On Day 4, the students reread the passage with a partner, wrote the author’s purpose in the left margin and asked a question in the right margin. On Day 3, the students read the passage with a partner and found five to seven details to go with each big idea (highlighting them in red and recording the big ideas on their note taking sheet). They highlighted them in yellow and recorded them on their note taking graphic organizer). On Day 2, we choral read the passage and the students found the big ideas related to the main idea. On Day 1, I read the text to my class focusing on finding the main idea (which they wrote at top of the page) and vocabulary (Tier 2 words: confident, opinion, experienced, terrain, attitude)(Tier 3 words: cavalry, cannon, Confederacy). #SHIFTY EYESPY GAME FREE#So, what would that look like? It all started with a question posed as an inquiry to my students: How was our country divided during the Civil War? When considering the first shift: regular practice of complex texts and academic language meant infusing the close reading strategy during my shared reading block with the passage, “Slavery, the Civil War & Reconstruction: Background to the Civil War-Balance Sheet.” (Note: This passage and many others are available from, where you can sign up for a free account.) Each day had a “standards” purpose for rereading the text. #SHIFTY EYESPY GAME SERIES#You are probably thinking, “How could I possibly meet all those standards in a lesson?” It is actually a series of lessons that connect all these standards that takes a week’s time in reading, writing, and social studies. I coupled literacy: RI.3.1 Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect RI.3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text and W.3.10 Write routinely over extended time frames and shorter time frames for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences. Then I considered the ELA shifts and standards. I looked at social studies to meet the standard SS.3-5.H8 Understand cause and effect relationships and other historical thinking skills in order to interpret events and issues and SS.3-5.G.1 Understand the geographic tools to locate and analyze information about people, places, and environments. So I decided to dig deeper into what each shift meant while applying them to literacy and social studies in my third grade classroom. When I first read these, I thought the avenue to apply them was through social studies and science. Finally, students should be building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction. Next, reading, writing, and speaking are grounded in evidence from texts, both literary and informational. So what are the English Language Arts shifts? The first shift is regular practice with complex texts and their academic language. So what are the major differences in practice that one should expect to see when the Iowa Core Standards in Literacy are being implemented? Those differences in classroom practice, materials, and assessment are described by what are called the shifts.
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