Common Core R.CCR.1 Explained

R.CCR.1–or, in regular people’s language, the first college/career readiness anchor standard within the reading strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA / Literacy–reads as follows:

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I appreciate that the CCSS reading and writing strands limit themselves to 10 anchor standards. Ten is a clean number; it’s manageable. But, as you can see from the text of R.CCR.1, there are actually multiple skills within the standards. So, what does R.CCR.1 entail?

1. Reading closely

Close reading is the core of this anchor standard. When we closely read a text, we are able to detect what it says, what it doesn’t say, and why it matters. This is accomplished through creating courses in which students read a variety of complex texts, have rich and rigorous discussions based on complex texts, and write from complex texts.

2. Comprehending literal/explicit meaning

The literal meaning of a text answers the question, “What does it say?” When reading complex texts that align with the “staircase of complexity” laid out by the CCSS, even this basic level of comprehension requires modeling for many students. Teachers can read a segment of a complex text aloud, modeling how they comprehend what a text is literally talking about, and then students can be set loose to do it themselves on the next segment.

3. Inferring implied/implicit meaning

The implied meaning of a text is much trickier and perhaps more important; it answers the question, “What does it not say?” or, perhaps less cryptically, “What does it say without directly saying it?” In Deeper Reading, Kelly Gallagher shares a passage that he uses to ease students into the concept of inference. While reading the following passage, Gallagher asks his students to hypothesize where the narrator is sitting:

I can’t believe I have been sitting her among all these sick people for over an hour waiting for them to call my name. Why do they overschedule so many patients? I hope I am called next, for I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate this sore throat (81).

From reading this, students easily infer that the narrator is sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. Even though the passage doesn’t literally say, “I was sitting in the doctor’s office,” it gives plenty of clues telling us as much.

4. Drawing text-based conclusions using specific textual evidence

When we ask students about what they read, we need to ask questions that require specific textual evidence. For example, when I ask, “What does this passage mean?”, I need to insist that students give evidence to support their answers. I have talked about this elsewhere on the blog, but I’d be happy to do it in greater depth–just let me know in the comments section below.

Related articles

• The Common Core – 4 Critical Questions (brightfutures4me.wordpress.com)

4 Ways to Screw Up (and Fix) In-class Arguments

Yesterday, something awesome happened during lunch: our school’s burgeoning “Nerd Club” decided to hold a debate on which video game console is the best. Here’s how Sean M. got it kicked off:

This was so much fun. I applaud my students for taking it upon themselves to carry out an intellectual debate during their lunch time (I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of my favorite essays of all time: Gerald Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism, which is found in the back of They Say, I Say). However, there’s only one word to describe today’s lunchtime debate, and I think all present would agree with me.

It was a train wreck. (Okay, two words).

Today’s debate reminded me of three key ways that in-class arguments can go awry. If your goal is to screw up an in-class argument, try these. 😉

1. Let Dominators Dominate

Every class has its dominators–the kids who love arguing, or who are great at it, or who love to win, or who simply love to talk. These kids are great to have, but they require special management if a truly argumentative classroom is to form. This is tricky work because, on the one hand, you don’t want to stifle them into undue frustration, but, on the other hand, they will stifle and frustrate a majority of your class if left to their own devices.

Here are some ways that I manage my dominators during in-class arguments:

• Require all students to speak once before any can speak twice (this works best with formal debates).
• Use the notecard system to ensure that you’re calling on everyone, not just kids with their hands up.
• Limit the length of time that each person can speak (I use the simple online-stopwatch.com).

These are some ways to help dominators and the rest of their peers develop their argumentative skills side-by-side without driving each other insane.

2. Ignore Disrespect

At the start of the year, I found that students assumed the way to win in a debate was to make your opponents appear as stupid as possible. Now, don’t get me wrong: a great debater knows how to systematically dismantle any opponents argument. However, in the process, a great debater is also respectful of her opponent, making sure to accurately represent the opposing side. In fact, I think the most compelling arguments are those that summarize their opponent’s arguments in a manner that the opponents themselves would summarize them.

Civility and grace are crucial skills that lubricate public life, create a classroom worth being in, and win arguments.

3. Allow Crosstalk

I think there are times when the sides of the argument need to respond to one another, but that is definitely not while opponents are delivering an argument. To avoid crosstalk, here are some simple strategies that I use:

• Consistently shutting down crosstalk, every time it occurs, by simply saying, “No crosstalk, please.”
• If running the debate on some kind of a points system, deduct a point for cross talk (I don’t have much experience with points-based debates; my goal this year has been for students to enjoy arguing simply for the pleasure of the intellectual exercise, not merely for the sake of winning)
• Create a session during the debate for cross-examination; for example, today’s lunch debate schedule could have looked like this:
  • 5 minutes research
  • 5 minutes team strategy planning
  • 3 minutes initial argument for Team A
  • 3 minutes initial argument for Team B
  • 2 minutes cross-examination for Team A
  • 2 minutes cross-examination for Team B

4. Skimp on Prep Time

One cause for yesterday’s lunchtime train wreck was definitely a lack of prep time. As you can see from the video above, Sean did give time for research–an important part of preparation (SL.CCR.1) if you desire to facilitate evidence-based arguments (R.CCR.1), not to mention opportunities for mini-research tasks (W.CCR.7).

However, what we didn’t do is include time for the teams to discuss strategy.

As a result of these four fails, our first-ever lunchtime debate was, as I said, a train wreck: dominators dominated, disrespect reared its head, crosstalk spread epidemically, and unplanned strategy’s proved weak.

Yet, this is one reason that I love teaching: even a failure is a success because in that failure you can learn something valuable.

CCSS Anchor Standards Mentioned in this Post:

• SL.CCR.1: Prepare forand participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
  • One manifestation of mastering the argumentative range of converstions is when students can debate the socks off of an opponent, even if they are given any teammate and an unfamiliar topic, as long as they have some time to prepare.
• R.CCR.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
  • Requiring students to provide cited evidence for their arguments within a debate is one way to implement this standard.
• W.CCR.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions,demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
  • Debates are a great chance for students to conduct quick, focused research for evidence that will support the side they are arguing for.

Related articles

• Random thoughts about purpose and strategy in cross-examination (learnpolicydebate.wordpress.com)
• Honor the work – a principled manifesto for doing debate work (learnpolicydebate.wordpress.com)
• Debate and the Art of Memory (andrewbwatt.wordpress.com)
• The Art of Persuasion and other High School debate secrets (podiumproapp.wordpress.com)
• Without fluency, debate suffers (japantimes.co.jp)
• Articles to pair with Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism”? (ask.metafilter.com)

3 Ways to Start Implementing the Common Core Today

Argument in the classroom looks like a happy version of this.

It’s not fun to learn that you’ll soon be expected to transform your curriculum to align with a 66-page document that you had no part in creating. And, although the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a lot less unwieldy than the state standards I’ve taught under so far in my career, that doesn’t mean they are as lean and mean as they should be.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe the CCSS represent a giant leap forward in standards, and they contain plenty teachers can rejoice about. However, I also think they have room for further simplification.

That being said, I’d like to propose that, instead of feeling like you need a doctor’s degree of comprehension of the CCSS before trying them out, you can begin toying with them through one of the following three simple ideas. Note that none of them require extensive planning when you first begin to experiment.

1. Create Controversy

“Argument,” they say, “is the soul of an education.”

Over this past year of teaching, I have come to fully believe that statement. In a safe classroom, students tend to love arguing about the things they are reading and learning. Arguing is a great kind of conversation for students to practice (SL.CCR.1) in pairs, groups, and as a whole class. When it is based around a text students are reading, it rewards students who engage with the text, and, thus, more of them end up engaging.

Here are some examples of arguments that I’ve see

n or heard about, from a variety of content areas, within my school:

• A math teacher repeatedly asks students “How did you get that answer? Why did you do it that way?”, forcing them to argue for the validity of their steps and solutions.
• An earth science teacher has students read various arguments about fracking and then asks students to argue for whichever side they agree with using evidence from the text.
• A US history teacher asks students to argue about whether civil liberties should take priority over national security after reading a variety of sources on the issue.
• A literature teacher asks students to debate whether, in the novel A Separate Peace, Gene is evil or merely someone who commits an evil deed.
• A world history teacher asks students to argue whether Alexander the Great was a hero or a villain.

Here are a couple that I just made up:

• A computer science teacher asks students to write code that performs a set operation and then asks students to share their code and argue which is better.
• A foods teacher asks students to argue, based on reading a couple of articles, whether it is best to use Pam, butter, or margerine to keep food from sticking to a pan.
• A woods teacher asks students to argue the best way to
• A PE teacher asks students to argue for the best way to kick a soccer ball straight or throw a football in a spiral.

If these sound too far out of your comfort range, just try to find a point in your lesson today where you ask students to argue about something–anything!–and go from there. If you’d like some deeper explanation on this point, let me know in the comments section, and I’ll write a post for you.

2. “Can you Back that Up?”

The next time you’re talking with students about what they just read, try one of these moves out:

• “How do you know that?”
• “Can you back that up?”
• “Where do you find that in the text?”
• “What’s your evidence for that claim?”

These are quick and easy questions that you can try out today when leading an in-class discussion, and they all require students to read, re-read, and support their thoughts with textual evidence. By simply asking a question, you’ll be helping students with anchor standards that deal with using supporting evidence from a text (R.CCR.1) in either written (W.CCR.1) or spoken (SL.CCR.4) arguments.

These questions spur students to read and re-read the complex texts that we’re reading in class. Believe it or not, I’ve seen these questions add life to our in-class discussions rather than drain it. Also, I want my students to get in the habit of backing up their ideas, arguments, and analyses with evidence because this is going to make their thoughts more credible wherever they go after they’re through with me. Simple questions like these help them get in that habit.

3. Ensure Participation

Before this school year started, I assumed that arguing was for vocal students, but not shy ones. However, by requiring that all of my students take place in at least one whole-class debate per unit, I’ve been awed at the amount of kids who appreciate our in-class arguments, and I’ve become convinced that I do a disservice to my shy students when I don’t call on them daily and, at least once a unit, give them a chance to contribute some form of planned speaking.

Since the CCSS has an entire strand of speaking and listening standards, getting your shy kids talking is a quick way to start implementing them today.

The easiest two ways that I’ve found to get all of my kids participating everyday are through index cards and think-pair-shares. There’s nothing sexy to either of these techniques except for how simple and effective they are.

1. Index cards: At the beginning of a course, I give my students index cards and have them write something about themselves on one side and their name on the other. This gives me a tool for learning their names at the beginning of the year, but even more importantly it gives me a deck of cards to use daily when I need to call on students during discussion or in response to a thinking exercise. On the one hand, knowing that anyone’s name could come next in the deck keeps my students at a healthy level of alertness. On the other hand, knowing that I want to avoid needlessly embarassing students, the note cards make me a bit more thoughtful about the questions that I ask. Additionally, using the index cards has allowed me to focus on asking good questions instead of keeping a mental tally of I’ve called on today.
2. Think-pair-share: Like I said, this idea is old-fashioned and lacks sexiness, but it’s a priceless way to check for understanding throughout a lesson–I walk around and eavesdrop while students are discussing a question I pose for them. In case you’re new to it: think = students independently consider the question, either through writing or in their heads; pair = students talk about the questions in pairs; share = students share their answers with the class. In the latter two modes, students are being asked to build on others’ ideas and express their own clearly (SL.CCR.1).

When these two simple techniques are used, a student will at very least practice speaking and listening skills on a daily basis in my classroom, shy or not.

CCSS Anchor Standards Mentioned in this Post:

• SL.CCR.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
  • Arguing is the soul of a lot of great conversations that happen from the workplace water cooler to the college classroom. Additionally, an college and career ready person should know how to be a member of conversation rather than a deaf/dominating lecturer.
• R.CCR.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
  • When we ask students to back up their statements about a text, we help them get in the habit of citing specific textual evidence for their claims.
• W.CCR.1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
  • The more you ask students to argue in class, both in pairs, groups, and whole class situations, the more you’ll be able to point to exemplars of argumentation.
• SL.CCR.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  • This anchor standard is a great example of how, even though there are drastically fewer standards in the CCSS, there are some pretty verbose standards within the document. Within this anchor, I see no less than 11 things that could be taught explicitly. However, I think that, by designing various ways in which students argue, discuss, and present ideas, a lot of these “subskills” take care of themselves. When you ask students things like “Can you back that up?”, you are requiring them to use supporting evidence in a spoken argument.