Ensuring Rigor for English Learners--and ALL Learners--using Depth of Knowledge
By: Sarah Ottow, Founder of Confianza and Author of The Language Lens Guidebook
Essential Questions: How can we provide equitable opportunities for English Learners/multilingual learners and ALL learners to master rigorous college and career readiness standards? How can ALL of our students engage successfully in high-complexity tasks? How do we provide appropriate language support to students that doesn’t “water down” the curriculum?
The Depth of Knowledge as Framework
In this article, I will share a framework for ensuring rigor for called Depth of Knowledge (DOK). A special thank you to WebbAlign for support in our usage of the DOK framework as it relates to language, not just content. The DOK framework was developed by Dr. Norman Webb in the late 1990s for use by educators, content writers and assessment developers to help align content standards in curriculum and assessment. The DOK framework is comprised of four levels of complexity as follows:
DOK 1: recall-type tasks and performance of routine procedures
DOK 2: application of skills and concepts, requires underlying conceptual understanding
DOK 3: strategic thinking, non-routine problem-solving, and heavy reasoning
DOK 4: tasks and expectations at least as complex as DOK 3 but that require an extended time to complete
When working with students learning English and any student learning academic language, it is especially important that the complexity of instructional tasks and assessments are not solely DOK 1, but instead, that we are challenging all students to engage in high-complexity tasks with the appropriate differentiation pathway to achieve at high standards. In other words, if we work exclusively within basic recall or tasks, we are not supporting multilingual learners and all learners as they work to realize the rigor of the content standards. The DOK framework is a powerful tool for educators to understand content complexity and to ensure that all content teachers can explicitly plan, teach and assess high-complexity tasks for all learners with a special focus on academic language development and differentiation.
An Example of a Rigorous Lesson for ALL Learners
Let’s take a lesson from Middle School Social Studies, for example, where students will address the essential question, What effects does injustice have on individuals people and groups of people? throughout the course of a larger unit on civil rights. The class will first study the primary text, “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech by Sojourner Truth. Thanks to Confianza’s collaborator, Learning for Justice, for the text and lesson idea. Before reading, students will engage in a discussion of what they know about slavery in the United States supported by visuals like photographs of Sojourner Truth and a video clip of the speech. Students will also be encouraged to share personal anecdotes and connections to examples they have been exposed to in pop culture or other media. These discussions could be done first in small groups then in the whole group to provide scaffolding and peer support for students at all levels who could benefit from language models and extra time for processing. During the whole group discussion, teacher would provide written support by capturing students’ answers of what students know about this topic on a classroom anchor chart, as well as providing key biographical information about Ms. Truth (she spoke only Dutch until she was 9 years old, was born into slavery, left a legacy of fighting for women's’ rights and anti-slavery). Connecting to students’ backgrounds both US-born and those with ties to other countries with similar histories would be important to support a culturally-responsive and student-centered approach.
The teacher would also present key language for the lesson, potentially as follows, in a reading guide for each student:
Tier 3 content-specific vocabulary: civil rights, injustice, abolition, suffrage, convention, slavery
Tier 2 general academic vocabulary: claim, evidence, speech, privilege, legacy
Sentence frames for writing and speaking tasks: Sojourner Truth experienced __________________________(claim). We know this because in the text, she says ______________________________________(evidence). This reminds me of ____________ because _____________________________________________________________.
Discourse support through mentor texts of speeches like Sojourner Truth’s that focus on fighting injustice and graphic organizers to show text structure
These pre-reading activities would activate and build students’ backgrounds and generate interest of the topic before diving into the complex text. All learners will participate in rigorous thinking, reading and writing tasks to meet core standard expectations. Interactive discussions and cooperative learning would be expected by all students to maximize engagement and promote a language-rich classroom. Perhaps a shared “close reading” in small groups of the text at first would allow all levels of learners to participate before being expected to read alone or by acting out key passages in pairs. Also, by allowing students to follow along to the video of the speech would provide language support so that they could focus on the meaning of the text. Those students at emerging English proficiency levels would benefit from the support of written out key language for the lesson, potentially in a reading guide with the sentence stems for reading response, as well as access to bilingual support like words in their heritage language through bilingual dictionaries, “language buddies” or instructional aides. Tiered materials allow teachers and students flexibility in differentiating instructional tasks while still providing a high level of rigor for every learner. Moreover, if the students also knew that a culminating, end-of-unit performance task would be to create their own speech around a topic of injustice impacting a group of people, they could “start with the end in mind” as they begin this unit. This final project could be a collaborative, multimedia experience, encouraging students to be creative and focus on their interpretation of the essential question across various contexts.
If we examine the above lesson snippet for levels of DOK, we may find--
DOK 1: recall
Define key words used in discussion and in passage
Identify context of passage
DOK 2: skill/concept
Explain the civil rights issues of late 1900s
Describe the causes and effects of slavery and subsequent civil rights issues
Use context clues to find the meaning of words used in the text
Make connections between pre-reading discussion and prior knowledge
DOK 3: strategic thinking
Evaluate the effects of slavery
Synthesize themes of slavery and civil rights
Justify claims and warrants using evidence from the texts or multiple sources
DOK 4: extended thinking
Develop and present a multimedia presentation in a group that answers the essential question, What effects does injustice have on individuals people and groups of people?, bringing in other texts/real-world examples and counterpoints
Teaching through a DOK framework does not mean we start at DOK 1 then sequentially move to DOK 4. We can start at DOK 3 here, for instance, by starting with a discussion the topic and essential question of injustice for a group of people then drill down into DOK tasks like identifying vocabulary and elements in a text. Because learning is fluid, as is academic language, the complexity of the tasks can reflect that fluidity while also providing appropriate language support for students to engage in tasks at any level. Using the DOK framework is not about making tasks “difficult” per se, but making sure that the complexity of the standards match to the tasks.
If we examine the lesson for adequate use of all four language domains, we may find--
Reading
Read essential question and key language for unit
Read classroom anchor chart or pre-reading discussion notes
Read “Ain’t I a Woman?” collaboratively in small group
Writing
Write essential question and key language for unit
Write pre-reading discussion notes in learning journal
Write response to “Ain’t I a Woman?” using sentence frames and partner support
Listening
Listen to pre-reading discussion
Listen to “Ain’t I a Woman?” video clip
Speaking
Repeat key language for lesson using TPR (Total Physical Response)
Participate in pre-reading discussion and group work for presentation
We know that multilingual learners--and all students, as exemplified by the shifts in college and career readiness standards--benefit from expressive language tasks through speaking and writing and receptive language tasks through listening and reading. At Confianza, we believe that ALL of our students are Academic Language Learners, so it is especially important to attend to all four language domains of reading, writing, listening and speaking so that students are getting a lot of practice time with the new content and academic language. A helpful tip for ensuring all four language domains are employed is to use the above graphic organizer is planning instruction. If the ratio of teacher talk to student talk is low, consider structuring more explicit student discussion time through strategies like “think-pair-share” and “reporting back”.
Let’s look a little deeper:
Content
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.
Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.1.A
Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
Language
Students at all levels English language proficiency interact with grade-level words and expressions such as:
Tier 3 content-specific vocabulary: civil rights, injustice, abolition, suffrage, convention, slavery
Tier 2 general academic vocabulary: claim, evidence, speech, privilege, legacy
Sentence frames for writing and speaking tasks: Sojourner Truth experienced __________________________(claim). We know this because in the text, she says ______________________________________(evidence). This reminds me of ____________ because _____________________________________________________________.
Discourse support through mentor texts of speeches like Sojourner Truth’s that focus on fighting injustice and graphic organizers to show text structure
We can see here that the language standards provide that “language lens” that is necessary when planning, teaching and assessing all of our students (who are all learning language!) Teaching social studies, as exemplified here, is more than just teaching the content of social studies. It is about teaching the language of social studies--the language of justifying claims and warrants, the language of slavery and civil rights, the language of working together in groups to do shared reading.
In Conclusion
Remember that meaningful, language-rich classrooms are necessary when working with any student learning the target academic language. As previously stated, we are teaching not just content but language, too. And so in teaching that content-specific language, we are supporting students’ language development. Through this practice, we can all be teachers of language, no matter what we teach. Starting with our students is a great place to start when creating classrooms that “hook” students’ interests in high-complexity themes. Like in the Sojourner Truth lesson, engaging students through the lens of injustice and hearing peers’ connections to the topic can really motivate students. The theme of injustice is not a low-level idea, but rather a high-level, complex one, one that all students can relate to and, hopefully, care about as it pertains to different contexts in their own life or in their history. It is our job, as educators, to find a way for all students, to want to learn more about these topics and to share their connections and learning to these big ideas. By organizing our instruction (or coaching, if you are an instructional leader) around complex essential questions, we can be sure we are not just focused on meaningful, real-world higher-order concepts but that those higher-order concepts come with differentiated language supports that allow all students access and opportunity to participate in this learning. Even if students “don’t have the language yet” of the task, we can provide that language through our interactive, language-rich lessons. We can, in fact, teach language through content. DOK is a way to ensure we are doing that in rigorous and engaging ways that provide language pathways to language learners.
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Thank you to Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) for the learning plan idea about Sojourner Truth. This resource of social justice-themed learning plans is free to educators.
Go deeper with Boosting Cognitive Engagement: A DOK Playist