Call for Interdisciplinary Units
International Reading Association Literacy Research Panel
Designs for Engagement: Criteria for Interdisciplinary Units
December 2012
Background
In an effort to promote highly engaging research-based classroom practices and rich student learning, the Literacy Research Panel of the International Reading Association issues a call to teachers to join us in developing curricular units/modules that will accomplish these important goals.
Widespread implementation of the Common Core State Standards has provided a window of opportunity for teachers in the U.S. to reassert their authority and responsibility in ensuring that our students are involved in the highly rigorous, highly engaging learning that will prepare them for entry into postsecondary experiences in our colleges and workplaces. What follows is a framework—a design tool—that will allow all of those who participate to use a common language and set of pedagogical tools in the modules they develop. The goal is to create these modules and make them available to teachers around the country to enhance the quality and engagement of the classroom experiences they provide for their students. We encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to build a new set of curricular units that represent the best that our profession has to offer to students and their families.
Goals
The aim of these units is to foster a high volume of deep reading about compelling themes. Research supports the design criteria as tools to extend the amount and quality of students’ engaged reading. In the short term, the unit should assure that students perform a high volume of reading and writing. In the long term, students should be enabled to become engaged readers and writers who are capable of using a variety of strategies to unlock and produce complex texts.
Author Teams
Every team should include the expertise of a classroom teacher and school, district or university professional with responsibility for conducting, interpreting or promoting research, especially research based literacy practices. Please document both the experience of the classroom teacher and the research scholar. Interdisciplinary collaborations are useful and even preferred at the elementary level, but strong disciplinary units are preferable at the secondary (middle and high school) level. IRA will publish accepted units on Reading.org, with full attribution to the team who developed it.
Organization
Each unit should be directed to one of the following grade frames: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, or 9-12.
At the elementary level, the unit should be designed for four to eight weeks of instruction in 60-to-120-minute periods of Reading/Language Arts. The unit may also integrate science, social studies, math, foreign languages, or other content domains.
At the secondary (middle and high school) levels, the unit should be specific to a discipline or a sub-discipline (e.g., composition, physics, economics, French).
Units intended specifically for second language learners or students with special needs are encouraged.
Each submission should address the following:
Common Core State Standards
Does the module address several (at least four) of the Common Core State Standards? Cite each standard the unit addresses.
Thematic Understanding
For an elementary school-level unit, one or more subject matter disciplines should be
integrated with reading/writing activities. For middle and high school-level units, reading and writing activities should be integrated into subject-matter domains.
Texts
Units should aim to identify a significant number of texts, including print and digital materials, from a wide variety of genres.
Relevance
The modules should provide a basis for students to relate personally to each reading, but also seek to expand learners’ knowledge and experience.
Choice
Include in each module a section that describes how the unit will enable students to select texts, tasks for reading or writing, subtopics of content, and how teachers will support and scaffold opportunities for choice.
Challenge
Module authors should identify texts and reading tasks that will be at a suitable level of
difficulty and challenge for students. Beyond the primary grades, the units should take into consideration students’ basic skill and literal comprehension development as the project expands their reasoning and thinking with text.
Scaffolding
Units should provide instruction to support students’ acquisition of reading skills and strategies.
- K-2: Provide instruction on early literacy such as phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, fluency, sentence comprehension and story understanding.
- Grades 3-5: State supports for word recognition, fluency, vocabulary comprehension, and strategies for reading to gain knowledge.
- Grades 6-12: Include details on problem framing, close reading, necessary knowledge elicitation/building, summary within texts, synthesizing across texts, and communicating understandings.
Culminating Product
Each module should provide a project or activity that enables students to integrate their
reading, writing, knowledge, and multimedia resources into a message, self-expression, or
artifact that is aimed at an authentic audience.
Grading
Identify several (4-12) student performances (writings, summaries, maps, debates, read alouds, culminating products, other) that can be used for evaluation. Clearly state the criteria used for each, and include examples of applicable rubrics.
Submissions
We are currently accepting submissions. Exemplary units may be selected for a poster session at the IRA Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas, April 19-22, 2013. You will receive feedback on the acceptability of your submission for inclusion in the IRA Interdisciplinary Unit Resource Bank. Your submission will be evaluated based on the design criteria as outlined above.
Formatting
The unit design should be formatted to include sections on: (1) Goals, (2) Texts, (3) Teaching and Learning Activities, (4) Evaluations. The length of the unit description should not exceed 20 double-spaced typed pages and must include a complete description of the author team responsible for it. Send your materials electronically (preferably as a Word doc or PDF) to LRPUnits@reading.org.