In this presentation from the 2012 NWP Annual Meeting, Michael Smith, Jim Fredricksen, and Jeffrey Wilhelm address the kinds of knowledge and the types of writing that students are going to need to not just meet the Common Core State Standards, but surpass them.

1. Q. What do students need to know in
order to read and write narrative,
argument and informational texts?
(and to meet and exceed the CCSS)?
A. Five kinds of composing (the writing process
on steroids!)
Five kinds of knowledge (necessary to deep
and transferable understanding)
Michael W. Smith, Temple University; Jeffrey D.
Wilhelm and Jim Fredricksen, Boise State
University

3. Declarative Procedural
Form
Substance

4. 5 Kinds of Knowledge
Declarative Procedural
Knowing the names and definitions of Being able to devise a warrant (evidentiary
Toulmin’s elements reasoning) to link data to a claim
Naming the ordering principle of a list. Being able to employ parallel structure and
significant principles of ordering
Form
Knowing the elements of the Freytag pyramid Being able to create a compelling problem
Knowing the content of a literary text Being able to find compelling textual evidence
Remembering and reciting what is on a list Having strategies for generating lists
Substance
Knowing the details of a personal experience
Knowing some particular details of the Being able to imagine details of a created
geographic situation of a setting experience

5. 5 Kinds of Composing
• Composing to Plan
• Composing to Practice
• First-Draft Composing
• Final Draft Composing
• Composing to Transfer

6. .

7. Narrative is about trouble and
how people respond to it.

8. Expect ations
//(break)//

9. Purpose
& “… (people) do a lot of
Context things that prevent their
seeing the narrative
structures that
Where? characterize their lives.
When? Mostly, they don’t look,
Why? don’t pause to look…”
-- Jerome Bruner

10. Composing different types of
narratives can help students
notice, challenge, and even change
narratives.

17. How to find or invent
the substance of Character
narratives
Story world
Time
Filter
Slant

18. Collecting characters helps students
find and invent stories.
W = the character’s world
A = the character’s action steps to a goal
G = the character’s goal
S = the character’s notion of what’s at stake
---------------------------
From Peter Rubie and Gary Provost’s (1998) How to Tell a Story

20. Using the 5 kinds to teach
informational text structures
CCSS Anchor Standards for Teaching Literacy in the
Disciplines
Text Types and Purposes
• Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of
substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and
relevant and sufficient evidence.
• Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and
convey complex ideas and information clearly and
accurately through the effective selection,
organization, and analysis of content.
• Write narratives to develop real or imagined
experiences or events using effective technique, well-
chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

21. 70% info text across subjects
• We’re going to have to do more teaching of
informational texts and more explicit teaching
of informational text structures
• We are going to have to help our colleagues in
content areas to do more and more explicit
teaching of the reading and writing of
informational text

22. Informational Text Types/Thought
Patterns named in the CCSS
• Naming
• Listing
• Summarizing
• Describing
• Process Description/Explaining/ How To
• Defining/ Extended Definition
• Comparing
• Classifying/ Differentiating/ Grouping
• Cause – Effect
• Problem – Solution

23. Bruner: Narratives vs. paradigms – patterns that do
functional work
• The paradigmatic: "To perceive is to categorize, to
conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form
categories, to make decisions is to categorize.” (Bruner)
That is, each kind of informational text structure
embodies a specific pattern of thinking with and
through categories. In turn, this means that teaching
students how to understand, produce and use
informational text structures means that we are
teaching them how to think with these categorical
patterning tools.

24. As writers and as readers
• To understand text structures as thought
patterns, to be able to generate and
comprehend such structures, students must
understand the purpose of the text structure
(what work it does) the context in which it can
do such work, content (substance), and how
the content is structured to meet the purpose
(form) and create specific meanings and
effects.

25. Gut Check while planning units
• The five kinds of composing and five kinds of
knowledge are teaching heuristics for teaching
students heuristics that they can use for reading
and writing now and throughout the future.
• So, we must make sure to engage students in
activities that help them 1) understand purpose
and context, 2) access prior knowledge and learn
invention strategies for developing new
knowledge, 3) shape and structure data into
conventional forms that exert particular
meanings and effects

26. Listing as a thought pattern/text
structure
• More complicated than you might think!
• Helps us learn invention and structuring
strategies with implications for all other
informational text structures

27. Composing to plan/Knowledge of
purpose and context
Invention Strategies: Brainstorming; Ethnographic
Seek and Find activity:
When do you use listing in your everyday life?
(Grocery lists, Basic 5 for kayaking, etc.)
What “work” do the lists get done?
When do you use listing in your disciplinary work?
What “work” gets done through these lists?

28. Composing to plan/Knowledge of
purpose and context
• Brainstorm for a unit or text you already
teach
• What kind of essential question could
you ask that would require and reward
the reading and writing of lists (or any
other informational text structure)?
• E.g. What do we need to survive and
thrive? Survive and thrive middle
school? While living in a foreign
culture? Etc.

29. Composing to Plan/ Procedural
Knowledge of Substance – strategies
for generating and inventing the stuff
• Contexts for listing activity – what strategies
would you use to generate the list?
Grocery store, kayaking/trip, buying presents
• Strategies of Invention: Geo-scan, Schedule scan,
Body Scan, Interview/Survey experts, etc.
• Put on anchor chart

30. Composing to Practice/Procedural
knowledge of substance and form
• Simple vs. significant lists
• Think alouds with lists (model the strategies
and crux moves, mentor, monitor their use)
• Revisions with lists – what do we need to
know to make lists significant? More
significant?

31. Heuristic for reading lists (could use
while reading CCSS Anchor Standards)
• What is the topic of the list? Explicit and implicit?
• What is the purpose of the list?
• Is the list simple or significant?
• If significant, what is the ordering principle/s both
overall and within segments
• What are the repeated motifs/themes/cover
terms that provide coherence?
• (moving towards summary) Revisit the topic and
rephrase as needed. Identify most important
Power Words/Cover terms – use to frame a
comment about the topic

32. Practice with substance and form:
Simple vs. Significant lists
What’s the topic? The ordering
• LA Rams principle?
• Seattle Supersonics
• Baltimore Colts
• Brooklyn Dodgers
• Philadelphia Athletics
• Cleveland Browns
• Washington Senators

33. Practice: Purpose, Content, Form with
substance from the inquiry topic
• Water
• Food
• Shelter
• Clothing
• Affection
• Have students add to lists you create, create their
own lists related to the unit, create lists with
outliers, share and respond, all the while
identifying topic and organizing principles :
practice, practice, practice!

34. Topic, possible Outliers?
• Banana
• Apple
• Snickers
• Rice Cracker
• Peanuts

35. Early and Final Draft
Composing/Bringing all five kinds of
knowledge together
• Articulating lists that answer the inquiry, e.g.
what do we need to know to survive middle
school?
• Articulating and applying standards for
generating significant and usable lists, ordering of
lists to fit purpose
• Revising – moving, changing, adding, deleting
items from the list
• Proofreading
• Sharing, presenting, publishing, making archival

36. Composing to Transfer/Looking to the
future
• Concentric Circles – Layers of Understanding- what
have you learned about surviving, about listing? What
do you need to remember for your final composition,
for the future?
• Muddy/Marvy
• Past- present – future protocol
• New Application, e.g. songs – how is the list
significant? What meaning and effect is achieved?
• From The Rape of the Lock: On Belinda’s dressing table
“Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux.”

37. Gut check?
• How were all five kinds of composing used to
develop all five kinds of knowledge?
• How were students involved in activities that
required them to “produce” meaning through
lists – to actively understand purpose, plan,
generate and shape substance?

38. Let’s look at SUMMARY writing
• Because everybody summarizes all the time
and it is WAY WAY harder than we think to do
it well.
• Text structures are tools – for getting work
done
• Text structures are culturally constructed and
are therefore improvable and extensible
• Summaries use lists

39. Composing to Plan/Knowledge of
Purpose and Context
• Compose an Essential Question, reframing a
unit you teach into a problem to be solved
that will require and reward summarization.
• REQUIRING SUMMARY: What do we need to
know to be an informed voter?

40. Composing to plan a
summary/procedural knowledge of
substance and form
• Berke: “*Summarizing requires+ capturing the
purpose and topic, the key details, and the
pattern expressed by the relationships
between those details to communicate the
key idea(s).”
• CCSS Anchor standard #5 for Writing, #2 for
Reading

41. Composing to plan/ Procedural
knowledge of substance:
Basic heuristic for generating the
substance of a summary
• Key details essential to understanding (a list!)
• Topic (general subject and purpose of the list)
• The patterning of the those details
• The point or comment about the topic
expressed by this patterning of these details.

42. Macro-rules for summarizing (Brown)
• Deletion: 1- discard non-crucial information; 2-
discard redundant information
• Substitution: 3- superordinate term for a list
(generalization rule);
4- superordinate action for a list of actions
(integration rule)
• Pure Summary: 5- Use a topic statement or key
detail for a section of text;
6- Invent a topic statement or key detail that
encompasses a section of text

43. Integration and Generalization Rules
• Brushing teeth, mouthwash, putting on pajamas, say
goodnight to parents = (integration)
• Oatmeal, dry cereal, milk, OJ, pastry poppers =
(generalization)
• Read a variety of resources from different perspectives
and make sure you know the perspective of each
resource. Read news magazines. Talk to people with
differing opinions. Meet the candidates if you can. Go
to debates or informational meetings, or watch them
on TV or over the Internet. Write down and justify
your decisions on each candidate and referenda issue
before the election =

44. Summary of THE HUNGER GAMES
Apply rules of deletion
• Katniss is main character
• Katniss is a hunter
• Gale likes Katniss
• Sister is chosen as female tribute for Panem to
participate in the hunger games, a punishment
for past uprising Districts against Panem
• Katniss takes her place
• Katniss and Peeta whisked to capital to be
prepared for the Games
• Dressed in flames for opening ceremonies

45. Topic-Comment strategy

50. Defining

51. Practice identifying meaningful
groupings:
The pyramid game
• Panda

52. Practice classifying the data:
The pyramid game
• Panda
• Rabbit

53. Practice classifying the data:
The pyramid game
• Panda
• Rabbit
• Chevette
• Now identify the criteria for being on the list

54. Practice identifying contrastive
examples and explanations
• Twinkie
• Mudpie
• Apple
• Little Debbie
• Snickers
• Jolly Ranchers
• IDENTIFY THE CRITERIA FOR BEING ON THE LIST,
AND DISQUALIFYING CRITERIA - WHY ONE DOES
NOT FIT THE LIST AND IS A CONTRASTIVE
EXAMPLE
• Cf. Collaboration, speaking and listening
standards

55. Frayers
FRAYER MODEL
SPECIFIC INSTANCES/EXAMPLES S PECIFIC NON-EXAMPLES
GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND DEF WORKING DEFINITION
CHARACTERISTICS
viii-4

56. Roundtables 8 a.m. Saturday
Signing at 10 a.m. Saturday
Heinemann booth