Speech” measures at a 1560L ranking it beyond the 12th grade level suggested by national expectations recommended in the CCSS. This increase in complexity is appropriate for the task as students have had the opportunity to practice with, at this point, six model texts. The six texts are also of various text complexity measurements appropriate for introducing and developing the skills sets necessary for this unit’s culminating task and future units in the materials. Students are now using close reading and analysis independently with complex tests.
• In Unit 2, Part 1, Activity 2, students engage in an independent and close reading of President Ronald Reagan’s Inaugural Address, paragraphs 1-12. The complexity of the text is listed as measuring 1090L which is below the text complexity band for grade 12. The question-based approach to the text and level of complexity allows students to access the text and think more deeply regarding the political and economic issues in Reagan’s speech. The Questioning Path Tool provides opportunities for students to dive deeper into the text with both text-dependent and text-specific questions.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the expectations that anchor texts and series of texts connected to them are accompanied by a text complexity analysis and rationale for purpose and placement in the grade level. Texts and lesson materials are accompanied by an analysis of the associated metrics and rationale for determining text placement. Additionally, there are included tools and metrics to assist teachers in making their own text placements should they need to introduce a new text or text set into the materials. The curriculum provides quantitative information (lexile levels) for both anchor texts and text sets excluding photographs, videos, and websites. In the teacher edition, the curriculum explains the purpose and value of the texts in the Text Notes. For example, some texts are chosen for their value in reinforcing literary techniques while others were chosen as appropriate introductions to a particular time period. All texts were chosen because they were appropriate for 12th grade students while still allowing some flexibly for a variety of reading levels.

Examples of how the materials explain how texts are placed include the following:

• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 3, the Text Notes preceding Text 2: First Amendment to the US Constitution and Letter to the Danbury Baptists by President Thomas Jefferson, include information regarding educational placement: “These two texts are excellent places to start the unit because they are important and challenging yet relatively short and accessible for most students. They provide ample opportunities to apply close-reading skills and acquire vocabulary associated with the unit’s topic” (18). Text notes are provided consistently throughout the first unit. Lexile levels are provided by the publisher. The Lexiles are listed in the teacher’s edition following just prior to the copies of each text. For example, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (Government document) is listed as a 1000L by the publisher.
• In Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 2, Text 1.1 is preceded by Text Notes for “Audrey Hepburn’s Statement to Members of the United Nations Staff” that include a rationale for educational placement: “The speech from the UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) Goodwill Ambassador Audrey Hepburn not only provides background information on the global issue of childhood hunger, poverty, starvation, and death, but also presents the context in which these issues play out." The complexity level is included by the publisher as “1480L mostly because of specific medical terminology but is highly accessible to twelfth-graders” (594).

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria that anchor and supporting texts provide opportunities for students to engage in a range and volume of reading to achieve grade level reading proficiency. Units include a wide range of text types - including multimedia video, audio, interactive websites, and printed texts - addressing multiple learning styles of students. Texts present diverse experiences and the literacy skills associated with each activity recursively build on each other as the year progresses. Text complexity also adjusts and increases as students continue through the curriculum over the course of a school year although the materials do provide opportunities for teachers and students to incorporate additional texts.

Instructional materials clearly identify opportunities and supports for students to engage in reading a variety of text types and disciplines and also to experience a volume of reading as they grow toward reading independence at the grade level. Evidence is as follows:

• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 4, students read texts independently using the Questioning Path Tool to guide their thinking. The teacher’s edition includes further instructions: “Note that the Guiding Questions now span all four domains of questioning, enabling various approaches to initial close reading.”

• Unit 2 focuses on students’ abilities to make Evidence Based Claims (EBC’s) using two speeches. The text choices are accompanied by media supports-- video formats of the pair of speeches. In Unit 2, Part 1, Activity 2, students begin independently reading the first speech, “Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address.” The materials present the Questioning Path Tool as a support for students engaged in reading various text types.

• In Unit 3, Part 2, Activity 1, students read paragraphs 3-11 of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” to find supporting evidence. The Supporting EBC Tool is utilized to “look for evidence to support a claim made by the teacher." The teacher’s edition emphasizes that “It is essential that students have opportunities to read the text independently at various points in the unit. All students must develop the habit of perseverance in reading” (356).

• Unit 4 provides a set of informational texts focused on the influence of design to use as models for developing research skills. Texts include short and longer length blog posts, professional documents, and multimedia videos to name a few. Each document is sequenced in a way to provide students with increasingly complex details about design and its influence.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria that most questions, tasks, and assignments are text dependent/specific and consistently support students’ literacy growth over the course of a school year.

The instructional materials include questions and tasks that require careful reading over the course of a school year, during which students are asked to produce evidence from texts to support claims. Materials introduce the text-dependent, inquiry basis called the Questioning Path Tool, which provides opportunities for students to ask and use questions to guide their close examination of the text. The Tool progresses from intensive practice and support in developing text-specific questions to gradual release of responsibility as students learn to develop high-quality questions on their own, deepening their understanding of the text. These questions require students to return to the text for evidence to support their answers to questions about the roles of specific details, the meaning of specific phrases, character development, and vocabulary analysis. The process supports a text-centric curriculum and approach to multiple literacy skills.

Students work independently and collaboratively to respond to and generate text-specific questions. Also, writing tasks provide the opportunity for students to conduct more text-dependent work. Models can be modified for existing content (i.e., novels) owned by a district.

Appropriate support materials for teachers to plan and implement text-dependent questions, tasks, and assignments are included in the curriculum.

The tasks and assignments asked of students are appropriately sequenced and follow a consistent routine. The materials require students to closely read the text, drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text. The following are examples of this evidence:

• In Unit 1b, The Questioning Path Tool is utilized, and students are provided more opportunities to deepen their understanding of the texts. For example, in Unit 1b, Part 1, Activity 3: Reading Closely for Details, the teacher’s edition includes the following question to deepen understanding of Text 2—Man’s Search for Meaning, “A Case for a Tragic Optimism”: “In response to Freud, Frankl writes, ‘Thank heaven, Sigmund Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside. His subjects lay on the couch designed in the plush style of Victorian culture, not in the filth of Auschwitz.’ How does this inform me of Frankl’s perspective? How does it begin to reveal Frankl’s idea of human nature?”
• The materials also include text-specific questions:
  • In Unit 1b, Part 1, Activity 2, the Questioning Path Tool for the text, “Sorrow Teeming with Light (Painting), Calvin and Hobbes (Comic Strip) and Construint (Sculpture), provides text-specific questions: “How does the sidewalk influence Calvin’s thinking? What change occurs between the third and fourth frame and how does this change relate to Calvin’s questions?”
  • In Unit 3, Part 3, Activity 1, students work with Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk About Love.” An example text-dependent question is “Using evidence from the text, hypothesize why everyone sits motionless and silent in the dark at the end. Why might Carver have chosen to end the story with this image?”
  • In Unit 4, Part 4, Activity 3, the task is centered around evaluating possible sources to support research. This process is supported by the Research Evaluation Tool in the Literacy Toolbox. This tool acts as a checklist for students to evaluate texts and support their evaluations with textual evidence.
  • In Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 2, there are text-specific questions to accompany “Wealth Inequality in America?” such as, “How does the narrator structure the information in the video? How does this help clarify and understand the information and ideas about wealth distribution in the United States?” Additional Extending Questions are posed as examples: “What evidence does this text provide that influences my understanding of the issue of poverty and how or whether society should work to address the problem? In what ways?”

Teacher materials provide support for planning and implementation of text-dependent questions, tasks, and assignments. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Part 4, Activity 2, “students read three related texts and discuss them as a class.” Teachers are provided support via the Instructional Notes section. For this activity, the curriculum provides summaries of each text which gives the teacher valuable background knowledge that will help the teacher lead discussion and clarify understanding. The curriculum also gives specific instructional tips through statements: “It will also be helpful to view the video recording…” and “It will be a particularly appropriate text for students...who are skillful readers ready for a college-level text.”
• In Unit 1b, students read texts that look into various aspects and questions about human nature. The instructional materials provide further guidance for teachers, such as the following: “As noted, this unit consists of an abbreviated format of the Reading Closely unit that includes model Questioning Path Tools for each text and is organized by part and activity so teachers can better orient when students analyze each text if following the original Reading Closely unit lesson plan.”
• In Unit 3, Part 1, Activity 1, students are provided with text-specific questions through modeling by the teacher. For example, in the teacher’s edition, Instructional Notes are provided to guide teachers as students make evidence-based claims about literary technique, including, but not limited to, the following:
  • “The text notes and text-dependent questions are designed to emphasize these targets techniques, but teachers and students are also encouraged to extend beyond or outside of the unit's models into the study of other literary techniques, themes, and meanings that transcend what is suggested here.
  • As students move to analyzing, however, the questions become more focused on specific authorial choices and aspects of literary craft. For this unit, those choices, and techniques involve the following domains of literary analysis specific to fictional narratives.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials containing sets of high-quality sequences of text-dependent and text-specific questions with activities that build to a culminating task which integrates skills to demonstrate understanding.

The materials include quality culminating tasks which are supported with coherent sequences of text-dependent questions and tasks and are present across a year’s worth of material. The following are examples of this evidence:

• In Unit 2, Making Evidence-Based Claims: “We Have Every Right to Dream Heroic Dreams,” students will write an EBC essay and participate in a class discussion of the final EBC essays. Questions included in the Questioning Path Tool will assist students to deepen their understanding of the text, and develop a claim based on the texts they have read independently. For example, in Unit 2, Part 3, Activity 1: Independent reading and forming EBCs, the “five text-specific questions in the Deepening section of the Questioning Path Tool are again designed to move students from concrete details and literal understanding of the speech to a more critical analysis of the text itself." As each question is discussed students are asked to follow it up by asking, “What in the text makes you reach your answer or conclusion? Point to specific words and sentences.” Examples of text-specific questions are included in the Questioning Path Tool relating to “Remarks to the APEC Women and Economy Summit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”: “How does ‘the evidence’ presented in paragraphs 11-13 contribute to the persuasiveness of Secretary Clinton’s claims about women and the economy? In paragraphs 11-20, how does Clinton further develop the claim that a ‘transformation’ regarding women’s role in the economy is needed? How does she define ‘the problem,’ and what further evidence does she provide to support her implied claim that ‘a major realignment in our thinking’ is necessary?”

• In Unit 4, Research to Deepen Understanding: “Design: How Does It Influence Innovation and Progress?" students compile an organized portfolio. In the Literacy Toolbox, Researching to Deepen Understanding—Final Tasks, upon completion of the portfolio, students are asked to “share what you’ve learned in a short analytical research narrative. Your narrative should clearly express your understanding of the topic and report how you have developed your new knowledge and perspective.” Provided in the instructions for the Final Writing Task: Analytical Research Narrative, students are provided guidance for the task: “Think of several ways you and your classmates have come to understand the topic of ‘Design: How Does it Influence Innovation and Progress?’ based on the texts you have read; a. Select one or two of these ideas that match your own understanding, and return to the question: What do I think about this aspect of the topic of Design and how it influences innovation and progress; b. Your response to this question is the basis for your evidence-based perspective, which you will work into your narrative. Through the process of questioning various sources during the research process, it will assist students to be successful when writing the analytical research narrative: ‘How does the author’s perspective influence the text’s presentation of ideas or arguments? How does the author’s perspective and presentation of the text compare to others?’”

Evidence that sequences of text-dependent questions and tasks throughout each unit prepare students for success on the culminating tasks is as follows:

• In Unit 4, Part 2, Activity 5, the culminating task concludes with relevant information and summaries of texts for students to include in their research portfolio. Although the research portfolio is one culminating task for the end of the unit, the focus here is evidence of a student’s ability to gather information for research purposes. The provided Taking Notes Tool is designed to be driven by an Inquiry Question generated after close reading a text using the Questioning Path Tool.

• In Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 2, students independently gather background information about an issue from multiple texts. The culminating task assesses a student’s ability to approach texts with purpose and without predetermined guiding questions. The materials note, “students have been [previously] provided with comprehensive sets of text-dependent questions [via the Questioning Path Tool]” and by this culminating unit, should begin to independently use text-dependent questions similar to the Guiding Questions and Assessing Sources handout. Teachers can provide an abbreviated Questioning Path Tool for students to complete for the culminating task.

The culminating tasks are varied and rich, providing opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do in speaking and/or writing. The following are examples of this evidence:

• In Unit 2, the final assignment consists of developing and writing an evidence-based claim and writing and revising a global or comparative evidence-based claim essay. This essay is based on two texts: “First Inaugural Address, President Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981” and “Remarks to the APEC Women and the Economy Summit,” Secretary Hillary Clinton, September 16, 2011. Part 3 of Unit 2 helps students prepare for this essay by providing a Questioning Path Tool for the second text. This tool provides both text-dependent and text-specific questions that assist students in analyzing this text that is, in part, the basis for the culminating writing task.

• In Unit 5, the culminating writing task is to develop, write, and revise an evidence-based argumentative essay based on a collection of informational texts and arguments related to the unit’s issue which focuses on social responsibility, poverty, and charity. To be able to accomplish the final writing task, students must be able to analyze arguments. Part 2 of Unit 5 provides several text sets including political cartoons, seminal arguments, and additional arguments for analysis. The curriculum also provides Questioning Path Tools for texts 4-4.5. These questions are designed and sequenced to prepare students for the final assignment.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for the materials supporting students’ listening and speaking about what they are reading and researching (including presentation opportunities) with relevant follow-up questions and evidence.

Materials embed evidence-based academic discussions focused on listening and speaking skills in reading and writing processes. Students are often asked to engage in discussions about texts through activities such as note taking, annotating texts, and capturing what their peers say. Students then transfer the practice to their own writing through collaborative revision workshops with peers.

Speaking and listening instruction is applied frequently over the course of the year and includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers. Evidence of this is as follows:

• Unit 1, Part 3, Activity 1 focuses on analyzing textual details and provides the opportunity for students to compare the identified “Connecting Detail statements” in small group or whole class discussion. This is supported by the question-based Analyzing Details Tool which students complete prior to discussions. Relevant follow-up questions are suggested to be generated by the teacher or students and the materials provide text-specific questions that can be used via the included Questions Path Tool.
• In Unit 2, Part 1, Activity 3, students participate in a read aloud and class discussion; this discussion is led by the teacher and is guided by text-dependent questions. Students will either listen to the teacher read President Ronald Reagan’s speech or watch an online video of the President delivering his speech. Students will participate in an open discussion of first impressions of the author’s perspective. After the initial reading, students will use the Questioning Path Tool to deepen their understanding.

• In Unit 4, Part 4, Activity 3, students are tasked with evaluating research to include in their research portfolios and reflective research narrative essay. Students engage in discussion opportunities by reflecting and completing the Research Evaluation Tool. Students use their completed Tool to review and receive feedback in teacher-student conferences that coincide with student peer-review teams of three. The intent is to gain insight from multiple perspectives through discussions using a common tool.
• In Unit 5, Part 3, Activity 1, students engage with listening as the teacher models the supports provided by the Evaluating Arguments Tool. The teacher models follow-up reflection questions aloud to evaluate an argument: “How accurate and current is the explanation of the issue?” (642). With guidance provided by the handout, students and the teacher discuss other questions that can help analyze elements listed from the handout. Students eventually work in reading teams guided by the Modeling Practice and the Evaluating Arguments Tool to evaluate other arguments and the textual evidence used to support it. The handout contains extensive relevant follow-up questions for students to use and respond to during the task.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials including a mix of on-demand and process writing (e.g. multiple drafts, revisions over time) and short, focused projects, incorporating digital resources where appropriate.

The materials include a mix of on-demand and process writing. Activities are increasingly independent compared to previous grades with more opportunities for independent on-demand writing. Student choice is more frequent than in previous years’ materials. Students are required to produce short, informal writings and longer, formal essays. On-demand writing tasks consist of completing the worksheets/handouts/tools from the Literary Toolboxes and evolve into students composing sentence-length evidence-based claims and paragraphs. The on-demand writing tasks build skills for students to use in independent process writing tasks.

Students are continuously asked to work in writing pairs or groups of four to improve their work by reading aloud, analyzing each other’s pieces, and offering objective criticism and suggestions. During the editing process, students are asked to focus on evaluating and improving the content or quality of claims and evidence and to focus on improving organization and expression and clarity of their writing.

Examples of on-demand writing tasks include:

• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 2, students will write a caption as a summary of a visual text. As a follow-up, students continue to work on reading for detail in Activity 3 and paraphrase their understanding in writing after independently reading a text. By Activity 4, students evaluate and explain in writing the concepts learned from a multimedia text.
• Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 4, includes a task where small groups of students discuss and collaboratively write the key details of a video.
• In Unit 1, Part 3, Activity 3, “students draw from their notes, tools, annotated texts, and sentences from earlier activities to construct a paragraph that addresses their comparative question.”
• In Unit 2, Part 4, Activity 3, “students develop a paragraph that communicates an evidence-based claim…In this first phase, students should focus on getting their ideas down on paper so that others can review them. Students will work with peers and with the teacher on sentence structure and grammar “to effectively incorporate textual details while maintaining their own voice and style.”
• In Unit 4, students write an Analytical Research Narrative. Students address their stances and provide a reflection of their inquiry processes. Students maintain an independent research journal during this unit. As a model, the materials recommend various mainstream podcasts to serve as examples for students “to understand how reporters not only report on a story but also report on their own experiences.”

• In Unit 5, Part 3, Activity 5, students complete a cumulative on-demand writing task to respond to opposing positions. The prerequisites are multiple process writing tasks necessary for students to have evidence-based argumentative stances as the focal texts for this activity. Appropriate text-dependent questions are provided to guide student discussions and work.

Opportunities for process writing tasks include:

• For the final writing of Unit 2, instructions for students are, “On your own, plan and draft a multi-paragraph explanation of something you have come to understand by reading and examining your text.” Students use these to lead and participate in a text-centered discussion, which could then lead to revision.
• As part of Unit 3’s Final Writing Task, students will write “a multi-paragraph essay that presents a global claim about the cumulative effects of techniques Carver uses.” Students are encouraged to use a collaborative process to review, revise, and improve their essays. Their revision is focused on their arguments, the unity and sequence or organization, the use of evidence, and the clarity of their writing.

Materials include digital resources where appropriate. Examples include:

• The Developing Core Literacy Proficiencies: User Guide provides information relating to Electronic Supports and Versions of Materials; the teacher’s edition states that all handouts, tools, and checklists are available as digital files. This enables students and teachers to work either with paper and pencil or electronically according to their strengths and needs.

• Unit 1B, Part 1, Activity 5 directs teachers and students to the website of the magazine, Life. Not only does the website include thousands of photos organized by topics and decades, but many parts of the site include explanatory texts, which would serve as models of the type of writing expected by students.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials including frequent opportunities for research-based and evidence-based writing to support analysis, argument, synthesis and/or evaluation of information, supports, claims.

Instructional materials include frequent opportunities for students to write evidence-based claims (EBCs) relating to various topics and in response to text sets organized around the topic. Students are asked to analyze text, develop claims, and support those claims with evidence from the text. Tools, such as Questioning Path Tools, Approaching Text Tools, and Analyzing Details Tools, are provided to help student analyze and organize text to be used in later writing. The checklists and rubrics also include criteria for Using Evidence which asks students to support explanations/claims with evidence from the text by using accurate quotations, paraphrases, and references. Opportunities for writing to sources include informal writing within the units and formal writing in the form of culminating tasks.

Writing opportunities are present in the daily activities as the materials progress. Early units rely on daily writing opportunities to be present in the form of worksheets from the Literacy Toolbox. These are not stand-alone writing tasks. They are intended to provide students with sequenced guidance and support for extended writing to take place. The early Literacy Toolbox handouts in the introductory units provide necessary scaffolding that leads up to research-based and evidence-based reading and writing skills.

Texts include a variety of sources (print and digital). Materials meet the grade-level demands of the standards listed for this indicator.

Materials provide frequent opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply writing using evidence. Examples of this are as follows:

• Unit 1 includes a variety of texts with which students work to analyze and to mine supporting evidence. These include a historical engraving, documents from the Library of Congress, PBS videos, Supreme Court opinions, and poetry.

• In Unit 1b, Part 4, the objective states, “Students learn how to summarize and explain what they have learned from their reading, questioning, and analysis of texts. Students read and analyze three related texts.” The Targeted Literacy Skills for Part 4 include Attending to Details which focuses on “identifying relevant and important textual details, words, and ideas” and Identifying Relationships where students identify important connections by analyzing key ideas within text and across texts.

• In Unit 5, Part 1 “students apply their close-reading skills to understand a societal issue as a context for various perspectives, positions, and arguments.” In Activity 2, students read and analyze numerous texts, such as “Audrey Hepburn’s Statement to Members of the United Nations Staff," to develop an initial understanding of the issue. In Activity 5, students write a multi-part EBC about the issue. This writing serves as the culminating activity for Part 1. It serves as an assessment of whether or not students can use evidence to explain their understanding.

Writing opportunities are focused around students’ analyses and claims developed from reading closely and working with texts and sources to provide supporting evidence. Examples of this are as follows:

• In Unit 3, Part 4, Activity 8, the formative assessment focuses on the students’ development of a revised EBC paragraph. In Parts 2 and 3, students receive extensive practice and guidance identifying and analyzing EBCs. With that background, they are expected to independently develop a short writing that analyzes an author's writing technique. Students practice using common text sets.

• In Unit 3, Part 5, the teacher is provided summative assessment guidance for Assessing Literacy Skills utilizing an EBC Writing Task Rubric: “Students’ final EBC essays, having gone through peer review and revision, should provide evidence of each student’s development of the Literacy Skills targeted in the unit—especially the reading and thinking skills that have been the focus of instruction and that are involved in making the evidence-based claim about a literary text.”

• In Unit 4, Part 4, Activity 2, “students review and organize their research and analysis, establishing connection to all the Inquiry Paths of their Research Frame.” The Instructional Notes indicate that after students have experienced organizing and writing EBCs, they will write multiple claims to address some of their Inquiry Paths.

Materials provide opportunities that build students’ writing skills over the course of the school year. Evidence is as follows:

• In the instructional materials, the teacher’s edition shares the Unit Design and Instructional Sequence: students are presented with a topic and “begin learning to read closely by first encountering visual images, which they scan for details, and then multimedia texts that reinforce the skills of identifying details and making text-based observations from those details” (xxxii). Therefore, students are provided an opportunity to learn about the topic before exposure to the more complex grade-level texts and then move forward to more challenging texts.

• Unit 4 provides extensive opportunities for students to conduct research-based writings. The summative writing assignment is a reflective research narrative. Leading up to this, students are guided to maintain a research journal of all the sources evaluated to include in their research. Relevant sources are compiled in a research portfolio to accompany the summative reflective narrative.

• In Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 5, as a formative assessment and a building block for their final argument (in Part 5), students write a one-to-three paragraph explanation of their multi-part claim about the nature of the issue being explored.

• In Unit 5, Part 3, Activity 3, in reading teams, students review and evaluate an argument previously read in the unit. When finished, students compare and discuss their summary evaluations and opinions about whether the argument is convincing.

Writing opportunities are varied over the course of the year. Evidence is as follows:

• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 1, students are introduced to the topic through an analogy from another field. Examples listed are as follows:
  • Compare the process of close reading to the analytical processes used by experts in other fields, such as musicians, scientists, or detectives.
  • Present a CSI video that demonstrates how a detective asks herself questions when first approaching a crime scene
• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 2, students are presented with an opportunity to access the topic through the use of a historical cartoon. In the Instructional Notes, teachers are asked to “scan the cartoon and then assign specific visual details to groups or individuals for closer analysis.”
• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 3, students are presented with two short texts: one is meant to introduce students to the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the other allows students to explore Thomas Jefferson’s letter to a group of Baptists in Connecticut., both of which will be used for close reading and assist students in furthering their understanding of the topic.
• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 4, students watch a video series and “look closely for details in multimedia text, 'God in America',” a five-minute PBS “Extended Preview.”
• In Unit 1, Part 1, Activity 5, students explore a multimedia website and answer guiding questions.
• All the activities in Unit 1, build to a two-stage culminating activity. Students will do the following: 1) Analyze one of three related texts and draft a multi-paragraph explanation of their text, and 2) Lead and participate in a comparative discussion about the three texts. Students are writing informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. In addition, students are drawing evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

• In Unit 1, Part 4, the summative assessment is a synthesis essay tasking students to demonstrate close reading for details. It requires students to synthesize the reading and writing of details based on text-dependent questions to develop the essay. The essay must include the central idea of the text, observations about the author’s purpose and perspective, explain what was learned from the text, and support each of these with reference to textual details. Although it is not inherently research-based or evidence-based, students must support their explanations with textual details.