Your Literacy Standards Companion, Grades 9-12. Jim Burke

History/Social Studies

      Gist: Analyze words and phrases in context as used in articles textbooks, primary source documents, and other texts, noting the author’s use of key words in the text to refine their meaning and impact through repeated use.

       What are the key words in this document? How are they used?

       Why does the author use this word or phrase in this context?

       How does the meaning or effect of repeated words change over time?

      9–10 Science/Technical Subjects

      Gist: Concentrate on how the author uses key symbols and words in different contexts to direct, explain, inform, or persuade readers of texts and topics appropriate to grades 9 and 10.

       When, where, how, and why are symbols used here?

       What specialized terms are used that are necessary to know in order to understand key concepts?

       How do the words and symbols contribute to or affect the text?

      11–12 Science/Technical Subjects

      Gist: Concentrate on how the author uses key symbols and words in different contexts to direct, explain, inform, or persuade readers of texts and topics appropriate to grades 10 and 11.

       When, where, how, and why are symbols used here?

       What specialized terms are used that are necessary to know in order to understand key concepts?

       How do the words and symbols contribute to or effect the text?

      Common Core Reading Standard 4: What the Teacher Does

       To have students interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, do the following:

       Direct students’ attention to the words, phrases, and other details (captions, diagrams, images) in a sentence and those around it. Point out the ways authors add details to clarify the meaning of words: definition clues such as explanations, synonyms, phrases, and clauses; restatement of the word or phrase (e.g., In other words); contrast or antonym clues that help define what a word means by using words that mean the exact opposite; other clues such as typography, proximity to images, and the author’s general tone.

       Tell students that not all words can be understood through context clues; help them see where context clues can confuse.

       Complete a think-aloud while reading to the class to show how you puzzle out a word or phrase using syntactic, semantic, typographic, etymological, and other types of information to decipher words.

       To have students determine the figurative and connotative meaning of words, do the following:

       Identify with students figurative language or words with other connotative meanings; then have them determine the literal or denotative meaning of those words; then ask them to determine, in light of how the words are used in this context, the figurative or connotative meaning.

       Direct students’ attention to words used figuratively (simile, metaphor, analogy, euphemism, and pun) and ask them to determine a word’s meaning and explain how its use affects the meaning of other words around it or contributes to the meaning of the larger text.

       Have them assess whether a set or series of words used figuratively has a unifying theme (e.g., they are all related to gardens, sports, the law) and, if they do, what it is and how that set of thematic words adds meaning to the text.

       To have students analyze the cumulative impact of word choice on meaning and tone, do the following:

       Complete a think-aloud as you read through a text, noting the author’s use of certain words that combine with others (through sound, imagery, meaning, or stylistic or rhetorical effect) to add meaning or serve some other purpose (e.g., to reinforce a theme).

       Direct students to highlight, code, or otherwise indicate (by alternately circling, underlining, or putting dotted lines under words) those words or phrases that are connected; ask them then what conclusions they can draw from the patterns, connections, or general use of words about their meaning.

       Provide students a list of words or phrases with a common theme left unstated; ask them what the words have in common and how that relates to the text from which they come.

       To have students determine the meaning of discipline-specific words, symbols, terms, do the following:

       Show students how to make use of any textual features—sidebars, captions, typography (is the word in bold and thus in the glossary), diagrams, footers, or glossaries in the chapter or in the appendix—available in the textbook.

       Teach students, when appropriate, the root words or etymology of certain subject-specific words (bio = life, ology = study of) as part of the study of any discipline.

       To have students analyze how authors use and refine the meaning of key terms, have students do the following:

       Cut and paste the whole text into www.wordle.net to see which words are used most frequently in the text; then choose those which are most important to the text or topic and see how they are used over time and how their meaning shifts.

       Access a text, if possible, in a digital form so you can use the search feature to find all the instances of a word; then you can examine with students its use in those different contexts and trace how its meaning changes from beginning to the end of the text.

       To help your English Language Learners, try this:

       Use these words as often as possible, speaking them aloud so students hear them used in context and pronounced correctly.

      Preparing to Teach: Connections to My State’s Standards

      Common Core Reading Standard 4: Academic Vocabulary: Key Words and Phrases

      Connotative meanings: Words have a primary or literal meaning; some also have a secondary or connotative meaning, which implies an additional idea or feeling related to the word or phrase.

      Cumulative impact: When a specific word (fair in Lord of the Flies) or phrase (“an honorable man” in Julius Caesar) is repeated throughout a text or an important passage, it has a cumulative effect, a bit like a snowball gathering mass and speed.

      Domain-specific words and phrases: Within each discipline or branch of that discipline, certain words (cell, division) have a domain-specific use in, for example, biology; other words, however, are unique to that discipline and are, thus, essential for students to know to read, discuss, and write about complex texts in that subject.

      Evokes a sense of time and place: Language brings to life a time or place through its rhythms, phrases, words, and their syntax; antiquated phrases spoken by a contemporary character suggest one thing. Language, such as Mark Twain and Zora Neal Hurston, used evokes a time, a culture, a place, and one’s character.

      Figurative meanings: Figures of speech (or figurative language) are those often colorful ways we develop of saying