CCSS Connections

• Reading Standards 7-9 outline that we should be teaching across texts, integrating knowledge and ideas.
• Reading Standard 10 outlines the expectation that we are incorporating a range of text types (and complexities) into our classroom instruction.
• Almost 10% of the Common Core ELA/Literacy Standards addresses some aspect of multiple texts or text comparisons.
• Honor the new, expanded definition of literacy, which includes text that comes in different modalities. Here’s a quick chart of the major differences among them.

Text Set Resources

Kristina found these two resources especially helpful for her research and understanding of Text Sets.

• Expanding Comprehension with Multi-Genre Text Sets
• Teaching with Text Sets

For a list of picture books sorted by content-area themes and concepts, you’ll love Lester Laminack’s book Reading Aloud Across the Curriculum. It’s a book of books!

Build your own Text-Set Box

• Purchase additional boxes (18″ x 11″ x 4″) through ULINE.
• Text Sets outside-the-box sticker
• Outside-the-box decorative stickers
• Driving Question sign

Or build a Virtual Text Set

• Using the PowerPoint template
• Using the SmartBoard template

Utilize the possible texts planning template when first gathering texts for a set. Then, once the Driving Question is determined, begin to finalize texts, coding them for order and sub-question relevance.

As you’re presenting each text within the set, students could be synthesizing the ideas they are learning using this simple template.

Sample Text Sets

Download the complete journal that documents how Liz Shockey and Kristina Smekens built three Text Sets below.

• Download the POSSIBLE TEXTS collected for the Weather Unit.
• Download the FINALIZED TEXTS determined for the Weather Unit.
• Download the POSSIBLE TEXTS collected for the Underground Railroad Unit.
• Download the FINALIZED TEXTS determined for the Underground Railroad Unit.
• Download the POSSIBLE TEXTS collected for the Courage Unit.
• Download the FINALIZED TEXTS determined for the Courage Unit.

K-2 Weather Texts:

• 10-Day Lesson Plan for the Science/Weather Unit
• Download the complete compilation of texts used within this Text Set.
• Anchor Text: Big Book, Weather, SRA McGraw-Hill
• Big Book, Who Cares About the Weather? Melvin Berger
• Big Book, excerpt from Air, Sun, Water: How Weather Works, Scholastic
• Come on, Rain! Karen Hesse
• A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, Renée Watson
• Weather Words and What They Mean, Gail Gibbons
• The Science Behind the Weather, Darlene R. Stille
• Excerpt from Scholastic Atlas of Weather, Scholastic
• TheWeatherChannelKids.com–Weather Ready Guides (link no longer available)

Underground Railroad Texts:

• 10-Day Lesson Plan for the Social Studies/Underground Railroad Unit
• Download the complete compilation of texts used within this Text Set.
• Anchor Text: …If You Traveled the Underground Railroad, Ellen Levine
• Unspoken, Henry Cole
• Grade-level textbook excerpts
  • Underground Railroad Definition, p189
  • Leading People to Freedom, p190-191
• “A Positive Good,” excerpt of John Calhoun’s speech to the Senate in 1837
• The Underground Railroad Timeline & Digital Maps
• Night Running, Ellen Levine
• “The Underground Railroad,” painting by Charles Webber
• “What did Escaping Slaves Endure/Risk?” (Freedom Center link no longer available)
• Runaway slave ads
  • Baltimore, Maryland
• Primary Sources for the Interactive Whiteboard, Scholastic, including photos of Slave Tags
• Leveled Texts for Social Studies: Expanding & Preserving the Union, “Abolitionists Helped”
• John Rankin’s Letters on American Slavery
• Henry’s Freedom Box, Ellen Levine

Courage Texts:

• 11-Day Lesson Plan for the ELA Theme/Courage Unit
• Download the complete compilation of texts used within this Text Set.
• Secondary ELA teachers may want to teach this Text Set in conjunction with a novel that has a strong theme of courage (e.g., Number the Stars, Divergent, Hunger Games, Red Badge of Courage, Island of Blue Dolphins, The Cay, Call it Courage, Nightjohn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Speak, etc.).
• Anchor Text: Courage PowerPoint
• Courage Quotes for students to cut up and sort (Day 1 of Lesson Plan)
  • Source: Top 30 Courage Quotes (link no longer available)
  • Source: Notable Quotes

SACRIFICIAL COURAGE

• On Board the Titanic, excerpt on Jack Thayer p34 and the woman who gave up her seat on the boat, p28
• Heroes of 9/11, Allan Zullo

GUTSY COURAGE

• “You’ve Got to Stand for Something,” Aaron Tippin
  • YouTube Music Video
  • Lyrics
• The Story of Ruby Bridges, Robert Coles
• Ruby Bridges The Movie (Part 2/9) HQ
• Real Kids, Real Stories, Real Change: Courageous Acts Around the World, Garth Sundem (out of print)

CALM COURAGE

• Sit In: Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down, Andrea Davis Pinkney
• Disasters That Shook the World, including “The Miracle on the Hudson” excerpt
• Jackie Robinson: American Hero, Sharon Robinson
• Titanic, the movie clip of the musicians playing during the final hours, plus the excerpt from page 25 caption in On Board the Titanic, Shelley Tanaka, and the online news article titled, “Could music have calmed the passengers as the Titanic sank?”

HOPEFUL COURAGE

• Many of the interstate billboards reference an inspiring story of hope and courage. Check out Values.com for all available. NOTE: These would be fabulous resources for ANY themed Text Set.
• Amy Murray High School yearbook story
• John John salutes his father’s coffin
• Real Kids, Real Stories, Real Change: Courageous Acts Around the World, Garth Sundem (out of print)
• New York’s Bravest: Eight Decades of Photographs from the Daily News, ed. Shawn O’Sullivan