Common Core Judaics: The Six Steps of Academic Vocabulary

The Common Core

I don't know about you, but my school has been living and breathing the common core over the last few weeks. Although as a private school, we are exempt from the 3-8th grade testing requirement, my school administered the tests anyway to help provide benchmarks for the General Studies program.

So we lived through the state exams. Our students did really well, and I got to feel good that I'm  not the only one who has trouble making assessments that capture the vibrancy of  the curriculum. An important lesson. But, even more important, I learned that there are some great techniques and research being used to teach the Common Core that we should make our own in Judaic Studies.

Academic Vocabulary - the key to learning 

A major part of the common core is a focus on teaching academic vocabulary from grades K-12.

Research has shown that students who are academically successful  have broader and deeper academic vocabularies.  And while students who read more often have better academic vocabularies, forcing students to read more won't increase their vocabulary. We need a system to teach vocabulary if we want all our students to be able to learn and read.

As a result, the 6th shift  for the ELA standards is toward vocabulary learning.

Students constantly build the transferable vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. This can be done effectively by spiraling like content in increasingly complex texts ( http://innovativocab.wikispaces.com)

Teachers from K-12 are now focusing on teaching vocabulary and developing systems to do so. They are  teaching academic vocabulary in all subject areas to make sure that students can read the required texts in each discipline.

So what is academic vocabulary? Non-academic vocabulary is vocabulary you learn in daily life such as "My mother went to the store yesterday". Academic vocabulary is denser and is not generally used in life. Example: We will need to examine more data before we can make any conclusions (http://www2.gsu.edu/~esljdb/awl/).  Academic Vocabulary are the words that are prevalent in written text which may not be familiar to the students,

But I teach Ivrit B'Ivrit, or Mishna do I need to worry about Academic Vocabulary?

The answer is a resounding yes. No matter the language of instruction, all students need to be learning vocabulary. 

1. If students don't understand over 90% of what they read, they are not reading for meaning. 
2. They won't learn the language just by reading words in context. 
3. Biblical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, and the Hebrew of the commentaries differ from modern and spoken Hebrew. The different idioms and grammars must  be taught explicitly.

So, if you teach Ivrit B'Ivrit,  or advanced Chumash in high school, you can still benefit from the information I'm about to present. Modify your exercises so they resemble the vocabulary instruction done in the General Studies classroom but please still do them.

What is the Academic Vocabulary in Judaics?

• During Chumash, the high frequency words and the common grammar forms are the academic vocabulary. In later grades, new words and grammar constructs would be the academic vocabulary.
• In Mishna, there are key words that appear throughout that should be taught until they students know them  automatically
• Gemara, has key words that indicate logic and text structures. Plus, of course, Aramaic is its own academic vocabulary with new grammar, high frequency words and other common words.
• Halacha has its own vocabulary: whether it is concepts like בטל בששים or just terms לחתחילה and בדי עבד 
• Holidays: קְעָרָה and הֲדַסִים are academic vocabulary for the holidays
• Rashi: The hebrew of Rashi is different than Biblical Hebrew. There are idioms that convey meaning such as the shoresh א.מ.ר means a quote, אֶלָא, וּמִדְרָשוֹ, etc.  
• Other Meforshim: The Ramban, Ibn Ezra etc all use vocabulary specific to their time. Their structure is also dense and needs to be unpacked. Students need to be guided in how to unpack and read these very academic texts.

Vocabulary instruction must be systematic and explicit to work.

Robert J. Marzano, in his book Building Academic Vocabulary outlines 6 steps to help students learn vocabulary. While each of these steps can be used individually, they are most powerful when used in sequence and together. 

The Six Steps

Step 1:  Teacher will give a description, explanation, or example of the new term.
Step 2:  Linguistic: Students will restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.
tep 3:  Non-linguistic: Students will draw a picture, symbol, or locate a graphic to represent the new term.
Step 4:  Students will will participate in activities that provide more knowledge of the words in their vocabulary notebooks.
Step 5:  The learner will discuss the term with other learners.
Step 6:  The learner will participate in games that provide more reinforcement of the new term.

From http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/vocab/strategies.html

On to vocabulary instruction . . . . 

Step 1:  Teacher will give a description, explanation, or example of the new term.

First,  describe the term. Act it out. Draw it on the board. Tell students a story with the word. Just giving a definition isn't helpful because that's not how we learn language. 

Use both verbal and non-verbal communication to explain the term to help the learning and to prepare the students for the next step.

I have pictures I use for each shoresh, I draw on the board and I do charades for many terms. This makes it fun and helps the students learn the new words in the most natural way possible.

Step 2:  Students restate description, explanation, or example of the new term in their words.

Having the student use their own words is very important. Make sure they understand the idea and haven't gotten confused. By taking ownership of the explanation, the students take ownership of their learning

I have the students write the definition in their learning log which is very useful. In this example, I was able to spot the spelling mistake and correct the error.

Step 3:  Students will draw a picture, symbol, or locate a graphic to represent the new term.

Drawing pictures and symbols forces the student to process the information in a different way. For some, this is the way they love to learn, and they brighten up after being forced to read, read, read. They finally get to doodle!  Other students find this very challenging and need help to come up with their own pictures especially for abstract ideas. After a while, they get it, and they enjoy a chance to use their creativity.

I also have students draw their own picture in their learning log.

Step 4:  Students will participate in activities that provide more knowledge of the words in their vocabulary notebooks.

In this step, the students use the words in context and out of context. Have them look for prefixes, and suffixes and roots. Record antonyms and synonyms.

In Chumash class, I ask the students to locate the shoresh in the pasuk and write the phrase in their log (see above image). When possible, I ask them to translate the phrase. At the beginning of the year, I had them highlight the prefixes and suffixes using different colored highlighters for עבר, הווה and עתיד. Now, this step is unnecessary and we review this information verbally.

Some other ideas: ask students to list שרשים that are synonyms or antonyms or ask them if they have seen this word in other contexts: תפילה, previous פרשיות etc. This is very exciting for  students when they remember pesukim they learned in the beginning of the year and they connect their learning to previous learning.

Step 5:  The learner will discuss the term with other learners.

When students interact with others their learning is deeper and more memorable. I have my students explain their drawings to their friends, have chavrusas while reviewing the pesukim and describe when they may have experienced the terms in their life or use the term in a conversation with the partner.

Step 6:  The learner will participate in games that provide more reinforcement of the new term.

Marzano has found that games motivate the students to learn and forces them to use the new terms in context and out of context and with friends.

I have  a word wall in my classroom that changes for each perek.  It was very inexpensive to create. I put up large pieces of felt that I bought at a craft store, and bought 1000 velcro hook dots and stuck them to the back of all my laminated vocabulary word cards. Now I can use the cards for many different games and activities to help reinforce the learning and to keep track where each student is holding.

One of my students favorite games is "airplane". They line their seats up into airplane style rows in front of the felt boards. I give the students tickets, 3 green, 3 orange, and 3 yellow. Each row get to take a trip to the board. Each students takes down a word from the board that matches a ticket in their hand and translate the words. If they get the translation right,  they put their name on the ticket and it goes into a raffle. Otherwise, I get the ticket.

Generally, Orange is shorashim, Yellow is high frequency words and Green is new vocabulary. Everyone has a chance to be successful and reviews all their vocabulary multiple times.

I look forward to hearing how you teach vocabulary in your classrooms and any games you may play!

Other Resources about Academic Vocabulary:

There are a lot of websites out there but these are some I used to help me

• Colorado Springs Schoolo District:  http://www.d11.org/Instruction/Literacy.LanguageArts/Pages/Six-Step-Academic-Vocabulary-Instruction.aspx
• Tennessee's academic vocabulary program: http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/vocab/TN.html 
• http://innovativocab.wikispaces.com/ - A Collection of Technology Resources to help create a new vision of Vocabulary Instruction!

• Game boards online:   PowerPoint Games, Word Game Boards, Excel Games, WORDO, Twister, Fly Swat. 

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Students - the Hidden Professional Development Resource in the school

Have you ever found yourself with the following dilemma?

You are an OK teacher, but sometimes the kids drift off in your class. Or you explain a concept for five minutes and the class looks back at you with a blank look as if you are speaking Chinese. Or, you thought the kids were with you in class, but they bombed the test. These kinds of days are demoralizing. It's not fun to feel like its been a FAIL.

So, what are your options?

You can go to your principal, but you know she is overworked and stressed. There is a big board meeting tonight where they will be reviewing the budget for next year. The assistant principal, while nice, has given you some canned suggestions that are quick fixes but are not long term solutions. She sat in on your class once or twice but you need more active guidance. After talking to colleagues you hesitate to bring up your concerns again because they are busy grading papers and you don't want to be the one who is always negative and clueless.

What can you do?

Yes, you can find colleagues on twitter, or make a PLN, but you want more than that. You want immediate feedback from people who understand your school, who have met you and have clocked hundreds of hours of teacher evaluations and observations this year alone.

Who are these people who can tell you how to become a great teacher?  They are sitting right in front of you. They are called your students.

That's right. The best people who can really help get your teaching from good to great are the people who you are trying to teach.

Think about it. Who else in your school building spends all day experiencing different teaching styles? Who else can name the good teachers and mock the bad ones? Who else spends their lunch breaks doing a post-mortem of their best and worst classes of the day?

I discovered that students are the most underutilized professional development resource in a school during my sixth year teaching. One day, a junior approached me exasperated. "Mrs. Hochheimer, " she chided "I can't understand what you are writing on the board. This is not how my teachers taught me last year."

For a second, I was offended. Then, that feeling subsided and I realized how lucky I was. This students had just transferred to my high school from one of the top 100 public schools in the United States. She knew quality teaching and was telling me I wasn't making the cut.

I sat down with her and recorded her concerns. I modified my lessons and got her feedback. We were engaged in a dialogue for two years. I taught her how to learn Torah, and she helped me tighten my pedagogy.

Soon, I was demanding feedback from all of my students. My probing questions were worth five points on the test and I didn't accept one word answers. My questions were exploratory and required the students to think about how they best learned and what the pedagogic goals of my lessons were.

The suggestions were generally mature, concrete and requested more rigorous work rather than less. Surprisingly, the students learning improved and they began to take more ownership of their class work. They began to understand what skills they needed to improve and sought ways to do so.

As the year progressed, I started to explain to the students how the learning process was working as I was teaching. I told them how pointing while reading helps fluency. I taught them why graphic organizers are helpful. They became conscious of whether they were visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners. (See http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Dev_Metacognition/ for more information about why metacognition is so important)

Finally, I started doing experiments in class. I would read up on a new pedagogic technique and use it the next day. They were expected to tell me the strengths and weakness of what I was doing and whether my research was correct. My class became an action research lab  (more about action research http://sutlib2.sut.ac.th/sut_contents/H112461.pdf here) and we started to really innovate how we learned together. We developed a system of learning that has been successful from elementary through high school.

The story of feedback didn't end with this class's graduation. That group has had a remarkable percentage of successful madrichot (guidance counselors) and teachers whom I mentored without even knowing it. The first student who commented about my teaching is herself set to become a teacher. She has developed from a student with good intuition about teaching into a quality educator herself.

This chain of events all started with my being vulnerable with my students. Rather than taking my questions as a sign of weakness, the students felt it was my biggest strengths. They respected that my classroom was not about being perfect or impressing people. It was about learning, growth and authenticity. My students knew that if they came to me with a concrete suggestion I would change and when I came to them with feedback, they responded in kind.

In case you are still unconvinced, let me tell you about a friend who tried out my suggestion. I pointed her to some examples of the feedback forms I had used  . She modified the forms for her needs and distributed it to her junior class. A remarkable educator, my friend was honored the following year in the school yearbook. In the dedication, the students mentioned how meaningful her requests for the students' opinions had been to them. They felt cared about and respected. She had asked for feedback to improve the academic quality of her class and ended up impacting the students in ways she didn't anticipate.

Getting feedback from students is a win-win for everyone. Your teaching will improve, student learning will improve, your relationship with your students will improve and you will have identified and mentored the next generation's most talented teachers.

Here are some important pointers to remember about feedback:

1. All feedback requests should be goal oriented questions so that students don't have the chance to be nasty or place blame for their character flaws on you. 
2. High school kids make awful bosses. Expect the feedback to be blunt. Learn how to steer conversations away from emotional responses to concrete suggestions.
3. Inform your students of your classroom goals. This lets your students know why they need to be in your class and they can brainstorm with you how to best accomplish those goals.
4. Have the students do self-evaluations of how well they have met the classroom goals. This helps them put their grades in a healthier context. Teacher feedback goes from being judgemental and punitive to being another source of information about themselves. 
5. Maintain boundaries. Getting feedback from students doesn't make them your friends. You need to maintain appropriate and healthy boundaries with your students even as you are allowing them to see a human side of you
6. Have fun and embrace failing as a chance to improve yourself.

Speaking of feedback . . .

 I'd love to hear from you what I can write about. I have topics that I enjoy but without feedback, I can't improve these blog posts. In a classroom, I can at least see the yawns and half shut eyes when the topic doesn't resonate. Online, not so much.

So please leave comments about this topic or what else we can discuss or get in touch with me by email.

Next Time . . . 

To be decided . . . .

See you on May 1st

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