Rigor.

Rigor.

Every morning when I power on my work computer I see it -- relevance, relationships, relentlessness and rigor.  Alliterative reminders of the focus of my district.

It's usually the one I need to define for kids.  When they look it up in the dictionary, it means unflexible or unyeilding; however, in the beauty of the English languge, the word has evolved into an educational buzzword that means an expectation that is academically, intellectually, or personally challenging.

I like that definition better. 

Notice and Note has helped me put this in perspective.  They explain that it's not the text that is rigorous, but it should be our examination of that text.  Think about their analogy on page 21, "A professional football player lifting a 100-pound weight ten times owuld not be justified in calling that a rigorous workout; an eighth grader trying to get into shape for the football team probably would.  And the fourth grader, who could not lift the weight at all, would, like the professional football player, be hard-pressed (pun intended) to have said his workout was rigorous.  The quality, rigor, does not reside in the barbell but in the interaction with it."

This was an "A-ha!" moment for me.  Rigorous training does not reside in the equipment, but in how we use it.

This makes sense.  It actually makes a lot of sense.

Therefore, rigorous reading of a text does not mean we need to choose more difficult pieces of text, but rather we need to react more intentionally with the text that we're using.  What is the focus of the task? What questions does the reading stimulate? What problem needs to be solved? What lesson needs to be learned? What unique viewpoint of the world is this text providing?

They all lead to one of my favorite questions, "Why is it important?"

This conversation is freeing to me.  This conversation allows me to scaffold how my students interact with text to build them to ones that require more complex thinking without questioning how rigorous they are.  When planned correctly, engagement and commitment to reading along the way are a rigorous activity - pushing the bar, walking with the student to think more, leaving a desire for more.

As I reflect over our reading list for this year, this approach will flavor how I approach our texts.  My original checklist for rigorous interaction with the text would include some of the following areas:

*  Students develop a deeper understanding of the topic.
*  Students use this understanding to develop personal claims about the text.
*  Student claims can be supported across multiple texts.
*  Evidence is used to support these claims through paraphrasing/summarizing/quoting.
*  Students elaborate on that that evidence supports the original claim.
*  Students practice using academic vocabulary as appropriate.
*  Students build upon other's contributions to the conversation.

When writing, I'd add
*  Students present knowledge using a logical format.

As the year progresses, I would probably add/subtract from this list, individualizing it more to the needs of the group/child. 

Regardless of the traditional definition of the word, educational rigor should embrace and advance the learning of each child.