[Listen Again] Placing Text at the Center of the ELA Classroom (Updated)

Episode Transcript
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Melissa (00:01):
Today we're re-releasing one of our all-time
favorite episodes placing textat the center of the ELA
classroom with Meredith Liebenand Sue Pimentel.

Lori (00:11):
We've refreshed it to make it even better.
It's such an importantconversation for anyone thinking
about how to center instructionon rich, meaningful texts.

Melissa (00:20):
We loved revisiting it, and we think you will too.

Lori (00:24):
Hi, teacher friends.
I'm Lori.
And I'm Melissa.
We are two educators who wantthe best for all kids, and we
know you do too.

Melissa (00:34):
We worked together in Baltimore when the district
adopted a new literacycurriculum.

Lori (00:39):
We realized there was so much more to learn about how to
teach reading and writing.

Melissa (00:44):
Lori and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Lori (00:50):
Hi everyone, welcome to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy.
We are super pumped for today'sguests.
They are true literacy icons,and we are so excited to talk to
them.
Melissa, how pumped up are you?
Yeah, so excited.

Melissa (01:03):
So we we, I guess it was David Liebin, somewhere in
the middle of that podcast.
I had asked him a questionabout assessment, and we were
talking about standards, and hewas like, you guys need to read
this text at the center report.
And you know, eventually Ifinally did, and then I became
really obsessed with it andshared it with everybody that I
possibly can.

(01:23):
So I'm really excited to talkto Meredith Lieben and Sue
Pimentel today, who wrote thatabout what's in there and a
bunch of other stuff.
So I'm really excited.
So welcome to the podcast,gals.
How are you doing?
Sue, can you tell a little bitabout yourself?

Sue Pimentel (01:38):
Well, I think probably for this conversation,
one of the most important thingsto say is that I led the
development of the Common CoreState Standards in English
language arts and literacy.
Um, since that time, I've beenum with student achievement
partners.
Um uh I'm called a foundingpartner.
So worked very closely withMeredith and David and the whole

(01:58):
team on uh figuring out ways toimplement the standards um in
ways that that that both thatteachers can do and that
teachers can learn what theyneed to learn.

Meredith Liben (02:09):
So I I am most I have taught in all kinds of
different settings.
I taught uh 19 years in EastHarlem and Harlem and had the
privilege of starting the schoolwith David where we learned a
lot of what we know aboutreading.
Um, returned back to Vermont,and my mom was getting extremely
old.
Um luckily she lived to be verymore than extremely old, so I

(02:29):
got to hang out with her a whileat the end of her life.
But I then taught in um careerand tech ed centers in Vermont.
So I think of myself as amiddle school teacher, and I did
for 12 years, but I actually 13other years were either high
school or elementary.
So um I've run the spectrum.
I I I feel like I inhabitteachers' point of view, um, and
then had the privilege ofhelping support uh mostly the

(02:52):
reading standards uh for thecommon core.
And ever since then have beenobsessed with what do they
really mean, what are they attheir core, how can they be used
to promote equity and comealive for all for all students
so they can realize the promiseof them.
And I guess I'm a spirit of thelaw kind of person always.
And I worry about sometimes uhthe letter of the law

(03:14):
misinterpretations of thestandards that where they're
used more as a hammer than uhthan an inspiration.

Melissa (03:19):
So Naredith, I think you actually already started
where I wanted to start theconversation, um, which is
around standards.
So, you know, the common corestandards, they've they've been
around a while now, but um, youknow, they I think what we're
gonna talk about with you all,like who had been in it from the
the development of them, youknow, what is what what are they

(03:40):
really about, especially theELA standards?
Um, and how are they, how doyou see them kind of playing
out, which is sometimes maybedifferent than what was intended
behind them?
Um so that's where I wanted tostart the conversation.

So one of the big challenges when you're writing
standards, and here we werewriting standards for English
language arts literacy, is thatyou you you start to pull things
apart, right?
You pull reading apart intosome component parts, you pull
writing apart, you pull umspeaking and listening apart and
language apart.
So, and I know all teachersknow you never just teach

(04:18):
reading as a silo, right?
You don't you you can't teachreading.
I mean, either students have totalk to you about them or talk
to each other about them, orthey have to write about them.
Um, and so there is this placewhere what happens with
standards is that they get sopulled apart and teachers think,
or or administrators, I daresay, think you gotta like check

(04:40):
things off.
The whole point of the of thestandards is to knit them back
together and um and and to makeum proficient readers and and
and if I could say um forteachers out there or for
administrators who may belistening, um, to really pay
attention to the shifts becauseit's the shifts, it's not that

(05:03):
don't pay attention to thestandards, there's something to
pay attention because there's aprogression that happens.
But it really is about the textstudents are reading, and then
are they talking about and arethey are they able to pull
evidence out?
Um, and are they able to learnand and understand what it is
they're reading?
Because that's that's how theirbrains grow and that's what's
exciting to them.
So I think there's this placewhere we got into sort of a

(05:26):
checklist mentality.
Maybe that came from you knowhow interims report out, I don't
know.
But that isn't what makes goodinstruction, and it isn't what
is interesting to students.

And for me, I I think I'm obsessed with the um
the interweave that I alwaysthink of this of uh English
language arts and then thenames, you know, the names that
the standards assign to thoseannual year-end targets, which
is what standards name.
Um, they don't name, they'renot an action plan, they're
they're end-of-year targets atevery grade.

(05:59):
Um, so the action plan for meis is a constant interweaving of
speaking, listening, reading,and writing in service of
deepening understanding,creating passion, understanding
who you are as a human,understanding your place in the
world, understanding the world,understanding how to change the
world, which we badly need rightnow, brains who are confident

(06:22):
they can they can grow up and dobetter than what we're giving
them.
Um, so it's that interweave.
A dynamic classroom and asupportive classroom has has
students talking to each other,sharing revelations, pushing
each other's thinking.
And I think what's what I wouldlove for people to understand
is how how human the standardsare when they're taken as a

(06:44):
whole that way.
They we all process orally.
We rehearse when we havesomething hard, a hard
conversation to have, we tend togo to a trusted source and say,
can you hear me before I beforeI do this, or will you read
this before I send it to makesure it's not um misunderstood
and that I'm clear?

(07:05):
That's what that's what ourclassroom should be recreating
is the actual deeply human umelements of using language.
And those things will helpstudents who come in from
another language base who aremastering English too, they can
understand and process withtheir peers and and and get
better.
And then those things carryinto reading and and obviously

(07:28):
written expressions.
So so for me, it's it's aboutcreating the holistic promise of
using language and creatingpeople who can use it nimbly in
all its different facets.
So Sue's right about the theteasing apart because they have
to be codified, and then I getthe pressure on assessment
creators to itemize them, butthat isn't the way they're

(07:52):
taught, that isn't the waythey're learned, and that's not
the way they're exercised.

Could I also just add, I think sometimes uh for
for not necessarily teachers,but for administrators and
others think that uh the ELAstandards should be like the
math standards, which is likethis you build on this and then
you build on, you know, youlearn this, and you learn how to
add, and then you learn how tosubtract, and then you learn how

(08:16):
to multiply, and then youlearn.
That is not this.
If you look at the um at thestandards, they're every year,
you know, you're reading, you'rereading more at complex text.
You are drawing evidence,you're getting more
sophisticated in your ability todraw evidence from text.
You're learning more so you canread, read more, and do more.

(08:38):
And if you look at the thestandards, I think one thing
that we uh one thing we didright in the standards.
If you look at the standards,text appears in the reading
standards, also appears in thewriting standards.
You're writing about what youread.
It also appears in the speakingand listening standards, which
is so you're talking about justwhat Meredith was saying.
You're talking about whatyou're reading.

(08:59):
Vocabulary, the importance oflearning vocabulary,
understanding vocabulary, whichyou get most from reading your
volume of reading, certainly,but that appears in in all of
the domains.
And pulling evidence from text,being able to, as Meredith said
so beautifully, being able toshare what you're learning uh
with what with one another,again, yes, it's in the reading

(09:21):
standards, appears in thewriting standards, appears in
the speaking and listeningstandards.
So it's really important thento think about these coming
together as sort of aninterweave in the classroom.

Lori (09:33):
Yeah, that's a great point about the the ELA versus the
math standards.
I think there's kind of twothings that are important with
with the misconception.
So one is that ELA and math aredifferent, and folks try to
lump them together, like, ohwell, we'll just repeat the
skill of defining the centralmethod because then they'll be

(09:54):
able to do that just like you doin math when you repeat the
skill of whatever repeatedadditions.
Um but then ELA is justdifferent in and of itself
because it's so interwoven.
Um and and I think that weforget that we can't isolate
like we can from math.
So like they're different andwe can isolate.

(10:15):
So like it's kind of like adual understanding.
Am I am I hearing y'allcorrectly?

Absolutely.
And Meredith, you should speakto foundational skills because
the one exception is, of course,foundational skills.
Meredith.

Yeah, so foundational skills are somewhat
akin in the common core or anyprobably any set of standards
because they are the skills arenamed, the way the math
standards name the skills, andand therefore the progression is
actually um, you know, it doesstaircase itself.
So foundational skills alsoname what the ingredients are of
learning how to decode and thenhow to get to automatic word

(10:50):
recognition, and then how to doall that fluently.
And those need to be masteredat some point, you know, ideally
early on, so that the years andyears and years of school
students can access text forthemselves.
But I think what's alsoimportant is yes, they work that
way, but they work in concertwith the with the reading

(11:11):
comprehension side, the ELA sideof the standards.
So even in kindergarten, it'smostly through oral
comprehension, AUR, ALcomprehension, read aloud,
students get to grapple withcomplex ideas.
And read aloud is an underanother underutilized weapon if
if or tool better.
Um, if students haven't aren'treading at grade level for

(11:35):
whatever reason, um there's beena mismatch of of uh instruction
to their needs.
So the ELA standards continue,they are always rich and
complex, they are always atinterplay, but foundational
skills need to be solidified atsome point, and they are much
more linear.
And it's never too late to dothat work, it gets harder as

(11:56):
students get older, but youdon't withhold the good rich
stuff from older students orfive-year-olds.
They get it through their ears,if no other means, or through
that rich discussion anddiscourse.
Because learning to read is acompletely different part of the
of the brain that's beenco-opted far back in our human
history, um, to decode andrecognize an alphabetic uh

(12:20):
system.
That doesn't mean your braincan't think about really
interesting ideas and contributeto rich discussions and and uh
solve problems and do everythingelse that a thinking brain can
do, even if you're slower atdecoding.

Lori (12:33):
Yeah, that oral comprehension, when does it when
does it level out?
I think I'll I'll take a guess.
I I have um this image thatjust like is in my brain that
I'm not sure that I can findever again, but I saw it one
time and it was this beautifulprogression.
I think it's like 12, 12 yearsold, third, like sixth
grade-ish.

Yeah, I think I I this is where I would run get
David to lock in the research.
But I I have read fifth grade,but I have also read during
middle school is when it sort ofthe uh trajectories cross.
Yeah, yeah.
Um and I it probably the reasonit's probably a little slippery
is because it's not there's notone human lock in locked in
group, you know, every brain isdifferent.

(13:14):
So I betcha it it happens atdifferent times for different
students.
Yeah.
Um yeah, but access to text isparamount at all points.
Everybody has that is a rightum to have access to rich
complex text.
Yeah.
And and I I think it's notbaked into standards that
wouldn't have even beenappropriate, but I think it's
not a do-over, but it certainlyum, you know, text at the center

(13:37):
is so uh um, you know, it'sit's unnamed, but I think we
really need we're to we're at amoment now, a long overdue of
reckoning, you know, whose storyis being told, whose history
are we exploring?
So that text also has to haveto be broadened out and tell
everybody's story andeverybody's history and teach

(13:59):
um, you know, and and reachpeople um and reflect people's
reality that we have constantlyunderrepresented in in our
schools too.
So I think right now Sue and Ihave been spending a ton of
time, I hopefully everybody isthinking about how to expand our
definition of of what rich andcomplex text is.

Lori (14:18):
Yeah, and I want to call out standard 10.

And that's what I that's what I wanted to say too,
in uh any sort of a rewrite.
I would pull standard 10 rightup and right with with standard
number one, which is pullingevidence from text.
And what kind of text are youreading, these this content-rich
complex text.
And and and you know, I thinkum, you know, it's interesting

(14:41):
you bring this up because somuch, way too much of what we've
done um in this country uh fordecades and still doing, even
with that complex text sittingthere, is put students in level
text and put students in belowuh grade level text.

(15:02):
Um and there are some reasonsfor it, you know, it kind of
feels like okay, it's yourright, it's your right level.
So of course we wouldn't domore.
But it also feels incredibly uhun-American to me.
Can I say that?
Because what we because what wedecided early on, and then we
keep, we we we don't let you, wedon't let kids get out of it.

(15:23):
Like some kids are strongreaders, you know, really easy,
comms easy, some kids, but manyof us had to build our reading
muscles like for a while beforewe could catch up.
Well, the way you build yourreading muscles is to be faced
with content-rich complex text,you mean grade appropriate,
which is defined, and and thenget some support with it.

(15:43):
And the fact is that there isstudy after study after study
after study that shows that evenstudents who are still building
their muscles on reading, andso you might give them a might
uh assign them a below gradelevel reading level if they were
just reading on their own.
I want to say a little moreabout that in a second, too,
because it uh drives me wild.

(16:03):
But but it it says in thosestudies that when students are
given content-rich complex text,they they they their their
vocabulary grows, theirknowledge grows, their fluency
grows, their uh their their theif if you care about
assessments, they do better onassessments.

(16:23):
That's with students whoactually came in quote unquote
below level.
And so what are we doing?
Uh what are we doing to them?
Because the fact of the matteris, if you look at the what
students get when they readthese below level texts, and
they're getting that not just inone week, but week after week
after week after week afterweek.
What happens to them?

(16:45):
You can't expect them to learnmore than we're teaching them
and allowing them to do so.
I feel like this has justgotten stuck here um in in this
country, and I don't know how tounstick people.

Melissa (16:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I would say, like here inBaltimore, I mean, we've, you
know, we adopted Common Coreright away.
We were doing PDs, we wecreated our own curriculum, now
we adopted in wisdom.
I feel like you know, we'vedone, we've taken really good
steps in the right direction.
And even when I was in theclassroom and and even now, I
still see that um, you know, itit's still so driven by this

(17:20):
standards and standards mastery,and the text still gets lost,
even when we have good texts.
Yeah, mastery and isolation,yeah.
Yeah, and it's like theteachers are planning around the
standards, and the objective iswritten for the day around the
standards, and the check forassessment each day is around
the standard, and theassessments at the end are for
the standard, and the whole textjust gets lost in that.

(17:42):
I pulled out a quote from youguys that said, the standards
themselves are not the goal ofdaily instruction.
Understanding the textsencountered and being able to
express that understanding is,um, and that just really spoke
to me because I feel like that'sthat's what I feel like is
still getting lost, even when wetake all these steps in the
right direction.

Lori (17:59):
Yeah.
Well, Melissa, and I think too,what I want to say just for
listeners to kind of keep inmind too is that Baltimore is in
a second year of a high qualitycurriculum adoption where they
are using, you know, complextext at the center of their
teaching.
And that like mindset shift isstill, we're still working on,
right?
And and so it takes a lot oftime and effort and energy to

(18:24):
undo what decades have done.

Melissa (18:27):
Um and and also like still see, Lori, where they'll
say, okay, well, they can't readthis text easily, so I'll find
an easier one.
And as long as they can masterthis standard with this easier
text, then we can move on andwe're good to go.
Yeah.
And that's what worries me.
And I'm not saying every everyteacher does that.
I'm not blaming teachers, but Ithink it is something we still
see.
Yeah.

Right.
And and and the fact is that,you know, both of you are
raising, and emeritus said thisas well around the text, is is
that the re we don't read a textto check on our skills and our
comprehension strategies.
Like boring and not useful,right?
We read, and this is one thingthat I think got lost in in sort

(19:10):
of decades of schooling, too,is that we thought that it was
all about the skill or it wasall about the comprehension
strategy, which I know hasresearch behind it, but not like
ad nauseum.
The point of reading is tolearn from it.
And then when you learn fromone text on a particular topic,
then you can read another oneand you you add to your
knowledge on that.
That's why we read.

(19:31):
And by the way, that is what isinteresting to students is to
hear what an author's saying.
You might agree, you mightdisagree, you might be learning
more.
It might conflict with what youheard before or knew before,
but that's what's interesting.
It's not uh the end, and I justwant to say for everybody out
there that reading standards twothrough nine are not meant to

(19:53):
be taken in isolation.
We never meant that.
Remember, I said I would startwith standard one and standard
ten.
Uh, that two through nine areways to unpack a text.
You don't use all of them allthe time.
It depends on if structure isreally apparent in the in the
text or if there's an argumentthat's going on that the

(20:13):
author's making a claim.
That's when you pull them in.
So it's really thinking abouthow to use those strategically,
not to learn how to do theskill, but to learn how to
unpack the knowledge that's inthe text.
My vision of the standards isis a ladder.

So the polls, the the strength of it comes
from one on one pole, standardone, the evidence standard, and
then the other pole is standard10, the text complexity
standard.
Those two rise up in complexityfrom K to 12.
They are they are clearly getmore sophisticated, you know,

(20:50):
what you're what you read isgets more challenging and rich
and complex.
And then what you're expectedto do with it, the evidence
you're you're uh supposed toextract and then deploy in
speaking or writing gets moredemanding.
Two through nine are the runs.
They walk, they you stand onthem while you're accessing
evidence in text.

(21:11):
They are they they serve thosemaster polls, and they do they
do increase in complexity in thewhen you read them, they're a
little bit more demanding.
But essentially, standard fouris always dealing with
vocabulary.
That vocabulary is getting morechallenging and interesting
because of the text complexity,not because standard four in

(21:32):
fourth grade is radicallydifferent than standard four in
eighth.
There is nuance, yes, uh, butit's the complexity of the text
that leads the demand.
So if you don't concentrate onthe text itself and the
complexity it's offering you toread and understand and learn
from, you are the whole laddercollapses because you're trying

(21:52):
to make the rungs into the wholeinto the whole point.
And they're just where youstand for the moment, so you can
climb higher on textcomplexity.
So I do like that laddermetaphor.
Um yeah, it it it uh itsometimes this whole
conversation reminds me of myfavorite Billy Collins poem.
Um, is I can't, I always Ithink it may be called How to

(22:14):
Read a Poem, but he talks abouttying what we do to poems.
We tie them to chairs and beatthem to make them tell us reveal
their meaning instead ofreading them and living within
them.
And it's a gorgeous littlepoem.
Um, but it but that it feelslike we do that to text.
We beat them to make themreveal their structure, whether
their structure is a big deal ornot.
And we we get kids stuck onstructure because it's structure

(22:37):
weak.
So everything we or author'spurpose weak.
And instead of saying we'rereading an editorial, it really
matters what the author'spurpose is.
So let's look at that.
And you know, the text demandswhat attention we pay to it, not
the inverse.
We can't beat the text to makeit squish into whatever standard
we wanna want, we want to be uhtalking about.

(22:59):
And that's just it's it ishorribly deadening.
It's really it's no wonder tome that that most children, you
know, most students in Americadon't like to read.
Either they haven't been taughtbecause they've been stuck in
level text, or they've beentaught with complex text, but
they've been they've been likejust asked to think about main
purpose or making a predictioninstead of understanding the

(23:20):
actual what that writer, youknow, left his heart on the page
to reveal to us.
We don't get to, we don't showthat to kids enough.
So let them play with it andand revel in it.

Lori (23:33):
Yeah.
I remember um when I taughtsecond grade pre-common core, I
remember distinctly, like yousaid, that week was cause and
effect week, and I had it up onmy bulletin board.
And you know, every we've wewere we were looking for cause
and effect in all the texts thatwe were reading.
And I remember planning for thenext day and thinking, I don't

(23:55):
know if that don't cause aneffect.
What the hell am I gonna donow?
Like, I was like, oh my god,like I'm like frantically
searching for and then I waslike, this is so stupid.
I'm just going to teach themlike a good text.
And I mean, but I didn't have amy quality curriculum, you
know.
Um, and I I was doing it on myown, but I remember that moment

(24:18):
standing there being like, I'verun out of text, and it was like
my second year teaching, right?
Like, what and and I'm supposedto be teaching cause and
effect, and now I don't have anymore cause and effect texts
because we've read them all.

Melissa (24:28):
What what do I do?
I'm wondering you guys talkedin the in the report about um
teachers spending a majority oftheir time planning with the
text.
Um I thought that wasinteresting.
And I think, you know, if ifthere is no curriculum, I think
like Lori, right, you'd have tospend time with your text to see
is it cause and effect or is itnot?
Um and I'm wondering if thatalso applies if we have a

(24:50):
high-quality curriculum, if youstill would recommend the
majority of the teachersplanning time being spent with
the text and how that wouldlook.

Absolutely.
Um one of the beauties of uh aknowledge-based curriculum, I
would say, is that um you reallyum there is an attention um to
the text.
Um, if you don't have that, asyou were saying, Lori, or if
you're in one that sort of movesthrough the standards and says

(25:20):
today you're doing structure andcause and effect, or this week
and next week you're doingauthor's purpose, is that um you
don't you what what happens isthat you stop focusing on the
text itself and what it meansand what it will mean to the
students who will be reading it,what they will be learning,
what they will be learning fromthe text.
So there is no doubt that also,you know, you have these rich

(25:42):
texts and they they talk about,they show you what to focus on.
But then as the as the teacherin the classroom, it's right
there with your students, right?
So it depends on like what areyour students' reactions to
this, what are your students'questions about this, what do I
want to um ask more about?
Because either it's reallyinteresting to my students or

(26:03):
it's a place where they'regrappling, they're not quite
sure they get it or or or that.
So really um, and being able, Ithink one thing that we can do
for students is when we revel inthe text, when we model, and I
think there's actually researchabout this, Meredith.
When we model that, when we'reexcited about reading this text,

(26:26):
um, when we really know thetext, then it it models that for
students about there'ssomething here that you're gonna
really in one way or anotherenjoy.
You're gonna enjoy thechallenge of it or you're gonna
enjoy the ideas in it.
There's something here for youbecause there was something here
for me in it.
So um, you know, the one goodthing about the like a wit in

(26:48):
wisdom is that it it helps tounpack what's in the text for
the teach students and have todo it all by himself or herself,
which is uh which is a talltask, but still to really read
it and understand it so that youcan, when you're then faced
with your students, you can getwhat they're getting.
Can I also just say one thing?
Because the flip side of like awit in wisdom or education or
some of these others is aleveled text uh system where

(27:13):
you've got your students readingall you've got a class of 30
kids and they could be reading30 different books.
I mean, maybe not that much,maybe it's 15, maybe 10.
But imagine if you do not,you've not read those texts.
Um because that's a lot.
That's like a lot of text toread.
Um then and then you want tohave a conversation with with

(27:35):
students about that text, evenif it's in a small group or a
small reading group.
Well my goodness, like whatwhat you don't you don't know
anything about the text.
So then you ask these sort ofgeneric, what did you think?
What's the no idea what the manabout what's the man of that?
So I mean, I mean so thepreparation when you're not
dealing with one of the otherones that sort of center around

(27:56):
an anchor text and then haveother text around is is like the
the the load that teachers haveto carry there is is immense.
And I fear most don't have timeto do it.

Lori (28:07):
I was thinking like this is really the first time at
least, you know, I've I've beenin education for 17 years.
This is the the first time thatI've been here, and teachers
are being asked to do so muchpreparation work beforehand
that's really just intellectual,challenging, different work
than what we've known before.

(28:27):
And then coming into theclassroom and saying, okay, now
I'm gonna let the students dothe work in this space, right?
Because I've prepared, I knowthe stuff so deeply.
But it's so different than thatlevel text model.
Because when you did the leveltext, if you really were
becoming an expert on thestrategy, which I still don't

(28:49):
know what that means, and I'llbe honest about that.
Like I don't know what it meansto be an expert on cause and
effect.
Um do I.

Yeah, it is hard work, but it's also really, I
mean, it is what a lot ofteachers went into teaching.
You know, they love literature,they love reading, they love
thinking about books.
So it does invite that again.
I think the other crazy ironyhere is that this approach, the
intellectual preparation andthen turning it over to your
students, so it's truly astudent-centered and
student-driven uh learning withteachers facilitating is

(29:36):
actually the goal and dream of auh reader's workshop approach,
right?
Putting students at the centerand teachers being the coach,
the guide.
This actually holds the promiseof that in a level I've never,
I know they must exist.
They they just must, withteachers tooling themselves to
do so.
Because I'm also readers andwriters workshop trained, and I

(29:58):
have as much energy as anybody.
I've almost missed.
I could not in this problemwith 70 students a day.
I could not pull it off.
You know, having 70 differentum personal biographies of you
know of whatever, you know, biowhoever they were writing about,
I could not do enough moneylessons.
I was running as hard as Icould.

(30:18):
So I never, it wasn't ever aunified, rich, student-driven
classroom.
It was always me staggeringhome at the end of the night
trying to tear my hair off.
And so, but but this actuallyholds the promise of centering
text and then helping thestudents access that text is
kind of the promise of trulyworkshopping a text together,

(30:41):
which it was the sort of goal,you know, the the love of
literature, love of learning,love of reading goals behind um
the workshop approach.
But it's just it it hasn't beensuccessfully actualized.
And it also defaulted thestandards and and teaching
skills in in a really perniciousway, I feel like.

(31:01):
So yeah, we all have to unlearnit, and hardly anybody is
helping show us the way.
It's all a lot of people doinga lot of self-study, and that
that's why I really appreciatechances like this, where you all
are talking about this weekafter week after week.
So I also it's hard.
It's hard work.

Meredith, sorry, I didn't need to interrupt you.
So and Meredith, you talk a lotabout this about how learning
is social, but there's this thisplace where you've I've heard
teachers talk about, okay, I'mjust gonna try this.
I'm just like gonna, like, I'mnot gonna, I'm gonna leave the
level text thing behind and I'mjust gonna teach an anchor text.
And realizing that all studentsin the class, whether they were

(31:39):
the strongest readers or, youknow, they're still building
their muscles and you know, thatthat that assignment of a of a
level uh reader thing sort ofhangs up, they all had something
to um uh to share.
They all helped one anotherwith their perspectives, which

(32:00):
was interesting for teachers tosee that it wasn't just based on
what we would call, you know, astudent's um reading ability.
Um, and I think that's soimportant too, um, as we think
about when we get kids into twosand threes, they don't get the,
they don't get the sense of ofthe of the class and the

(32:20):
richness of what thosediscussions can be.
Um, because they aren't hearingfrom from from their peers that
my chem attack's completelydifferently than than than
another student.
So I think that's another thingthat gets lost when we start to
section kids off the way we do.

Melissa (32:36):
So I want to jump into a little deeper into something
we brought up a couple times,but around assessment.
Um, so another, you know, habitor not habit, but things we
learned in grad school andthings that are good good
strategies is data-driveninstruction.
Um, and I remember my firstyear teaching uh where you know
I was I had to track who whomastered which standard.

(32:58):
And um I from the first yearwas like, this doesn't feel
right.
Like I don't know that they'vemastered, like, how do you
master some of these things?
Didn't seem right.
Like, I don't know.
Um, but that's what we weredoing, and I think we're still
doing.
Um, so just wanted to get, youknow, you guys talked about you
know, not isolating thestandards and all of this rich,
really rich, likediscussion-based and hearing

(33:21):
from students, but how do wemarry that with the push for
data-driven instruction thatoften falls into isolating
standards and assessing them andmaybe reteaching them?

Lori (33:35):
In isolation.

We have to stop that.
Stop it.
Like, I understand the thedesire to and the need for
teachers to check and have andhave good understanding about
where their students are or arenot.
It's complicated in uh readingbecause it's you when a student

(33:58):
takes a test and and they answera question, you there's a
there's a hundred reasons whythey might be getting it wrong.
Um, or maybe not that many, butat least about 20, right?
Like they're not, they can't,they can't, their their fluency
um with this particular topic isnot good.
So that's happening.
The vocabulary then they'rehaving a problem with they've

(34:18):
never read about this stuff.
There's so many differentthings.
It probably the last thing itis is because they didn't know
how to identify the structure orthey didn't know how to
identify the author's purpose.
That's likely not happeningbecause when you're reading the
text, all of this stuff iscoming together.
Now, I can understand you know,if there are such things and

(34:40):
maybe they're getting to bebuilt here.
I know Louisiana's done alittle bit of this, I know some
of that, where you actually havean interim that matches the
curriculum.
So um, so what what you'veactually been studying and what
you've been learning and whatyou've been reading about
actually then gets reflected onwhatever test there is.
But we are way behind.

(35:01):
Way behind in our assessments.
We are still at that, you know.
Did they get this is an itemthat tests, you know, central
idea.
Did you get it right?
Did you get it wrong?
How'd you do it?
I do think there is new newconversations coming up about um
one, checking a student'sfluency to begin with on this
grade level text, um, and seeingif fluency is an issue or if

(35:23):
there's some other foundationalskill issue going on for the
student if you find fluency isnot good.
Um, and then thinking aboutways to bundle the standards,
you know, we think about thequalitative characteristics of
text, you know, as you'rethinking about the complexity of
the text, and thinking aboutways to bundle them and how are
students doing in thosebundling.
Also thinking about, you know,we hear that, you know, um

(35:44):
usually literature is easier forstudents than informational
text.
So kind of checking that alittle bit too, if you if you
have enough um uh text, theproblem is that in a lot of what
is out there now in interims, achild's getting like two
different texts.
That's it.
And by the way, if they don'tknow anything about that subject

(36:06):
area, um uh then then they theymay do badly, but not because
they can't read.
It's because because they don'tknow anything.
This topic is totally new tothem.
So they're of course they'regoing to struggle through it
more, and we want them to beable to struggle through it
more.
So we have a long way to go tomake any interim worthwhile and

(36:28):
worth the money, by the way.
Worth the money and time andtime, and then ask teachers to
then look at what how theresults come in, where they then
feel, I don't know, underpressure, forced to, oh, this is
this is the skill, you know, alot of your kids in the class

(36:50):
never got.
Now, I could see, you know, ifyou're seeing something
consistent and as you check withyour kids on, if you're allowed
to take a look at, you know,how they did and ask them
questions about it.
But I mean, there could be aplace where you could go, oh
gosh, you know, a lot of thetexts we've I've used over the
year haven't done as much onstructure.
So that's, you know, so sookay, so we can, you know, now

(37:13):
take, you know, take take sometexts and take a look at that,
you know, that that that arecohesive in some some fashion.
So I'm not saying that onewould never look at that, but
but the way we do it now, no.

Melissa (37:26):
Yeah, Nate, when you were talking about that too, I
think it's interesting.
I don't know that I've neverseen, but maybe it has happened,
where um teachers are lookingat the texts for assessments.
You know, we look so I think weskip right to data reports and
how did they get it, yes or no,but we never look at that like,
well, what was in the text thatthey read?

And that needs to be done.
Assessment folks have to beanyway, merit go, but assessment
folks have to be able to thoseout so you can actually see
merit.
Yeah.

I I remember reading years ago in France, you
know, high-stakes tests, youknow, we have nothing on
European high-stakes tests atSystem Winno kids.
Um, but but in France, thenational test is published in
the newspaper the next day, andfamilies routinely sit down and
like go over it with their kidsand talk about like, oh, how did
you do?
What do you think?
And then it's the the texts arereleased every year.

(38:18):
So we need models where thewhere not only the items, but
the passages are released everyyear.
And the banks are so robustthat that doesn't matter.
They, you know, and um thereare there are solutions to to
how to make those permissionsaffordable.
Um, the assessment companiesknow what those solutions are,
and and some of them have havehave gotten them.

(38:39):
I also think the other hugeproblem, and who definitely uh
pointed toward this too, is youthe assessments are not yet
reporting why your student gotan item wrong.
There are so many reasons why,really low down on the list is
that they don't understand theconcept of main idea.
We're pretty much hardwired tounderstand the point, the main

(39:03):
idea.
That is very rarely why astudent got a main idea question
wrong or whatever.
And we are hardwired to makeinferences.
If so, it is a it is a isthere's something else breaking
down, and the interims and thesummatives, none of them tell us
what is breaking down for thatstudent in that moment.
Is it vocabulary?

(39:23):
Is it a decoding problem?
Are they exhausted becausethey're not fluent enough to
sort of easily keep up with thisas a sixth passage?
Now, again, teachers withHerculean effort could do that
for themselves and know theirstudents to that degree.
But what if the company startedto provide that kind of
information?
Or we used AI, we usedpersonalized learning to

(39:44):
actually interrogate the kid andsay, what were you thinking
when you did this?
Like, where did your thinkingpattern go wrong?
And those were the reallyinteresting conversations we
were having.
Non-defensive, non-judgmental,just like I'm really interested
in your thinking.
This you didn't you got you gotthe answer wrong, but I'm
really curious what you werethinking or what happened when
you chose this other alternativeanswer.

(40:05):
Those are the assessments worthtaking and worth spending time
on.
And you would actually learnactionable and helpful data to
have data parties around if youhad that kind of conversation.
So right now it feels likeincredible misallocation of
resources, of teacher time andenergy, student and parent

(40:26):
angst, and money.
And money is so scarce, andit's gonna be scarce for a while
in schools with the holes we'vedug ourselves into.
So why?
Why are we doing these thingsto ourselves and to most
importantly to our students?

Lori (40:41):
Yeah, and I'm I'm I'm assuming that there's um not an
assessment out there right nowthat that performs these magical
powers of being able to givethe diagnosis.
Um, but I always thought when Iwas a teacher that listening to
a student read and was like themost intimate experience you
could have.
Because even your best readers,you know, um, who could attack

(41:03):
any text when you gave them amore challenging text, you could
hear where their miscues weregoing to be and and where they
struggled or where they reallyexcelled.
Um and so, you know, I I feellike that old practice is still
really relevant in that.

Absolutely, absolutely.
And that's why, and you know,there are, you know, um, so I
love the idea of a teacherlistening to each one of her
students um doing that and andyou know, in sort of in a pri in
in some private time.
There's also a lot of AI nowthat where this can happen.
And and by the way, the fluencypiece, sometimes we think, oh,

(41:40):
it stops at third grade or itstops at fifth grade, like it
doesn't stop.
The texts get more complex.
And so to be able to check on,as you've just suggested, Lori,
the the miscues that might behappening.
Um, the the fact that after thechild gets done uh plowing
through the words, um do theyknow they have any sense about

(42:02):
what they just read about?
I mean, just some simple likequestions.
And there's a lot that you wecan take off of teachers, but it
doesn't take away from ateacher listening to a student.
I don't want to say that, butthere are things that
assessments can do where a childcan can read into a um uh you
know into a computer and and andand the teacher can get some

(42:22):
really good information there.
Um and they're getting, I thinkit's getting better and better,
by the way.
I think the technology isgetting better and better on
that.

So what if you automate everything but prosody?
Um, you know, actualexpressiveness, and there's good
reciprocity corresponds tightlyto comprehension.
You can't you can't say it withthe proper expression if you
didn't understand what you werereading.
So talk about a cheaperalternative and and less tax and
to reading comprehension tests.

(42:50):
Yes.
Um, just listening to astudent's prosody and querying
them about what they think theyread.
So that's the comprehensionside of the house that we're
talking about.
Again, the exception isfoundational skills.
We do need, not on a quarterlybasis, on a weekly basis, to
know what our students knowabout learning how to read so
that we can intervene at theright grain size.
So that's where grain sizematters and timeliness matters.

(43:14):
And so I don't have solutions,but I do know that foundational
skills are the exception tothis, that we should we can't
stop assessing and teachersknowing and then reacting to
what they know and making surethey're providing students with
missing pieces so that thestudents do learn to read and
have the access, you know, toall these riches we've been
talking about.
So that's I do want to draw avery bright line between

(43:36):
foundational skills assessingand reading comprehension
assessing, or which is what itshould be.
It shouldn't be standardsassessment, it should be
assessing reading comprehension.
And the standards are namedtherefore, it would all come
together uh once we figure itout.

We've done a lot of talking about content-rich
complex text.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,yes.
The one thing that that isnuanced and sometimes hard to
keep both in our hand, uh youknow, both as we're talking
about it, is students' volume ofreading on a topic that can be
in a range of complexities.
So it isn't like you have tostock your classroom or only
allow your students to read likea grade level complex text.

(44:12):
If it's an area they don't knowa lot about um or they're
really interested in it, theycan start with with um with
easier text and move and andmove on up, if you will, on that
particular topic.
It's a hard thing to keep.
It's different than thanleveling students and saying
this is you're you're relegatedto this level.
That's where you are, and youcan't get out of it.
It's like a prison, you can'tdo that.

(44:33):
It's different than saying, no,and to build your knowledge,
like there are some things like,uh, oh my goodness, give me a
give me something on physics.
And uh, you know, I'm like, Igotta go back to like the basics
before I can understand theblack hole and what they're
trying to tell us they justfound out.
I am, but I, you know, I'm areally good reader, but those I

(44:56):
don't know as much about thattopic as maybe I should or
whatever.
But I so I've got to start withmuch easier text and then move
on up.
So I I want to say that there'sthis volume of text reading
that can be at many levels, andthen there is your complex,
content-rich uh, you know,complex text, which sort of
anchors maybe your other readingin that um in that.

(45:18):
I just want to make that pointbecause sometimes people come
away thinking, oh my gosh, it'scomplex or nothing.

Lori (45:24):
Yeah.
I also want to want to thinkthat when you're talking about
text, um I'm uh I think it'simportant to recognize it
doesn't just have to be a bookor an article.
I mean, if I'm starting tolearn about something, you know,
I've I've made I'm makingsomething like a dish I've never
made before for dinner, I mightwatch a video or or listen to a

(45:47):
podcast on whatever it mightbe.
Um and again, that uh visualcomprehension, that or that uh
auditory comprehension, I'm ableto take that in in a different
way than I would text.
So it's just multiple accesspoints.
So, you know, just keeping thatmultimedia in the spirit of
text is important to consider inthis conversation as well.

(46:09):
But yeah, I mean, how howappropriate and how impactful
for our secondary student, forall students, but especially
those secondary learners whocould really drive and make
choices in their learning inthat way with the with the the
choice in how they're buildingtheir knowledge.
Like that would be soempowering and impactful.

Amen.
Bravo, bravo on the visuals,because um yeah that is a
wonderful uh way to give accessuh immediately both to all
students, but as certainly ourEnglish learners as well, to be
able to see it and hear it isdifferent than seeing the words
on the page.
So um, and it can driveinterest as as well.

(46:50):
And then you feel like you havea modicum of of understanding
to be able to dig in uh in inother ways.
So bravo on that.

Lori (46:57):
I like to think about it when how when I put my first
piece of IKEA furnituretogether, the little packet that
they gave me really was nothelpful.
The picture packet.
So I had to go to YouTube andwatch that video a hundred
times.
And four hours later, I wasfinally a uh master reader.

That is a good analogy.

Melissa (47:21):
Well, thank you both.
I'm so excited that we got totalk to you, and I I hope we can
have you back at some pointbecause I feel like we could
have many more conversations.

Lori (47:30):
Before we wrap up, we want to do something a little bit
different.
We want to take a second toreflect back on this powerful
episode because even listeningjust now, so many years later,
there are ideas in here thatreally stick with us and
continue to shape how Melissaand I think about teaching.
Melissa, I know you want tochime in on that because this is
one of your favorite episodesof all time.

Melissa (47:52):
Yeah, I was thinking about that, Lori, because I, you
know, it's really rare when youcan like pinpoint a
conversation or an article thatreally did totally shift the way
you think about anything aboutreally anything in life, but
especially around teaching andeducation.
And this was 100% one of themfor me.

(48:12):
Um, and so, you know, listeningback to the episode, there are
a lot of like aha moments,places where I was like, yep,
this is so important.
But the biggest one for me wasthat it really reframed Sue and
Meredith really helped mereframe the way I think about
standards.
And I was always a littleuncomfortable with the way that

(48:33):
I was teaching standards becausewe were just covering
standards, it felt like, ormastering standards.
And it never felt quite right,especially at I was at the
secondary level teachingEnglish.
So it was a lot about readingcomprehension.
And I was like, I don't know,can they master this?
It didn't, it just never stuckthe you know, to us like this

(48:54):
isn't the way it should be.
So hearing from them,especially, I mean, Sue was one
of the actual writers of theCommon Core standards, and
Meredith supported that.
And so to hear from them thatlike I was not crazy, that
that's that's not the way to usethese standards to really like
you know, to shift from thatidea of the standards first,

(49:17):
trying to master them, to thetext.
And that's where I, you know,it really helped me think, oh my
gosh, yes, like we need to helpstudents engage with texts,
read texts, and most importantlylearn from the texts they're
reading.

Lori (49:32):
Yeah, completely.
I totally agree with that.
I remember when we were inBaltimore City doing a lot of
because the standards had justcome out at that point, like,
you know, been released at thatpoint.
And we were doing a lot ofprofessional developments where
we were unpacking the standardsand seeing what they meant,
which is really important work.
Like I don't want to underminethat.

(49:53):
But at the same time, it's notabout checking the standard off
as a to-do list or a able to-do.
It's about looking at the textand seeing what does the text
demand, and then bringing in thestandard goals to support the
text.
And that's where I think we gotit wrong, right?

(50:14):
Standards one and 10 wereactually really aimed to help us
think that way.
But what we did was wemisinterpreted those, um, I
would say, as a whole.
And so hearing Sue and hearingMeredith talk about this idea of
shifting to focus on the text,it really reframed for me to
that idea of like, we don't dothings in isolation, right?

(50:37):
Like we're not doing astrategy, we're not finding the
main idea and then checking thatoff as, okay, yep, Lori can now
find the main idea for the restof her life.
Because I will tell you what, Ijust read a text, uh actually
it was a blog um on lithium EVbatteries that came across, came
across my daughter's homework.

(50:58):
And it was when I tell you thiswas for an expert, not
definitely not an eighth grader,but it was for an expert,
definitely not a mom who was ateacher.
It was insane.
And if you asked me to tell youthe main idea of it, I would
stutter and stammer and not beable to.
So I definitely can't stillcheck that box of main idea.

(51:19):
But what I can do is center onthe text and try to make sense
of it, right?
And little by little then chipaway at the main idea as I read
more and learn more and makesense of it.
Um, but you know, the the pointof reading, kind of like what
I'm getting at, is to learn fromwhat we're reading.
So that's that was my bigtakeaway in this episode too.

Melissa (51:40):
Yeah, no, I love that.
That reminds me of that linethat they say is like, we don't,
we don't read to check on ourskills and strategies.
We read to learn from whateverit is we're reading, whether
it's batteries or doesn'tmatter, whatever it is where we
read to learn.
And that's what we want kids tobe able to do too, not to check
on can they find the main idea,right?

(52:01):
First of all, that's boring.
And second, it's not the realpurpose of reading.
And it does bring me back toyou know, so many times that was
the way, I mean, that's the wayI was taught to teach was with
those skills, strategies,standards first.
Yeah.
You know, and so it reallythat's where this like it just

(52:21):
was a huge shift for me.
They're still there.
You're still gonna ask studentsto find main the main idea at
times when it's helpful for themto understand the text, right?
When it's when it helps them tomake sense and learn from what
they're reading.

Lori (52:36):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think centering theinstruction on the text is so
important because we know it'snot about checking the skills or
strategies, but the thing thatwe haven't talked about yet in
this back and forth between youand I is that building knowledge
is really important incentering the text.
And if we go back to thatexample about the lithium EV

(52:58):
batteries, which now I knowabout this week, um, I still
don't know enough to be able tohave a good understanding moving
forward, right?
Like I was kind of just like a,oh, all right, a task.
Let me just check the box.
But if I were going to teachthat text, I would have a lot of
knowledge-building textsleading up to it that were

(53:21):
scaffolding that informationbecause there was a lot of
vocabulary, a lot of ideas thatwere really like really abstract
for, especially for kids, butdefinitely still for me as an
adult.
Like I had to keep revisiting,like, okay, this is what this
is.
Oh, an Alithium EV battery ismade of these components.

(53:41):
Like, oh, okay, like I haven'theard cobalt since chemistry in
high school now.
Here we go, we're coming back.
Um, but really we have to thinkabout the knowledge that we're
building through the text itselfand where we're going with
that, right?
So breaking that text down intoits different components.
And it's I think it's actuallyso much fun as an educator.

(54:02):
Like to me, that's really funwork.
And even if a curriculum isgiven to us, you know, I think
you can still do that work in away that makes it fun and
meaningful for your students,right?
You can still share a story,you can still tell, you know, or
show a video, whatever it mightbe to help our students get the
knowledge that we want them toget and the vocabulary that we

(54:24):
need them to get to understandthe texts that we're putting in
front of them.

Melissa (54:28):
Yeah.
And you're making me think ofinterventions, right?
Because it's like you sort ofneeded an intervention for that
article.
Totally did.
Totally did.
But the way you did it waslike, okay, it's not about the
main idea, right?
We're not going to keep, youknow, just going back and
saying, okay, Lori, how do Ihelp you find a main idea?
Let me tell you how to show,I'll show you how to find a main
idea.
Like you weren't just goingback to do that.

(54:48):
You're like, okay, let me lookat this text.
What is it about this text thatwas difficult?
The vocabulary, the knowledge,things that you needed support
with to be able to make sense ofthat text so that you could
then find the main idea.
Right.
So it really does re-reshapeand reframe the way you think
about interventions forcomprehension as well as regular
instruction too.

Lori (55:09):
Yeah.
And I mean, that text wascomplex, um, no doubt about it.
And, you know, I'm I wasactually really still glad to
see that text in front of my kidinstead of a leveled text or
like a just right text.
Um, because we know that evenhaving a little bit of a stretch
text is still a good thing ifwe help our students access it,

(55:32):
right?
We can scaffold that.
Um, and so I, you know, I knowwe in the episode Sue and
Meredith talked about how likefor decades we've been putting
students in quote, those quotejust right text or below grade
level text.
But our students need us togive them grade level texts.
And so this conversation, um,the article placing text at the

(55:54):
center, it reminds me of thepower of grade level text that
students need to challengethemselves with struggling
through and then seeingthemselves get through it and
and working through that withthe help and support of a
teacher.

Melissa (56:11):
Yeah, that's such a good point because I think we
often hear like, oh, well, theycan't read that text.
And it's like, yes, like likeyou said, that stretch text is
exactly what they need, right?
If we're just putting text infront of students over and over
year after year, the text thatthey can already read, then
we're not pushing them.
And and yeah, it does make it alittle bit tougher for sure,

(56:33):
because you have to do that workof scaffolding and making sure
that they can access thosetexts.
It definitely does, and andmaking sure that they have the
decoding ability and fluency tobe able to read those texts too.
Um, so it definitely makes it alittle bit more of a challenge
than just finding a text theycan already read, but it is what
is going to push them to makethat progress that we want to

(56:56):
see.

Lori (56:56):
Yeah, and we know that the payoff there is massive, right?
That students are not onlygaining knowledge and skills,
but they're they're gaining howto interact with text.
And I would say, you know, forpeople who might be thinking,
well, I want kids to lovereading.
Well, I think first of all, wehave to know how to read to love
reading.
But second of all, when we seeourselves struggle and do

(57:17):
something that we didn't thinkwe could do, or um work like
build new knowledge, gain newcontent, that helps us love
reading because then we'll bemore equipped to read other
things with different contexts,with different vocabulary, and
even, you know, that aredifficult.
We're not going to shy awayfrom them as much if we have
that experience of doingsomething difficult and as

(57:39):
opposed to having experienceswhere we're successful over and
over and over again, which Imean kind of isn't real life,
right?
Yeah.

Melissa (57:47):
Absolutely.
So yeah, like to summarizeagain, wrap it up.
I think, like you said, realwhat's real life like, right?
We read to be able to learn andwe read to build our knowledge.
Like that is the point ofreading.
So that's what we should bereplicating in our classrooms.
You know, everything that'shappening in reading instruction
should look like that.
And we should not just be doingthis skill acquisition, but

(58:10):
really trying to center thatmaking meaning of text, learning
from text just like we do inreal life.
To stay connected with us, signup for our email list at

(58:31):
literacypodcast.com.
Join our Facebook group, andfollow us on Instagram and
Twitter.

Lori (58:37):
If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to share
with a teacher friend, or leaveus a five-star rating and
review on Apple Podcasts.

Melissa (58:47):
Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions
expressed by the hosts andguests of the Melissa and Lori
Love Literacy Podcast are notnecessarily the opinions of
Great Minds PBC or itsemployees.

Lori (58:59):
We appreciate you so much, and we're so glad you're here
to learn with us.

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