TRAINING

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Strategic English Language Arts

• TRAINING
• AUGUST 11, 2008
• KATHY BELLAH AND DARA MOSHER

Staying the Course
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Objective

• By the end of todays session, participants will
• understand the purpose and design of the SELA
  class
• learn strategies for frontloading the ELA
  curriculum
• become familiar with the text and support
  materials
• analyze and expand lesson plans for teaching
  SELA
• as shown by participation in the training
  activities.

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Agenda

• Welcome
• What is Strategic English Language Arts?
• SELA Classroom Video
• Accessing Prior Knowledge and Building Background
  Knowledge
• Interactive Strategies
• Text and Materials
• Lesson Plans
• Questions and Answers

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Reflective Writing

• Think of 1 or 2 strategies that you use regularly
  in your English Language Arts classroom.
• Write the strategies.
• Share your strategies and explain why you believe
  these strategies work well for English learners
  or struggling readers.

Remember
Write
Share
Think
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Purpose of SELA

• To provide support to both English learners and
  English-only students who are .5-1.9 years below
  grade level in language arts
• To ensure that these students have an extended
  opportunity for success with the English language
  arts curriculum
• To assist in closing the academic gap between
  English learners and their English-speaking peers

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In SELA, teachers provide opportunities for
students to

• access prior knowledge and/or build background
• build and increase academic vocabulary
• use specific language structures
• interact with others to build language and
  fluency
• learn and apply specific learning strategies
• so that students will have the knowledge,
  skills, and language needed to succeed in the
  English Language Arts.

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Therefore, in the regular ELA classroom, we
expect to see

• an increase in academic success
• more student participation
• a higher level of student confidence
• increased student effort
• stronger oral language abilities

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Strategic ELA is

• frontloading, not remedial instruction
• structuring the curriculum to build student
  success in ELA
• pacing the curriculum to preteach concepts for
  ELA
• planning collaboratively with grade-level ELA
  teachers to ensure consistency of instruction and
  curriculum between the ELA and the SELA classroom

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Essential elements of a SELA classroom
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A SELA classroom in action

• As you watch the video, note how the teacher
  incorporated the elements on the guided
  note-taking sheet.
• Discuss your assigned element with your partner.
• Share with the group.

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Accessing Prior KnowledgeBuilding Background
Knowledge

• Rationale
• Students learn more effectively when they already
  know something about the content.
• Students learn more effectively when concepts in
  that area are linked to their own particular
  background and culture.
• Students learn new information more effectively
  when connections are made between the new
  learning and prior learning in the classroom.

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Accessing Prior KnowledgeBuilding Background
Knowledge

• Accomplished Strategic ELA teachers
• tie new information and concepts to students own
  background experiences.
• make explicit connections between new learning
  and the material, vocabulary, and concepts
  previously covered in the class.

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Accessing Prior KnowledgeBuilding Background
Knowledge

• How do you link concepts to students
  background experiences?

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Other Suggestions

• Ask questions that prompt students to think
  about/talk about prior experiences that relate to
  upcoming lessons, content, etc. For example,
• Has anyone ever gone camping?
• Has anyone ever watched a scary movie?
• Has anyone ever been out in a lonely place at
  night? The woods? The desert?

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Other Suggestions

• KWL chart
• Video or video clip that provides background for
  content teaching (watching clips from Sword in
  the Stone before reading King Arthur and Merlin
  stories)
• Brainstorming
• Use of visuals or realia to stimulate prior
  knowledge

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Accessing Prior KnowledgeBuilding Background
Knowledge

• How do you explicitly link between past learning
  and new concepts?

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Other Suggestions

• Questioning Ask a simple question. Who
  remembers what we did yesterday? and solicit
  responses
• Charts Make a chart of key information being
  studied and keep the chart as a reference as you
  move through the story/the unit
• Student Journals (e.g., What I learned today)
• Lesson Connections Make explicit statements to
  connect what the students are going to study
  today with what they studied yesterday/last
  month/last trimester. Help students see a
  continuum of the content concepts and build a
  bigger picture in their minds.

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And finally
We need to take the time to do this!
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Interaction
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Effective Interaction in the Classroom

• Rationale
• Interactions in the classroom provide English
  learners and struggling readers additional
  opportunities to listen, produce, practice and
  manipulate academic language.
• Interactions aid students in the socialization
  process.
• Interactions give students opportunities for
  mutual academic support .
• Interactions promote mastery of academic skills.
• Interactions provide the teacher with an
  opportunity to check for student understanding.

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Effective Interaction

• Accomplished Strategic ELA teachers
• Provide frequent opportunities for interactions
  and/or discussions between teacher/student and
  among students that encourage elaborated
  responses and require academic language.
• Design flexible grouping configurations that
  support language and content objectives of the
  lesson.
• Ensure sufficient wait time for student response.

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Interaction

• What interactive strategies and opportunities
  do you provide students in your classroom?

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Interactive Strategies

• Reflective Writing
• Collaborative work in groups of 2 to 4
• Advanced Organizers
• Think/Write/Pair Share
• Carousel Walk
• Jigsaw
• Partner Reading
• Anticipatory Guide

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How do I begin?

• Teach kids to work together
• Set up flexible grouping configurations
• Become familiar with several interaction
  strategies

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Teach kids to work together
Opinion Chart (Building Consensus)
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Instructions for Consensus Chart

• Determine roles Recorder, Reporter, Facilitator
  and Time Keeper (1 minute)
• In your group, fill out the Opinion Chart (4
  minutes)
• Score your chart (5 points for each correct,
  complete response)
• Practice this strategy using familiar material
  first!

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Conga Line
A B
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Beach Ball Comprehension
What part of the story did you like best and
why? I enjoyed the resolution of the story the
most, because it was so unexpected.
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Hot Onion
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Bridging from individual to group work

• Individual questions pair
  share
• Individual work sheets pair or
  table work
• Individual assignments group
  assignments

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Holt Materials

• Holt Reading Solutions
• Lesson Plans
• Reading Skills and Strategies
• Holt One Stop Planner
• Holt Adapted Reader
• Holt PowerNotes
• Holt Literature and Language Arts
• Universal Access Materials
• Interactive Reader
• Writing, Listening, and Speaking

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Plot Chart-Story Form
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Lesson Plan Guide

• Instructional Elements of SELA
• Pre-Assessment
• Prior Knowledge/Building Background Knowledge
• Academic Vocabulary/Language Functions/Sentence
  Frames
• Word Work/Content Vocabulary
• Reading Strategy Instruction/Independent Reading
• Interactions/Collaborative Group Work
• Tutorial
• Test Taking Strategies
• Checking for Understanding

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Questions and Answers

• What is the grading policy?

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Trainings
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Did we meet our objectives for the day?

• By the end of todays session, participants
  will
• understand the purpose and design of the SELA
  class
• learn strategies for frontloading the ELA
  curriculum
• become familiar with the text and support
  materials
• analyze and expand lesson plans for teaching
  SELA
• as shown by participation in the training
  activities.