7th Grade - Gateway 2
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Building Knowledge
Building Knowledge with Texts, Vocabulary, and Tasks| Score | |
|---|---|
Gateway 2 - Partially Meets Expectations | 68% |
Criterion 2.1: Building Knowledge with Texts, Vocabulary, and Tasks | 22 / 32 |
The instructional materials for Grade 7 partially meet the expectations of Gateway 2: Building Knowledge with Texts, Vocabulary, and Tasks. Anchor texts/text sets are organized by theme, although they are not consistently organized to build students' knowledge within the theme. There are some structures in place over the year's worth of materials for students to practice learning academic vocabulary and practice working with text-based questions and tasks. However, these tasks and questions often use the text as a vehicle to learn a writing skill or literary term, instead of engaging students in deeper understanding and building their skills in close reading and analysis. Students have some opportunities to work across multiple texts, but the focus of doing so is to practice the associated writing skills instead of to grow knowledge with close readings of the materials. Vocabulary instruction focuses on literary terms rather than leveraging the texts themselves to build vocabulary that might transfer to other content areas and practice. Writing supports across the school year are strong and students do have opportunity to learn, practice, and grow skills in researching and synthesizing information into reports as they build on the skills taught across the year as well as those in the previous year.
Criterion 2.1: Building Knowledge with Texts, Vocabulary, and Tasks
Indicator 2a
Texts are organized around a topic/topics (or, for grades 6-8, topics and/or themes) to build students' ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently.
The instructional materials for Grade 7 partially meet expectations for indicator 2a in that texts are organized around a topic/topics and/or themes (as is appropriate for grades 6 and up) to build students' ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently as they build knowledge. However, there are missed opportunities for students to read closely, as students’ engagements are often relying solely on students’ reads, rather than having strong guidance to support a comprehensive depth of understanding.
Texts within this anthology require students to focus on variations around the theme of "choice." Interrelated texts, film, and independent reading assignments focus on different aspects of this shared theme. Students learn from Nelson Mandela's autobiography about his choice to fight for desegregation in South Africa. Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the novel Tangerine, Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" and a drama by Shakespeare are representative examples of texts that show students the choices real and imaginary characters make and how those choices affect their lives. However, many questions about the characters are superficial and do not dive in to the deeper learnings available by these rich texts.
The online Close Reading Workshops include strategies to support students in determining what each text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from what it does not say explicitly. Should the teacher not engage students explicitly with these materials as they read, students may not incorporate the strategies and supports appropriately or in context.
Reading, questions, writing tasks, and speaking and listening activities all revolve around the study of choices made and how they impact society while growing knowledge about subtopics within each unit. Students have ample opportunity during collaborative discussions to share connections between concepts taught in class and their independent reading, and are provided opportunities to demonstrate new knowledge and stances on the themes and topics in culminating activities. There is little teacher support to redirect or reteach should students misunderstand core work or need comprehension support.
Indicator 2b
Materials contain sets of coherently sequenced questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts.
The materials for Grade 7 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2b as most texts and materials require students to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts. Coherent sequences of questions and tasks support students' development in skills around how to analyze the components of text, enabling them to navigate the content and draw conclusions in order to articulate what they are learning and engage with the text.
For most texts, students analyze key ideas and details, structure, and craft, author's word choice, and language choices. The program includes questions that support study of detailed language and word choices (such as work with verbs and pronouns) as well as questions that support students' learning and considering broader craft and style components (such as using syntax for effect and identifying cohesive sentences). In most texts, students are provided opportunities to analyze language and author's word choice as they read, through sidebar word meaning and word connection lessons and questions that prompt them to interact with text to find examples of figurative, sensory and vivid language, as well as roots and affixes and other components of language. However, the support for teachers and students should students misunderstand is minimal. Additionally, students' engagement with rich content vocabulary beyond literary terms is weak.
The questions and tasks provided for students to learn about craft, style, and engage in study of key ideas have an extensive focus on surface- level elements of the text and rely heavily on student interpretation. There is little teacher support should students misunderstand or need further direct instruction.
An example from Unit 4, activity 4.5 illustrates the program’s treatment of questions and tasks with this indicator:
After reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” students are provided a short series of questions:
- In one or two sentences, summarize the story of “The Raven.”
- What is the dominant image of [“The Raven”]? How do the connotative associations with this image and other diction choices fit with the dark and eerie tone Poe is trying to create?
- You already know about end rhyme, the most common form of rhyme. In “The Raven,” Poe also makes use of internal rhyme. What examples of internal rhyme do you see in the first two stanzas?
- How does the poem’s structure or organization contribute to its meaning?
- How does Poe use other poetic devices to develop the poem?
Student prompts are accompanied by possible responses for the teacher to view:
Student prompt:
- What is the dominant image of [“The Raven”]? How do the connotative associations with this image and other diction choices fit with the dark and eerie tone Poe is trying to create?
- “The dominant image is a raven perched and repeating “Nevermore.” Because ravens are large and black, and in this case appear in the night, they are often associated with ominous omens. The raven’s repetition of the word ‘Nevermore’ also seems particularly eerie and foreboding.”
The teacher is provided a possible response:
The writing at the end of the lesson includes these questions:
“Based on your understanding and the information you created above, write a paragraph that explains the purpose and effect of ‘The Raven.’
Be sure to:
- Use the summary you wrote.
- Include your understanding of the central image.
- Discuss one or two poetic devices Poe uses for effect.”
These questions do focus on the craft of the poem, but they do not support students’ understanding of key ideas and specific details within the poem.
Indicator 2c
Materials contain a coherently sequenced set of text-dependent questions and tasks that require students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas across both individual and multiple texts.
The Grade 7 materials partially meet the expectations of indicator 2c. Text-dependent questions and tasks are sometimes sequenced for students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas in single texts and across multiple texts. While questions and tasks are text dependent, they do not consistently support students’ analysis of knowledge and ideas. By the end of the year, students have practice eliciting evidence from texts.
Students read to analyze a variety of texts and work with questions and tasks to understand the forms through which ideas are conveyed, such as poetry, essay, novel, and film. Through close reading and analyzing elements skilled writers use to develop text, students learn to write real and imagined narratives while they learn about the topics and themes. Students analyze components, organizational structures, and language. The materials do not consistently support students’ building knowledge of the content provided by the texts, however. Rich texts are used as a vehicle to learn the component parts of texts, but students are not guided to engage in deeper critical thinking about the texts themselves.
The program does have students work across text sets and pairs of texts (such as the paired poems noted in indicator 2b) but also has activities across genre and form. One example that illustrates how this is presented to students is in Unit 3, when students work with clips from the film Invictus, excerpts from the film's source material, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation by John Carlin, the poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley, a biography of Nelson Mandela from an online source, and Mandela's autobiography.
Questions in this section are text dependent, but do not extend students’ knowledge beyond the assignment at hand. For example: Discussion questions such as, "Based on your knowledge of Nelson Mandela’s personal history, why might this poem have been important to him? What connections can you make between his life and the ideas in the poem?" require students to marshall evidence from the texts they've been reading and synthesize their evidence, but are not followed by more questions or tasks around the content and meaning of the reading itself.
Indicator 2d
The questions and tasks support students' ability to complete culminating tasks in which they demonstrate their knowledge of a topic (or, for grades 6-8, a theme) through integrated skills (e.g. combination of reading, writing, speaking, listening).
The instructional materials for Grade 7 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2d. Instructional materials support students' ability to complete culminating tasks in which they demonstrate their integrated skills (e.g., combination of reading, writing, speaking, and listening). The culminating tasks are of value to the student, emphasizing completion and synthesis of more than one standard learned and practiced, over the course of the lesson, unit, and year. However, the culminating tasks do not necessarily promote the building of students’ knowledge of the theme/topic, instead focusing solely on the skills themselves.
Culminating tasks are multifaceted from a skills standpoint and require students to demonstrate mastery of several different standards at grade level. Earlier questions and tasks give the teacher usable information about student readiness for whether they will be able to successfully complete culminating tasks and provide multiple opportunities for formative assessments. Support for success is provided by Online close reading and Writer's Workshops, clear expectations for success in each Embedded Assessment, and clearly defined expectations for the grade in the form of grade level CCSS- ELA standards being provided in the Student Edition.
Following are some examples of how the program provides integrated, culminating tasks that allow students to practice integrated skills:
One of the Culminating Activities for Unit 1 is a personal narrative. The is preceded by activities that focus on making careful observation of textual details, reading widely from fiction and non fiction, drafting reflective writing, analyzing poems, and analyzing author's use of diction. Through analysis of novel excerpts and autobiography, students learn that successful narratives include a description of the incident, explanation of resolution, and use of language for effect. After analyzing effective narratives, students create their own.
For Unit 2, one Culminating Activity is an expository essay and participation in a collaborative discussion. Prior to this, students study advertising techniques, analyze print (and non-print) advertisements, and engage in collaborative discussion. This Unit supports students' growing research skills, and they select a research question and gather information from a variety of sources, evaluating for credibility and accuracy using prompts and tools to support their efforts. To process and share this information, students participate in collaborative discussions. Students synthesize their research and draw conclusions in the expository essay.
A Culminating Activity for Unit 3 is to write a Literary Analysis Essay. Students conduct a novel study and participate in Literature Circles and Socratic Seminars focused on the elements of their selected novel. To support comprehension, students use double entry journals, in which they track evidence that will be used later in their essays. Close reading strategies help students make meaning from the text and identify relevant textual evidence to develop literary analysis paragraphs. Students work in small groups to practice generating ideas and supporting their analyses with evidence from the text. Tasks support students' moving from group writing to independent practice as they complete their comparative literary analysis.
Another Culminating Activity in Unit 3 has students create a multimedia biographical presentation. Students examine how biographical and historical facts are presented in media, integrating information from film, biography, and autobiography to develop deeper understanding of the topic and content while studying the different ways the forms convey information. Students are asked to consider the impact of visual media, and value of evaluating sources and work collaboratively and present ideas with multiple opportunities to refine presentation skills. They select texts, visuals, music, and quotes to use in a for their biography, working collaboratively to analyze information, infer meaning, as they craft the whole multimedia presentation.
A Culminating Activity in Unit 4 guides students to create and present a monologue. Students have read, listened to, and analyzed poetry along the course of the other units, and are presented with more works in this unit. Students compare and contrast writers' use of language and evaluate writing styles. Students identify monologues' structures, analyzing the connection between content, audience, and purpose. They draft and present their own monologues, with guidance and support on speaking skills.
Indicator 2e
Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.
The instructional materials for Grade 7 partially meet the expectations of indicator 2e. Although there is a list at beginning of each unit with academic and literary terms that are tied to instruction of the unit, there is little support to transfer knowledge beyond each individual unit, and the words that are of focus are not consistently used to build knowledge for further application.
Student instructions for academic vocabulary repeat across all units. Students are given the same instructions under the heading "Developing Vocabulary" in each unit: "Look again at the Contents page and use a QHT strategy to analyze and evaluate your knowledge of the Academic Vocabulary and Literary Terms for the unit." In the middle of each unit, students are asked to reevaluate initial understanding. For example, in Activity 4.9 students are given the following instructions: "Use the QHT strategy to re-sort the vocabulary you have studied in the first part of this unit. Compare this sort with your original sort. How has your understanding changed? Select a word from the chart and write a concise statement about your learning. How has your understanding of this word changed over the course of this unit?" Students are also asked to keep a Readers/Writers notebook over the course of the year where they are to note vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to them.
Materials provide minimal teacher guidance outlining a cohesive year long vocabulary development component. Students are given a list of academic and literary terms at beginning of each unit, but these words do not consistently appear across multiple units. Students engage with vocabulary instruction in context of reading and writing, but the demands of each unit are different. Although vocabulary instruction is embedded, there is little attention given to struggling student's needs outside of differentiated instruction tips for ELL students and minimal support for advanced learners. Vocabulary is repeated in contexts but not always across multiple texts.
Indicator 2f
Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan to support students' increasing writing skills over the course of the school year, building students' writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the school year.
The instructional materials for Grade 7 fully meet the expectations of indicator 2f. Students engage in writing tasks, projects, and presentations over the course of the school year that are aligned to the standards for grade 7. There is substantial support for students to learn, practice, develop, and apply writing skills. Teacher materials include comprehensive supports. Materials provide guidance for time spent in and out of class practicing, planning, and creating. Writing assignments are scaffolded throughout each unit, ending in culminating tasks in the middle and end of each unit. As noted earlier, materials include a mix of on demand and process writing (e.g. multiple drafts, revisions over time) and short, focused projects, incorporating digital Online Writer's Workshops provide scaffolding and specific instruction to support students in process writing.
Students are expected to keep writing portfolios to revise and reflect on their growth as writers over the course of the school year. Instructional materials include well designed lesson plans, models, and protocols for teachers to implement and monitor students' writing development. The Teacher's Edition forward, under "Writing with Purpose," states that the program provides "Multiple opportunities are provided for realistic, task based writing. Formal and informal writing tasks develop students' understanding of tailoring writing to purpose and audience." This statement is supported throughout the Grade 7 materials to build students' writing skills through short, extended, and assessment writing.
Instruction in writing is addressed in two integrated ways: through project based, scaffolded writing assessments and through Online Writing Workshops, which offer teachers and students practice to mastery of specific writing modes. Writing Workshops are designed to offer additional direct writing instruction to support and extend mastery of the writing process and commonly assessed written products. After students view a model text, the workshop guides them through the writing of three separate texts in the specific mode being taught: one that is constructed as a class, with direct guidance from the teacher; one that is peer constructed with teacher support; and one that is written independently. Ten different writing workshops that cover the writing process are available in Grade 7. Each writing workshop contains teacher/student pages, scoring guides, and additional writing prompts.
Some examples of tasks and activities in the materials that support students' writing development over the school year include (but are not limited to) the following representative sample writing activities:
Unit 1:
- Students create their portfolios and begin the process to reflect upon their skills during each unit of instruction.
- Students engage in a narrative free write to practice incorporating narrative elements in their writing. They draft a personal narrative about choice. They learn how to prepare for a timed writing task by unpacking a writing prompt, planning their time, and using a writing strategy to generate ideas.
- After responding to a prompt, students revise using transitions for coherence. They learn how to create a revision plan based on Writing Group feedback.
- Next, students focus on revision techniques and use their own draft to put them into practice. In one of the culminating activities for Unit 1, students work collaboratively through the writing process to create an original myth.
Unit 2
- Students develop expository writing skills by drafting paragraphs and revising for coherence and clarity. In the next lesson, students strengthen expository writing skills by revising for precise language, formal style, and sentence variety and use rubric criteria to write introduction and conclusion
- In preparation for writing an argumentative essay, students create an argumentative essay with peers, research to gather evidence, and write body paragraphs, strengthening writing through revision processes. They revise the class essay, incorporating a counterclaim.
- One of the culminating activities for Unit 2 asks students to independently write an argument by generating a new research question, forming a claim, gathering information, and taking their ideas through the writing process.
Unit 3
- Writer's Craft and Language mini-lessons are threaded throughout the unit to provide ongoing practice in revising drafts for varying sentence structure.
- Students write a comparative analysis essay in small groups to practice generating ideas.
- One culminating activity for Unit 3 has students work through the stages of the writing process to create a literary analysis essay.
- During the second half of Unit 3, students learn the role of research, generate questions, conduct research, and create an annotated bibliography.
Unit 4
- In Unit 4, students analyze poetry to help develop writing skills and ability to make connections between written and spoken word. They are exposed to a variety of comedic and dramatic monologues to learn how writers use language for different effect.
- By the time of one of the culminating activities/ embedded assessments, students will have drafted multiple monologues that represent diverse topics, perspectives, and effects.
- In preparation for the Shakespeare performance at the end of Unit 4, students will write responses to process their learning, comparing and contrasting content and delivery, evaluating effectiveness of delivery choices made, and explain their choices for delivery.
Indicator 2g
Materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials.
Materials for Grade 7 fully meet the expectations of indicator 2g. Materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials. Research projects are sequenced across a school year to include a progression of research-related skills. Materials support teachers in employing projects that develop students’ knowledge on a topic via multiple resources. Materials provide many opportunities for students to apply Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Language skills to synthesize and analyze per their grade level readings. Materials provide opportunities for both short and extended projects across course of school year, and students have the opportunity to develop research skills throughout the school year.
Steps of the Research Process are taught throughout the materials so students get support on the whole process. Students choose research topics by brainstorming ideas with a partner, writing down ideas of interest, and conducting preliminary research. Teachers guide students to read information and encourage their outside of class reading for the unit to connect to a topic of research.
For example, in Unit 2, students work towards writing an argumentative essay after gathering information on a variety of sources. Students generate two additional research questions for their topic, after analyzing informational texts. Activities guide students to practice identifying primary and secondary sources, as well as how to best develop and use criteria for evaluation of online sources' credibility. Graphic organizers are provided in student and teacher editions for this activity to support students' researching for effective and reliable websites.
After these activities, students conduct research for a class- constructed argument. The Argumentative Essay Research Log is provided as a frame for students to cite sources and evaluate their credibility in an organized manner. The teachers guide includes support for teachers to model note taking and how to use steps in research process.
Students use previously taught research strategies, available in resource section of the student edition, to guide their research and evaluate sources while they incorporate new skills. They take notes by summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, responding, and recording bibliographic information as per grade level standard demands. They use a Research Log graphic organizer to record research and sources. Teachers can utilize Online Writing Workshop 1: The Writing Process to describe the roles of members of a writing group.
Online Writer's Workshop section: Research: Provides additional writing prompts, teacher and student pages, and scoring guides. Students are given the opportunity to write three additional research papers, one guided by the teacher, one that is peer-guided, and one they write independently.
Indicator 2h
Materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.
The instructional materials for Grade 7 fully meet the expectations of indicator 2h. Materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading inside or outside of class. Materials include close reading and independent reading prompts and questions for students to engage out of class time as they read their self-selected texts. Throughout the units there are prompts connecting the class reading with students' independent reading, marked as Independent Reading Links.
Text and author suggestions are included for teachers to support students seeking independent reading choices. Each unit outlines specific independent reading suggestions that correlate to unit objective and include, in the Teacher Edition, a list of suggested texts for independent reading, as well as possible formative assessment questions. Support for building independent reading is included, such as guidance around setting deadlines and methods to keep track of reading, as well as suggestions around length of texts for students to engage with at different times (e.g. during research-heavy sections of the unit, shorter texts might be a better option for independent reading).
Post-reading prompt for students to assess their texts are included, such as, "Consider the change(s) the character(s) from your independent reading book experienced. What was significant about the change? How did the change leave an impact on the character or those around him or her?" Reader/Writer Notebooks include organizers and suggestions for engaging with their independent reading. Questions are built in to support growing independent reading habits.
Literature Circles reinforce communication and collaboration, and in addition, support the independent reading process as well, as students are held accountable to their groups in that process.