Balancing Literature and Informational Text
At first glance, these two charts have a tendency to be a bit overwhelming due to the amount of data presented. This entry will help you disaggregate the data allowing you to begin the process balancing literature and informational text.
From this point on, I will only reference the far left column of the top graph titled Reading Complex Terms and all of the bottom graph.
As you can see, the Reading Complex Text column is broken down into four modules A, B, C, & D. Each individual module has two subcategories that include a non-specified allotment of short texts and 1 extended text. Think of the four modules (A, B, C & D) as you would the 4 grading quarters over the course of one school year. This will help you to understand the academic pacing for these reading lessons. We will used module A as our first example.
This is a hypothetical break down for a third grade classroom. For module A we will assign 5-9 reading passages to be our short texts. Of those texts, 3-5 will be literature, 1-2 science articles and 1-2 social science or art informational items. Additionally, as indicted by the chart above, module A will have one extended text that is devoted to a literature component.
You have either read or heard that elementary grades will have a 50-50 split among the passages that students are to read. According to the standards students at the elementary level are to have their reading content allocated so that 50% of material read is non-fiction, while to remaining 50% is devoted to fiction.
Based on our hypothetical scenario how will this look for the first nine weeks of school. The literature component is half of module A, this means that at least four weeks should be devoted to the literature piece, possibly five. Myths and fables with 3-5 text pieces should allocate three weeks of intense study, while science, social science/art should each receive one week of study as the only have 1-2 pieces to be read and studied.
This is an alternate look at paragraph above:
Week 1 - extended literature
Week 2 - extended literature
Week 3 - extended literature
Week 4 - extended literature
Week 5 - extended literature transition to short text literature
Week 6 - short text literature
Week 7 - short text literature
Week 8 - science
Week 9 - social science/art
* please keep in mind that these weeks do not need to follow this order *
As we proceed to Module B or our second academic quarter, you notice the Model Content Framework Chart now shifts the complexity of text to now focus on informational passages. Again 50% of our quarter (or four weeks time) will be devoted to teaching an informational passage, with the remaining five weeks balancing literature, science, and social science passages.
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