Rigor in the ELA & Social Studies Classroom

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the program my good friend, Dr. Barbara Blackburn. Dr. Blackburn is the author of 35 books and is a widely known consultant who works with schools around the world to help raise the level of rigor and motivation for professional educators and students alike. Dr. Blackburn has been named to the top 30 education gurus by Global Gurus for several years in a row now.

[00:36]

And she is the author of numerous books on rigor, including Rigor in the ELA and Social Studies Classroom, which we're here to talk about today.

[00:47] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:49] SPEAKER_01:

Barbara, welcome to Principal Center Radio once more.

[00:51] SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you. I tell you, I always love doing podcasts with you. We always have so much fun.

[00:56] SPEAKER_01:

We do, we do. And we're actually getting a two-for-one special here because you've actually written two books, Rigor in the ELA and Social Studies Classroom for K-5 and a separate volume for 6 through 12. And before I ask about the grade level distinctions there, I want to talk about the subject matter specificity because one of the things I see as I work with instructional leaders is we want things that apply to everyone. And sometimes we shy back a little bit from subject specificity and maybe those content area teachers scare us a little bit. If it wasn't our content area, we have our comfort zone. Talk to us a little bit about why ELA and social studies warrant their own specialized books on rigor.

[01:37] SPEAKER_00:

Well, this is part of a set of four books, the K-5 and the 6-12, and then a K-5 and a 6-12 math and science, which I know we're going to talk about in an upcoming show. And it was really based on feedback that I was getting from teachers. Most of my books work for all grade levels, all subject areas. And over and over again, particularly in these four core areas, teachers would say to me, you know, Barbara, can you give us more for my subject area? I like the examples, but can you give me more for my subject area? And for some teachers, that's a stumbling block, that if they can't see them just in their subject area, then they aren't going to try it.

[02:13]

So I actually worked with two of my former graduate students who are good friends of mine. In this case, it's Melissa Miles. She was a teacher and then an instructional coordinator, and then she's back to teaching. And she and I wrote these two together. And then I had a different one of my students write the math science books with me. And we built it around a common framework.

[02:34]

So, for example, we deal with academic discourse in all four books in exactly the same place. So if everybody's doing a book study, they can work on together. But the examples are unique to those two social studies and language arts areas to make it work for them. So that's sort of the history of where it came from.

[02:53] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think that that common structure is incredibly useful for instructional leaders who are responsible for managing teachers who teach lots of different grade levels, lots of different subjects. And the commonality shows up in that structure. And one of the things that you talk about early on in all the books is a rigorous environment. And we typically think about rigor at the level of the task or the level of the assignment. Help us understand what it means for the environment to be rigorous, because We might be able to think about a teacher who was maybe old school. You know, we think of particular people who we know had a rigorous environment, but we're not quite sure how to separate that from just their personality.

[03:31]

So take us into that a little bit.

[03:33] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I've talked about the environment ever since my first book. It's in my original definition of rigor is that you have to have the environment. And you do need a rigorous task. You do need high expectations. You need the support and scaffolding. But if you don't have a classroom environment that is set up to allow for and encourage those things, then it's not going to happen.

[03:53]

So, for example, rigorous tasks. You know I'm a huge believer in rigorous tasks. But here's the issue with rigorous tasks. If I'm in an environment where I don't feel safe and secure, then I'm not willing to take a risk on a rigorous task. Because every time you ask students to do something that is at a higher level, you're asking them to take a risk. And again, too often, our students don't feel safe and secure.

[04:16]

For example, I was in a classroom. It was a Friday afternoon. It had been a bad week. I really could just tell the teacher had had a rough week. And a student raised their hand and asked a question. And the teacher just looked at them and said, if you can't come up with a good question, don't come up with a question at all.

[04:31]

Now, that's the opposite of an environment in which you feel safe and secure, because not only did that student not feel safe asking a question, the other students didn't feel like that either because it was so negative. And again, it came out of frustration. It wasn't the teacher being mean, but still that happens. So when we talk about the environment, we talk about things like respect. Is it motivating? Do students feel motivated to try?

[04:55]

Do they feel safe and secure? And those things in many ways are just as critical as the rest of rigor, if not more so, because they almost serve as a gateway.

[05:07] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Barbara, because these books focus on ELA and social studies, where students are doing a lot of reading, I wanted to ask about a controversy in the profession in recent years over the idea of leveled readers, leveled books, leveled texts, and the tension between that practice and having students read grade-level text. Because as teachers, we want our students to be successful. If we know a student is reading below grade level and they're going to really struggle with a grade-level text, We don't want them to feel like a failure. We don't want them to get nothing out of the experience. But I've seen a lot of pushback lately from educators who say it's not okay to only give below grade level readers below grade level text because they will never catch up. They will never learn what they're supposed to if we're only giving them below grade level text.

[05:53]

So help us think about that issue when it comes to ELA and social studies and students who are reading below grade level. What are some things we need to keep in mind?

[06:02] SPEAKER_00:

This now ranks as the best question you've ever asked me. I love this. My history is working with level text. Back when I was working on my doctorate, I actually worked with the folks who developed the Lexile framework. And one of the things that I said back then was, don't label the books in the library and only let kids pick out the certain ones. Don't do that.

[06:21]

So I have worked with level text just forever, it seems like. The best strategy I have ever seen, which really addresses not on the issue of they can't read at grade level, but I don't want to dumb it down so much and never get them to reading at more rigorous levels, is a strategy called layering meaning. And I read about this in 1992. So it is not a new strategy. And what you do is let's say that we are reading an article about the state of North Carolina. OK, so since I live in North Carolina, we'll do that.

[06:53]

And I've got six students who can't read the article. And I really need them to read the article because one, it's on grade level. Two, it's the kind of text they're going to get on the state test. So I want to prepare them appropriately. So I really need them to do that. But my choices in the past have been, well, I can just read it aloud to them.

[07:09]

And that doesn't really accomplish what we want. Or I'll just give them something easier to read. Well, what layering meaning says is this. Find another article on the same topic. So I'm going to find another article on North Carolina. That is written at their level and have them read that first.

[07:27]

So they read an easier article. We are going to start there. If I need to help them, I'll give them a guide to Rama. I'll do whatever I need to. But then what happens is I'm going to bring them back up to the grade level article and I'm going to guide them through it. So I'm going to insist that they read the grade level text, but by reading the easier text first, they've built background knowledge and they've built vocabulary and they're better able to handle it.

[07:52]

Can they still do it on their own? Maybe not, but at least I'm going to keep them in grade level text. It's just going to take an extra step to get there. I mean, how does that sound? To me, it just addresses all of the issues.

[08:04] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it makes total sense because you're not replacing the grade level text with an easier text. You're scaffolding, you're ramping up the difficulty for the students so that they're more able to succeed with it when they get to it.

[08:16] SPEAKER_00:

And the wonderful thing about level text then is if I've got students who are advanced, they can read the original article while my struggling students are reading the lower level article. My advanced students can read a more advanced article. And I can lead a class discussion and ask questions from all three articles so I can really blend it all together. So I talk about that some in my differentiation book, actually. And when I'm doing workshops with teachers now, that's one of the things that I do is actually show them lessons. So they see how that works because there are sources out there for level text, some better than others.

[08:51]

OK, but what you want to know is not just are you putting them in level text, but what are you doing with it? Because if you're just giving it to them to read, you're not providing the support and scaffolding that's then going to get them to the grade level text. And you always want to get them back up to grade level text.

[09:07] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And you mentioned a strategy that you talk about in the books. Let's get into that a bit if we could. And that is the guide-o-rama. What is a guide-o-rama?

[09:15] SPEAKER_00:

You've got a grin on your face. I know you like it's one of my favorite tools. I wish there was a database out there that existed of like thousands of these things. So there's not. So you do have to create them. But what you do is when you have either a text or maybe a video that you want students to read or watch and you know they're going to struggle with it.

[09:36]

Don't do this with something they can handle on their own, but you know they're going to struggle with it. Then you build a Guiderama and it's a blend of a study guide and a think aloud. So you do things like I was working with a math teacher. We did this one for a math video on ratios because the students were doing it in a remote learning day on a work day. And she said, I'm afraid they're not going to get what I need them to get out of it. So we did the Guiderama with it.

[10:00]

And it was things like for zero seconds. You know, what do you think this video is about? What do you think I need to think about? Maybe in a textbook, it's if you look at the first paragraph, there are three boldface words. What does that mean? What should you do about that?

[10:15]

When I see a boldface word, I think about it and put them down in case I need them later. So you do this discussion along with a study guide so it makes it more personal. Imagine that you're the guide on the side, that you're standing beside a struggling student. What would you tell them, ask them, guide them to do? And that's what a guide-a-rama is.

[10:34] SPEAKER_01:

But it sounds like you're structuring some of the things that a proficient reader would do anyway, right? Like you said, I would notice the bold words and I would think, okay, these are probably things I'm going to need to pay attention to. And you're walking the student through considering those, thinking about them and helping them kind of anticipate what's coming and organize their thinking. Is this kind of an organizer as well?

[10:56] SPEAKER_00:

It is. It can be an organizer. And it's basic things. I know I taught a lot of different grade levels, but I specifically taught seventh and eighth grade language arts and social studies. And I remember being so frustrated that my social studies students didn't know what a glossary was. And, you know.

[11:12]

finally came up with the trick to tell them it was like the McDonald's drive-thru. They didn't even have to get up out of their seats. They could just flip to the back. And they liked that. But to me, that kind of thing would go in a guide-a-rama. If I see bold-faced words, I probably would look them up in the glossary at the back of the book.

[11:28]

So again, just that conversation. And you don't need a guide-a-rama every day. I mean, one, it'll take too much time to build them. But Not everybody needs them every day and not everybody needs them, period. So you really want to be careful how and when you use them because all of scaffolding should lead to independence. You don't want students to become so dependent on you that they're not working independently.

[11:50]

The goal of a guide-a-rama is I'm going to ask you the right questions and guide you through some things so that you begin to learn to do those things yourself.

[11:56] SPEAKER_01:

The idea being that scaffolding is temporary. It's not a permanent exoskeleton. It's not a cage. It's a temporary structure that then gets removed. I wonder if we could step back a little bit. And you and I, of course, are very familiar through our previous conversations, your work on rigor more generally.

[12:13]

One of the misconceptions that you talk about a lot is the idea that rigor is just extra work or rigor is just harder work for the sake of being harder. When it comes to ELA and social studies in particular, how does your definition of rigor differ from that? And how can teachers think about making their instruction more rigorous? Or for instructional leaders, how can we think about helping our teachers make their instruction more rigorous, not just more work, not just harder, but actually more rigor. And I appreciate that we've already talked about, you know, it says grade level text. What else comes to mind?

[12:46] SPEAKER_00:

I mean, this is the heart of rigor is it's not saying, oh, well, they're doing 10 vocabulary words. I'll just do 20. And if they can't learn 10, they're certainly not going to learn 20. I mean, that's the whole, it's harder. It's more, you know, let's just punish students. What you're really looking at with rigor is this notion of high expectations that it is more complex than that it is something that does make them think, not memorize, but think.

[13:11]

And really analyze and even synthesize at a higher level. And I'm going to pull these straight from the book. That way I want to get a K-5 and a 6-12 example. I want to give you a couple of examples of the kinds of tasks that would be. So, for example, for kindergarten and first grade, because I also hear the myth they can't do it that young. All right.

[13:33]

So with them, they read a book about ants. know little crawly ants okay then they read the queen ant's birthday and they have to look for evidence of different types of ant characters. Who are the worker bees, the guard bees, and what do they do for queen ant? How does the queen function like the queen bee? In our nonfiction books, again, I gotta take and go back, how do these bees live in community? What can we learn about living in community with one another from these real life?

[14:01]

And they have to really pull together, not just both texts, but both texts and their own experiences as students. That is a very different scenario than what is your favorite character in the book, which is sort of what we tend to do. So here's an upper grades one that is social studies instead of a primary reading one. I want you to imagine that you are at a dinner party. Your esteemed guests are Stalin, Truman, Churchill, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Using your knowledge of the Yalta, Potsdam, and Tehran conferences in the 1940s, write a script in which these historical figures converse about their different views of what the world would look like after World War II.

[14:48]

Choose a character and role play this scenario, keeping the original integrity of your guest intact. At your dinner party, be sure to include what each historical figure would say about the state of society today. So look at the level of what students are expected to do with that. It's just totally different.

[15:06] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I'm thinking about Bloom's taxonomy. I'm thinking about depth of knowledge. Take us into some of the layering that can occur there, because one of the things that I've seen in, I would say, more shallow discussions of rigor or more shallow examples of rigor is. the emphasis only on kind of the final and highest order and synthesis kind of activities without a lot of clarity about what comes before that. So talk to us about how you think about Bloom's Taxonomy and Depth of Knowledge, which I know you address in the book, and how you get students to that point.

[15:40]

Because I can imagine a lot of students coming to an activity like that and saying, I have no idea what to do. Do I even begin with this? And there's a lot that kind of builds up to that.

[15:50] SPEAKER_00:

Well, when you talked about my definition of rigor and how important the environment was, there's four parts to my definition of rigor. One is that you have an environment. Two is that you have high expectations, which includes examples like what I just read. Three is that you have the support and scaffolding that is necessary for them to attain that. And then the fourth one is that they actually do demonstrate their learning. They show you what they know at a high level.

[16:14]

So you can't discuss the task. If you don't also discuss what's going to get you there, what's the support and scaffolding. And when people tell me, you don't understand, I've got a student who's got special needs and they can't do that. Yes, they can. You just have to get them there differently. You may need to use some audio books.

[16:32]

You may need to use some multimedia instead of all of it being reading, but you can absolutely get them there. I may need to, for some students, I may need to have a shelf with six sources of about our topic and they pick from those. Other students can go to the library and find their own sources. But I've got to decide what is that support and scaffolding that is needed. Now, what's interesting is I've had people say, well, I'll plan my support and scaffolding first. What I see happen a lot with that is that the support and scaffolding leads to something that isn't rigorous.

[17:06]

So I do believe in the backwards planning, you know, plan your task. Now figure out what you're going to have to do. In that one with the dinner party, I can easily see two graphic organizers. I can see a note taking guide. I can see the guide for a script, maybe a storyboard that they do. I mean, there's all kinds of scaffolding that could go into just that one task.

[17:25]

And you would have to know your students to know what they need.

[17:28] SPEAKER_01:

So it's not that we are planning kind of generic scaffolding, but we're thinking about what our specific students need and how to kind of get them there. One thing that keeps coming up for me over and over in each of our discussions about rigor is the idea of scaffolding, but not over scaffolding or not making the scaffolding too permanent or not making the scaffolding remove the rigor, which I know is a major concern and something you talk about often in your books that we not scaffold out the rigor. I think it's a phrase I've heard you use. How do we know if we're doing that? How do we know if we're scaffolding out the rigor?

[18:00] SPEAKER_00:

You know, I would love to give you a formula that does that, but there isn't one. And this is where, and you and I have talked a little bit about artificial intelligence. I think artificial intelligence can do a lot of things, but I still think there's an art to teaching. And this hits at the art of teaching. If you don't understand something, I am going to need to assess that through formative assessment or summative assessment. I'm going to need to observe you.

[18:24]

I'm really going to need to watch. I'm going to need to provide you some scaffolding. I'm going to need to watch and when can I take it away? And those are very personal decisions. They're personal to you as the student. They're personal to me as the teacher.

[18:37]

And it is a matter of I've got to watch. The story I use in a lot of my books is that When my dad tried to teach me how to ride a bike, you know, I had training wheels, but when he took the training wheels off, he still kept his hand on the bottom of the seat. And then one day he let that go. And when I realized I could ride by myself, then I did. But he had to gauge that. And he had to watch with his hand on the base of my seat.

[18:59]

He had to watch how wobbly was I? How straight was I? How steady was I? How confident did I look? He had to look at all those things and make a decision. And I am a firm believer that teachers are always going to be the ones who make a difference.

[19:11]

And that's why, because I think that is a personal decision that is based on observation, knowing the student, knowing the content, and then making that decision. And so as a teacher, I can't give you a formula. I'm sorry. Again, I wish I could, but I can't.

[19:27] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I think it gets back to that culture of challenge, you know, that culture of high expectations and the rigorous environment. And if we are accustomed to challenging our students, if our students are accustomed to being challenged and they're not melting every time we say, OK, this is going to be, you know, this is going to be a little bit of a challenge, but you can do it if they're looking forward to that challenge. we can create that culture of not providing too much scaffolding, of doing things that are hard, of pulling back on the supports when they're no longer needed. And I think it comes down to just the fundamental task of formative assessment. And I was thinking about a phrase I haven't heard in quite a while, but I'm pretty sure it's still a thing, the zone of proximal development.

[20:06] SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yes. Well, and the other thing I'm going to hijack you for a minute. The other thing, though, it's really important to this is that as teachers, what expectations do we hold and how are we acting on those? And what we sometimes don't realize is that our actions describe our expectations better than what we think. So, for example, and this happened to me when I was a young teacher. So know that I'm not criticizing anybody.

[20:34]

I'm telling you it happened to me. Let's say that it's the start of the school year and we've got two students. OK, we've got Justin and Barbara. And Justin is the kind of student you just want. I mean, boy, he straight A's, does his homework every day, ask great questions that extend the learning. I mean, just fabulous.

[20:50]

Now, Barbara, on the other hand, sort of struggles. She barely gets her work done. She doesn't usually get her homework done. She doesn't ask questions. She doesn't answer questions. She just always seems a step behind.

[21:02]

Now, at the beginning of the year, I start off with high expectations for both students because that's what I do. I know they can learn, will learn, and I will help them get there. Well, what happens is that over time, Justin exceeds those expectations. And so my expectations just go up and up and up and up. But Barbara sort of lowers my expectations because she's trying, she's really trying, but she's just not doing real well. And one day it just comes out and I say, well, you know, she's doing the best she can, bless her heart, which in the South is code for she's not doing very well at all.

[21:37]

And so here's what Marzano found. And it's really interesting research. What he found was that when those expectations change, our actions change. So with Justin, I will stand closer to him and give him more eye contact. I will ask him not only more questions, but I will ask him higher order questions. Now, it's okay to differentiate and ask a lower level question for Barbara, but if you're going to ask what color is the dog, please at least ask, how do you know?

[22:04]

I mean, that's just not working with it. I will give Justin more wait time. Because I know that if I give him wait time, he will come up with the answer. But if I give Barbara wait time, we'll just be waiting all day. And so all of the flip side of the Justin behaviors happen with Barbara. And so over time, the students see the difference.

[22:24]

And over time, Justin continues to rise. Barbara continues to go down. And so we say we have high expectations. But let's say Barbara brings in her homework and she's done four problems out of 10. Well, if Justin brought me four out of 10, I'd say, you know what, Justin, I know you can do the other 10. I want you to do them tonight, bring them to me tomorrow.

[22:41]

Do you need any help? I'll make sure you get the right help. With Barbara, I'm going to go, you know what, I'm just grateful she did four. And I let her off the hook for the rest of it. And so our behaviors begin to evidence expectations that we may not even realize we have. And I think that is real critical to everything you've asked about.

[22:59] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And really at the heart of the, I think I've heard it called the Matthew effect, right? That those who have will be given more. We've got to be careful that we're not accelerating that tendency because we know it's built into the nature of knowledge already to some extent that, you know, knowledge sticks to knowledge. Students are further ahead, go faster because they have more knowledge to work with. And students who are behind and who are struggling have less to work with.

[23:24]

So certainly we don't want to accelerate that dynamic because it's already one of the biggest challenges we face in helping students who are below grade level or just behind. And one other thing I wanted to ask about as we wrap up is just the importance of standards, grade level expectations, knowing the standards that students will be held accountable for meeting and that we will be held accountable for getting them to meet. How do you think about standards and rigor and students who are going to have the greatest struggles reaching those standards? Help us think about standards.

[23:58] SPEAKER_00:

Well, there's a couple of things. One, there are rigorous standards that I have seen taught in non-rigorous ways. So just because you have rigorous standards doesn't mean that your classroom is a rigorous classroom. Two, I think that the two most important things you have to do with standards. Number one, if it's not already defined, you need to define what it looks like when a student shows you that they know. And that's really what I go.

[24:26]

If they show you what they know, what does that look like? And so you've really got to define that. And just as important is really defining what is the instruction scaffolding and support that is going to get all of my students there. And I don't try to plan everything. 28 lesson plans for 28 kids. I plan pretty simply.

[24:44]

I plan a middle of the road chart. Here's what I would do for most students. To get to that standard, here's what I would do. Now, for my struggling students, what do I need that's extra? And for my advanced students, what can I do that can stretch them? That's how I plan.

[24:58]

And I can work with those. If I get the middle one, I can build the other two pretty quickly. It's not hard. But that to me is what you've got to do with a standard because the standards along simply are not enough.

[25:09] SPEAKER_01:

So the books are Rigor in the ELA and Social Studies Classroom, K-5 and 6-12. And I certainly want to encourage our listeners to search on our website for our previous interviews. We've talked about Rigor for Students with Special Needs. We've talked about Rigor in Your School. We've talked about your many, many books on Rigor. And Barbara, if people want to learn more about your work or see a complete list of your books or get in touch with you about doing some work in their school, where's the best place for them to go online?

[25:36] SPEAKER_00:

The best place is my website, which is barbarablackburnonline.com or you can Google Barbara Blackburn and Rigor. And I sometimes wish I could go back and tell the 16 year old me that I could be Googled in the future because I think that's so cool. There, if you go to free, there are over a hundred free resources. you are a leader go to just for leaders it takes you to my leadership books and justin i'm pretty sure we have some of the leadership books i'm up on podcast also don't we i think so yeah so we've got those so i just don't want you as a leader to think we've forgotten you definitely have your own stuff too and you can go to my website find anything you need you can get in touch with me and i am always happy to hear from educators and justin thank you because you are always so much fun to do these interviews with

[26:21] Announcer:

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