ENGED 2509:
Teaching Reading in the English Classroom
Prof. Michael J. Kieffer
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, & Human Development
New York University
Spring, 2014
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to help current and prospective English teachers understand the nature of
fluent, purposeful, and strategic reading and develop approaches to support this kind of reading in
all students. We will investigate together how reading comprehension is an interactive,
developmental, and multidimensional process and the implications of these complexities for
instruction. We will discuss characteristics of readers who are reluctant to read, who struggle with
school reading tasks, and who are proficient readers. With these ideas in mind, we will develop
approaches to meet adolescent readers’ diverse needs in urban classrooms.
COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES
The activities in this course will enable you:
1. To develop a usable theory of reading as an activity with cognitive, social, cultural, and political
dimensions.
2. To investigate, understand, and critique a variety of approaches for working with struggling,
reluctant, and proficient readers to advance their reading skills.
3. To design and begin implementing instruction in reading tied to the Common Core Standards.
CLASS MEETINGS
Mondays, 4:55 – 6:35 PM in WAVE, Room 566B
INSTRUCTOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Email: [email protected]
Office: East Building, Room 526
Office Hours: Mondays, 11-12; Wednesdays, 5-6, by appointment
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Class Participation and Contributions to other Students’ Learning (10%) – Given the
importance of actively discussing and applying instructional approaches in this course, you are
expected to attend each class and be prepared to engage in deep discussion of the issues raised by
the assignment readings. Thoughtful preparation is particularly important, because the class
discussions and activities will be designed to extend, critique, and supplement, rather than
summarize, the ideas in the readings. In addition, you are expected to be an active member of the
class community and contribute to other students’ learning. (Course Learning Objectives 1, 2, & 3).
Reading Responses on Online Discussion Forum (15%) – For each day noted in the calendar
below, you will respond to the readings up to and including that day in an online forum on NYU
Classes. For each class session noted on the schedule below, you will post 3 contributions to the
forum by the Sunday night prior to our Monday class. These 3 contributions should include 2 original
posts and 1 post in response to another student’s post. The only exception is the second week of
classes, when you only need 2 original posts, to get the conversation started. The original posts can
include responses to questions that I have posed about the readings or posts in the regular threads
(Quote & Respond, Connections to Classroom Practice, and Dilemmas). The post responding to
another student can be for a current week’s thread or an earlier thread. These will be graded for
completion (pass/fail for 3 posts) and for the overall quality of your contributions to the discussion
(i.e., thoughtful analysis of the major issues of the course, insightful connections to classroom
practice, critical engagement with the readings, respectful and critical engagement with other
students’ ideas). (Course Learning Objectives 1 & 2).
Book Club Contributions & Presentation (20%) – Throughout the course, you will read and
discuss a book of your choice in a small group. By means of your reading and Book Club
discussions, you will advance your own and your colleagues’ understanding of reading as a cognitive,
social, cultural, and/or political activity. The books tend to emphasize one of these dimensions,
though not exclusively. Activities for structuring your book club discussions will be provided by the
instructor. Your contributions to the book club will be rated by your colleagues (See rubric on NYU
Classes). Together, you will also prepare a 20-minute presentation to share what you’ve learned with
the rest of the class on May 12. (Course Learning Objective 1).
The following three assignments are related and build upon one another:
Text and Task Analysis (20%) – Select two texts (one literary and one informational) that you see
as being thematically connected and would use for specific purposes in your teaching. Drawing on
our discussion of the multiple skills and knowledge that go into reading comprehension as well as
our discussion of how purposes for reading shape the reading comprehension process, analyze what
makes these texts challenging for adolescents. You will analyze not only the features of the texts
themselves, but also the instructional task for which reading is being used, i.e., the purpose for
reading these texts. You should analyze each text separately as well as compare and contrast across
the two texts features. This assignment should be 4-5 pages, double-spaced, due on February 24. A
scoring rubric and examples will be made available on NYU Classes. (Course Learning Objectives
1).
Assessment Plan (15%) – Building on the previous assignment, select one of the two texts and
choose an understanding goal related to this text, purpose for reading it, and the Common Core
Learning Standards. Describe how you will assess whether students have met this goal (i.e. what
tools will you use? What criteria will you set for measuring understanding?). Be sure to also provide
a rationale for your choice of assessment tool/activity, and to make use of ideas from the readings to
justify your choice. It may be helpful to begin the paper with a paragraph or two describing the
learning context for this assessment (e.g. what activities will you have been doing with students up to
this point). This assignment should be 2-3 pages, double-spaced, due on March 24. (Course
Learning Objectives 2 & 3).
Reading Mini-lesson (20%) – Building on the previous two assignments, you will select a specific
reading skill objective that is a step toward meeting the understanding goal you specified in your
assessment plan. Then, to begin implementing the instructional approaches for teaching reading
that we will be discussing, you will plan and implement a 10-minute mini-lesson that targets this
specific aspect of reading, in alignment with one standard from the Common Core State Standards
for ELA. Your mini-lesson should include: 1) a targeted standard, 2) a specific reading-related
objective, 3) brief direct instruction and/or modeling of the targeted reading-related skill, 4) active
participation and interaction among students, and 5) check for understanding to determine if
students have met your objective. You will teach this lesson to your classmates and receive feedback
from your peers and the instructor on your implementation. You should also prepare a 1-page
handout to share your mini-lesson with your peers (see assignment description). These mini-lessons
will be taught on April 28 and May 5. After implementing your reading mini-lesson, you should
write a 2-page, double-spaced reflection on what went well, what you might improve, and what you
learned about your strengths and areas for improvement as a teacher. (Course Learning Objective 3).
COURSE CORE READINGS
The texts are available at the NYU bookstore, on Amazon, and elsewhere:
Sweet, A., & Snow, C. (2003). Rethinking reading comprehension. (The Guilford Press.)
Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don’t get it: Comprehension strategies for adolescent readers. (Steinhouse
Publishers).
Zwiers, J. (2010). Building reading comprehension habits in grades 6-12: A toolkit of classroom activities. (2nd
Edition). (International Reading Association).
National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core
Standards for Literacy, 2012. Available in parts as downloadable pdf:
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/ccssi-introduction.pdf
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_A.pdf
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_C.pdf
PDF book chapters posted on NYU Classes
TEXTS FOR BOOK CLUBS (to be selected at first class, available on Amazon)
Beth Fertig, why cant u teach me 2 read? (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009).
Marianne Wolf, Proust & the squid: The story and science of the reading brain (Harper, 2008).
Henry Jenkins and Wyn Kelley, Reading in a participatory culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English
classroom. (Teachers College Press.)
COURSE SCHEDULE
Date
Jan. 27
Topics
• Introductions
• Course Overview
• Intro to Reading
Comprehension
• Norm-setting
• What is reading
comprehension?
• Texts, Readers, Activities,
Contexts
Readings Due
• Syllabus
Assignments Due
• S&S, Ch. 1
• Tovani, Ch. 1
• Zwiers, Ch. 1
Feb. 10
• Common Core
• Backward Design
• Common Core
Documents
• Wiggins & McTighe, Ch.
1 (on NYU Classes)
• Zwiers, Ch. 2
• Buy Book Club
book
• 2 Original
Discussion Board
Posts
3 Discussion Board
Posts
Feb. 17
Feb. 24
No Class – Presidents’ Day
• Strategic & Purposeful
Reading
• Drafting a Think-Aloud
March 3
• Monitoring & Assessing
Comprehension
• Book Club: Discussion 1
March 10
• Collaborative Approaches
to Comprehension
Instruction
• Main Idea
No Class – Spring Break
• Connecting to Background
Knowledge
• Funds of Knowledge
• Making Inferences &
Predictions
• Building Coherence
• Book Club: Discussion 2
• Generating Questions
• Planning mini-lessons in
pairs
Feb. 3
March 17
March 24
March 31
April 7
• Tovani, Ch. 2-4
• S&S, Ch. 2
• Zwiers, Ch. 8
• Tovani, Ch. 8-9
• S&S, Ch. 11
• First 1/3 of Book Club
book
• Zwiers, Ch. 3
• S&S, Ch. 6
• Tovani, Ch. 5
• Tovani, Ch. 6
• Zwiers, Ch. 4
• Moll et al., 1992
• Zwiers, Ch. 5
• S&S, Ch. 5
• Second 1/3 of Book Club
book
• Zwiers, Ch. 6
• Tovani, Ch. 7
• Nystrand & Gamoran,
1991 (on NYU Classes)
• Text & Task
Analysis
• Bring one of your
classroom texts.
3 Discussion Board
Posts
3 Discussion Board
Posts
Assessment Plan
3 Discussion Board
Posts
3 Discussion Board
Posts
April 14
• Vocabulary
• Book Club: Discussion 3
April 21
• Teaching ELLs
• Book Club: Plan
Presentation
April 28
• Mini-lessons
Mini-lessons
May 5
• Mini-lessons
Mini-lessons
May 12
• Book Club Presentations
• Mini-lesson
Reflection
• Book Club
Presentations
• Zwiers, Ch. 7
• Stahl & Nagy, 2006, Ch. 4
& 5 (On NYU Classes)
• Last 1/3 of Book Club
book
• Short & Fitzsimmons (on
NYU Classes)
• S&S, Ch. 3
• WWC Practice Guide (on
NYU Classes)
3 Discussion Board
Posts
3 Discussion Board
Posts
COURSE POLICIES
Attendance: Fulfilling the requirements for the course requires arriving promptly to and attending
each class session. If you cannot avoid missing a class, please email me prior to the class session to
let me know and to submit any assignments due at that session. You are allowed one absence (with
proper email notification prior to the class session) without it affecting your participation grade. Any
additional absences may have a major negative impact on your class participation grade and overall
course grade. Arriving late to class frequently may also have an impact on your class participation
grade and overall course grade.
Late Assignments: Assignments that are submitted after the due date will be graded at 50%. No
assignments will be accepted later than one week past the due date.
Professionalism: Please respect the norms for classroom decorum that are appropriate for graduate
students and professional educators. Please do not use cell phones during class.
Discussing a Grade: To discuss a grade on an assignment, please make an appointment to see me
during my office hours or at another appropriate time. I will not discuss grades during or
immediately after class.
Communication: Information and communication related to this class will be distributed via e-mail
and the NYU Classes website. Please be sure to check your NYU email regularly to stay informed
about class materials.
Academic Integrity: The NYU policy is published at
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/policies/academic_integrity.
Our personal philosophy is that we stand on the shoulders of giants (and peers) all the time, but
giving credit is easy and ethically required. If in doubt, give credit! If you need help citing the work
of others, let us know. In general, the APA citation system works well. If you don’t know it, check
out the citations in text and reference list tabs at the following tutorial:
http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htm?__utma=185732729.1128450448.1342206010.134
2206010.1342206010.1&__utmb=185732729.2.10.1342206010&__utmc=185732729&__utmx=&__utmz=185732729.1342206010.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv
=-&__utmk=44675492
Accommodations: Special needs of any sort (for example, physical or psychological disability,
learning disability, and limited English proficiency) should be discussed with the instructor. For
accommodations, please register with the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212- 9984980, 240 Greene Street, www.nyu.edu/csd.