INTRODUCTION

Redefining Rigor

The task seemed simple enough. “Share your annotations and compare your findings with a partner,” the eighth-grade English language arts (ELA) teacher instructed her students, who had read and marked up the claims and reasoning of a nonfiction essay (as articulated in Common Core State Standard RI.8.8; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] & Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010) for homework the previous evening. But bigger plans were afoot. After a few minutes of partner work, she merged pairs into table groups of four, charging each group with gathering textual evidence in support of an answer to the overarching problem this lesson and the next would solve, What does it mean to be free? She asked groups that finished the task early to consider alternative perspectives and supporting evidence. The teacher circulated around the room, checking for understanding and reminding groups of the class norms—everyone participates, claims must be grounded in evidence from the texts, and so on. When ready, she reconvened the whole class and initiated a discussion in which she asked students to respond to one another’s ideas by debating over their responses to the task and utilizing the text to support the strengths and flaws of their peers’ arguments. The lesson wrapped up with an exit ticket that prompted students to synthesize their findings on the homework text with previous texts in the unit to develop an initial claim in response to the problem.

Across the hall, the teacher’s colleague assigned the same homework to her students. Here, the teacher reread a portion of the text aloud, pausing to let students share their annotations; she shared her annotations when students did not share their own. She facilitated a whole-class discussion based on students’ opinion of the text,