Teaching Common Core English Language Arts Standards. Patricia M. Cunningham

In the finals on October 18, Beamon made a great jump to win the gold medal. He made his running approach and then jumped into the sand pit. He seemed to fly. When he landed and fell forward, he was past the camera that had been set up. The judges had to measure his jump with a tape measure. He had jumped 29 feet 2½ inches and broken the world record by almost two feet! Everyone was amazed, including him. His world record stood for twenty-three years.”

      By this time, many of the students are wearing down. Mr. O. helps them more with this Gist statement than the previous one to speed up the process. Before long, they’ve completed the lesson. (See figure 4.7.)

      Figure 4.7: Sample completed Gist statement.

       TIP

       The task in a Gist lesson is especially challenging, and the “I do, and you help” phase of the gradual release of responsibility model is particularly valuable. Consequently, this sample lesson has no “You do it together, and I help” section. With Gist, for a number of lessons, many students will likely disengage by the end of “I do, and you help.” Their cognitive workload is high! When your students successfully and efficiently help you compose good Gist statements, reveal the whole text from the beginning and complete the “I do, and you help” phase. Eventually, they should compose Gist statements in small groups for a text displayed as a whole. At that point, it will probably be best to have the “You do it together, and I help” phase comprise the entire Gist lesson because of how long it is likely to take and how taxing it is likely to be for many students.

       The Class Debriefs

      Mr. O. praises the students highly for their hard work in helping him and asks them what they think about the final Gist statement. Several students express pride in how well they think the Gist statement captures the entire text’s meaning in so few words. Mr. O. smiles broadly, and says, “Before long, each of you will be better at reading a text and deciding what will be most important to include in a Gist if you are asked to tell or write one!”

       Planning and Teaching a Gist Lesson

      Select a short text from which you want your students to identify central and key ideas. The text you choose may stand alone or be an excerpt from a longer text. Divide it into three parts. Use the following four steps when teaching a Gist lesson.

      1.Tell students the purpose of the lesson. Explain that you are going to gradually reveal a short text to them, one part at a time, until they can see it all. Each time you show them more of it, they will create a one-sentence summary of the passage so far.

      2.For the first few Gist lessons, start with “I do, and you watch” to model your thinking as you write a one-sentence summary for the first part of the text. For the next several Gist lessons, start with “I do, and you help.”

      3.When using Gist to teach students how to comprehend the main idea of a text, the most important phase of the gradual release of responsibility model is “I do, and you help.” “I do, and you help” should be the entire format of Gist lessons until you feel your students no longer benefit from working on the passage in parts. In other words, during the last Gist lessons you teach using the “I do, and you help” phase, you show your students the entire short text at the beginning of the lesson, and they help you compose a Gist statement for the complete passage. You no longer reveal the text in stages.

      4.Once your students as a whole group have success with summarizing a short text in one sentence (twelve or more words, depending on their grade), put them in trios to do that same task (“You do it together, and I help”). Display or distribute two or three short texts and have the trios compose a Gist statement of the same length for each one. End that day’s lesson by having trios share their Gist statements for each text and discuss differences.

       Gist Lessons Across the Year

      When you are confident that almost every student will be successful composing a Gist statement, fade instruction to the “You do, and I watch” phase. Eventually, you’ll want to be able to give one or more grade-appropriate texts to your class that are short, dense, and challenging and have every student independently write a good one-sentence summary.

       How Gist Lessons Teach the Standards

      Gist teaches Reading anchor standard two (CCRA.R.2), because its major emphasis is helping students learn to be sensitive to which ideas seem most central and key in a particular text. It also teaches Reading anchor standard one (CCRA.R.1), because it focuses on teaching students to read closely until they have exhausted everything important a short text says explicitly or implicitly about a subject. Beginning in third grade, students must also be able to cite textual evidence and explain any words in their Gist statements that you or another student questions. Because it is taught with the gradual release of responsibility model, Gist also teaches Speaking and Listening anchor standard one (CCRA.SL.1). Students engage in whole-group and small-group conversations with their teacher and peers to discuss what ideas are most central and important in a text.

      CCSS in a Themes, Morals, and Lessons Learned Lesson