Building Background Knowledge Through Reading: Rethinking Text Sets

Abstract

The quad text set framework can assist content teachers in building students' background knowledge, increasing their reading volume, and incorporating complex texts into instruction.A call for continued efforts to improve literacy outcomes for adolescents is standard fare, but exactly what adolescents should read, how much, and how are less clear. As former middle and high school teachers and current university-based literacy researchers, we take the stance that increasing the amount of challenging texts that middle and high school students read has the potential to improve literacy outcomes. However, we know that teachers are often unsure about how to link texts to other curricular objectives. We present a text set framework that allows teachers to plan instruction that meets disciplinary goals while also providing opportunities for students to build their background knowledge through reading. Starting With What We KnowWe started by considering the literature behind the use of text sets. We then thought through factors that impact both comprehension and instruction, including the effects of reading volume and difficulty, and how the use of text sets may help or hinder these challenges. We also considered the actual knowledge and motivational demands on adolescent readers tasked with learning content through high-volume work with texts. Figure 1 presents a visual depiction of the stressors that we saw that influence adolescent reading in school, potentially affecting both attitudes and achievement. We describe these factors to provide background for our decisions. Together, these research strands help teachers consider both students' knowledge and their thinking processes during reading, keeping teachers' attention squarely on what students need to know and do to learn from text.Finally, we developed an approach to text selection and sequencing that puts theory into classroom practice. We worked with teachers to develop texts sets and observed the implementation of our new framework in middle and high school content area classrooms.

Developing Academic Discourse Through Literacy and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: A Design‐Based Approach

“…For example, Adam wanted to try using Cornell Notes (Vacca et al, 2017) again because our evidence suggested that this note-taking system helped students comprehend the text. However, he wanted students to develop a stronger awareness of the issues, so he created a text set designed to support understanding of a target text (Lupo, Strong, Lewis, Walpole, & McKenna, 2018) and adapted Cornell Notes to include the following sections: big idea, supporting details, and point of view. In Figure 3, the same student from the Cornell Notes example in Figure 2 analyzed three articles related to tensions around the Dakota Access Pipeline.…”

“…. Gather materials: Create a quad text set about the topic by identifying a target text and building support with three other texts, which may include video and popular media(Lupo et al, 2018).4. Restate one's position:Ask students to state their current position on the issue in light of new information.5.…”

Prosody, Pacing, and Situational Fluency (or Why Fluency Matters for Older Readers)

“… Listen‐read‐discuss (Manzo & Casale, ): This process begins with the teacher selecting a well‐written portion of the text to be covered and presenting critical terms and ideas to the students through short summaries or discussions prior to reading. This is followed by the students independently reading the selection and having a discussion that focuses on both clarifying what was read and raising broader or more complex issues connected to the text. Laddering texts or the use of text sets (e.g., Lupo, Strong, Lewis, Walpole, & McKenna, ): By providing a series of texts with varying difficulty levels, from easier to more challenging, on the same subject, learners are able to build their background knowledge through their reading. Both concepts and vocabulary are likely to be repeated across these selections, helping increase both the breadth and the depth of students’ knowledge of the subject at hand. Scaffolded silent reading (Reutzel, Jones, Fawson, & Smith, ): This strategy is based on the understanding that if students are to become skilled readers across a range of genres, they need to read texts in these genres; to accomplish this, students are expected to select texts using a genre wheel rather than simply choose one type of text, such as dystopian fiction, that they are already comfortable reading.…”

“…■ Laddering texts or the use of text sets (e.g., Lupo, Strong, Lewis, Walpole, & McKenna, 2018): By providing a series of texts with varying difficulty levels, from easier to more challenging, on the same subject, learners are able to build their background knowledge through their reading. Both concepts and vocabulary are likely to be repeated across these selections, helping increase both the breadth and the depth of students' knowledge of the subject at hand.…”

A Pentagonal Pyramid Model for Differentiation in Literacy Instruction Across the Disciplines

“…Lewis, Walpole, and McKenna () developed a quad text set consisting of a core text, an additional informational text, a visual text, and a related literary text. Classroom teachers need to consider both modalities and genres when designing and using multiple texts (Lupo et al, ).…”