Reading and Writing

for Humanities
 Teaching Standards
Teacher Leader Standard: Domain 3: Promotes Professional Learning for Continuous
Improvement: a) Collaborates with colleagues and school administrators to plan
professional learning that is team-based, job-embedded, sustained over time, aligned
with content standards, and linked to school/district improvement goals.

NBPTS Domain 5.1: Teachers collaborate with other professionals to improve school
effectiveness
 The Tell-Tale Heart
● Go ahead and take a moment to read through the Tell- Tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe.
● Highlight any events, names, descriptions or anything you believe
to be important when telling someone about this story.
● Be prepared to share why you thought this information was
important.
Explain: What did you highlight?
How did you know how to identify this
information and argue its importance?
Preview

● Reading and Annotating

● Conducting Research
● Providing an Outline
Developing Writing Skills
● “Why Students Should Write in All
Subjects” by Youki Terada.
“Practicing retrieval of recently
studied information enhances the
likelihood of the learner retrieving
Writing Taking a
that information in the future”.
● Writing out information has the same Information The ability to Practice Test
impact that practice tests have on recall
students in regard to being able to information
recall information they have learned.
● Students prefer multiple choice
questions because they require less
recall than writing.
Develop Writing Skills Developing these skills can
limit seeing this in the
classroom.
● Writing is an important tool for
developing metacognitive skills.
● Many of our students are able to
identify evidence, but struggle with
context and applying it to their
arguments in how they
communicate.
● Having a unified idea of what we
evaluate for reading, annotating and
writing can help us identify gaps and
develop our students skill set for
College level writing.
Collaborating Across Curriculum
● Many schools have teachers work
independently in their isolated classrooms as
they develop lesson plans. This is known as
the the “Egg Crate” model. -“TEACHER
COLLABORATION IN PERSPECTIVE A
GUIDE TO RESEARCH”
● This process allows for independence in
developing what we teach, but can also be
isolating and discourage communication
between teachers.
● Ideally we can find ways to collectively build
student mastery without losing the benefits of
independent lesson planning.
Egg Crate Model
 Reading and Annotating
● Having a unified approach in
how we teach students to read
and identify information at an
early age can help them
develop these skills during their
time with us.
● One possible way this can be
addressed is through C.E.R.
 Claim (Answer to Question)
C
Context (Who, What, Where, When and
Why)
Evidence T.A.G.
E Introduction
Evidence Quote/Paraphrase
Explanation
Reveal of Thinking (Analysis)
R What is the significance?
Resolution (Conclusion)
Connect back to Claim
Explain: Which element of C.E.R do you think
we should emphasize?
Now You Try: Can you complete C.E.R for the
“Tell-Tale Heart”?
Conducting Research

I have been using a consistent research guide for students to use throughout the year when
finding quotes/evidence for essays and projects.

I use it to help them identify quotes to use and to create their citations ahead of writing their
essay.

It is important to also provide them any resources they may need on the same document to
make the process easier for them. I also encourage them to find their own sources and share
them with the class.
Now You Try: What information would you cite
for the following claim in the “Tell-Tale
Heart””?

Claim: The Tell-Tale Heart is a story about guilt.

Providing an Outline
● Here is an example of an outline I used for my 12th grade Government class.
● This is designed to help students implement their research and format it into an
essay.
● Keep in mind that this is the expectations for students by the time they graduate.
● This includes:
○ Thesis/Claim
○ 5 paragraphs (intro, conclusion and 3 body paragraphs)
○ Title, Author, Genre intro for each body paragraph
○ Quotation/Paraphrase of Research
○ Research Citation
○ Commentary/Analysis of each Research that connects back to thesis/claim.
 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5

Identify info that

connects to Claim (C Develop Analysis using
Read/Annotate Text and E Outline (R) Create an Outline Write/Format Essay

Ensuring students understand Students being able to find Students being able to Understanding the basic Creating the finished product
the fundamentals of reading information from the text that articulate their analysis of structure of an essay
and understanding supports their claim evidence.
information from the text
 Timeline for Implementation

1st Meeting and Agree on expectations

Feedback
We can spend the end of this year and
I will take feedback from today the beginning of the next year figuring
and make recommended out how we should evaluate success
changes. based on each grade level.
May August-December

April June-
August
Testing Implementation
I will test out the annotating We begin using the agreed
and outline we agree upon for upon system for any essay
my last unit of the semester. summatives for the first
semester.
Things to Consider: What are the goals for
students by the end of each year?
● Being able to read through a document and highlight key information including who,
what, where, when and why.
● Learning how to identify foreign terms or ideas and discover the context independently.
● Being able to create a claim based on a question.
● Being able to to write a paragraph that introduces the author, title and genre of their
source.
● Being able to properly quote/paraphrase their source.
● Providing analysis on the significance of their source to their original claim.
● Being able to self/peer evaluate an essay.
 Link to Survey

Please take the survey before you leave. This will provide important feedback in helping
us develop these reading and writing guidelines.