NBPTS AYA English flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Zone of proximal development

Vygotsky's concept describing the gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can do with expert or peer assistance; scaffolds target this space and are gradually removed.

BICS versus CALP

Cummins distinguishes basic interpersonal communicative skills (conversational fluency, roughly 1-3 years) from cognitive academic language proficiency (academic text, roughly 5-7 years). Content-area reading demands CALP.

Funds of knowledge

Moll's term for the skills, knowledge, and networks students develop in households and communities; instruction that connects to these assets increases engagement and comprehension.

Metacognitive reading strategies

Self-regulated routines such as monitoring comprehension, repairing breakdowns, summarizing, questioning, and setting a purpose; skilled adolescent readers deploy these automatically, struggling readers often do not.

Schema theory

Comprehension depends on prior knowledge structures; readers with weak or mismatched schema need pre-reading supports such as anticipation guides, concept maps, and vocabulary front-loading.

Adolescent brain development

The prefrontal cortex governing planning and impulse control matures later than limbic reward systems, explaining heightened peer influence and risk-taking in secondary students and informing classroom management.

Motivation and engagement

Adolescent literacy engagement rises when students perceive competence, autonomy, relevance, and belonging; reading motivation often declines in middle school without these supports.

Theme versus motif

Theme is the central insight a text offers about life or human experience; a motif is a recurring element (image, phrase, object) that develops and reinforces the theme.

Tone versus mood

Tone is the author's or speaker's attitude toward the subject; mood is the emotional atmosphere the reader experiences. They are often confused but analytically distinct.

Close reading protocol

Rereading, annotating, identifying patterns, examining diction and syntax, connecting form to meaning, and supporting interpretive claims with specific textual evidence.

Narrative point of view

The perspective from which a story is told: first person, third limited, third omniscient, or second person; reliability and access to information vary with each choice.

Dramatic irony

A gap between what a character knows and what the audience knows, creating tension or humor; a core convention for analyzing drama and narrative.

Text complexity triad

Quantitative measures (readability formulas), qualitative features (structure, theme, knowledge demands), and reader-task considerations jointly determine whether a text is appropriately challenging.

Literary theory lenses

Interpretive frameworks such as formalist, reader-response, historical, feminist, postcolonial, and critical race approaches; each generates different questions and readings of the same text.

Toulmin argument model

Argument structure of claim, reasons, evidence, warrants linking evidence to claim, qualifiers, and rebuttals; a practical framework for teaching and assessing written argument.

Rhetorical appeals

Ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic); analyzing their use helps students both critique persuasive texts and construct their own.

Rhetorical situation

The context of communication: audience, purpose, context, exigence, and message; teaching it helps students adapt writing to real readers and tasks.

Writing process stages

Prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing; the process is recursive rather than linear, and the emphasis shifts by genre and purpose.

Tiered vocabulary

Tier 1 everyday words, Tier 2 academic words used across disciplines, and Tier 3 domain-specific terms; Tier 2 words offer the highest leverage for comprehension instruction.

Analytic writing rubric

A rubric scoring separate criteria such as ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions; each level describes observable performance.

Source evaluation criteria

Currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose; a checklist for judging research sources and teaching students to evaluate information independently.

Backward design

Wiggins and McTighe's planning sequence: identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, then design learning experiences; alignment runs from standards to assessment to instruction.

Gradual release of responsibility

Pearson and Gallagher's model: modeled instruction, guided practice, collaborative practice, then independent practice, shifting cognitive work progressively to students.

Differentiation dimensions

Tomlinson's framework: differentiate content, process, product, and learning environment in response to student readiness, interest, and learning profile.

Universal Design for Learning

A proactive design framework offering multiple means of engagement, representation, and action or expression; it reduces barriers before individual accommodations are needed.

SAMR and TPACK

SAMR describes technology use levels from substitution to redefinition; TPACK describes the intersection of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge for purposeful integration.

Formative versus summative assessment

Formative assessment informs instruction during learning; summative assessment certifies achievement at the end of a unit. Both are valid but answer different questions.

Validity and reliability

Validity means an assessment measures what it claims; reliability means it produces consistent results across occasions and raters. Valid scores require adequate reliability.

Data-informed decision cycle

Collect, analyze, interpret, act, and re-assess; disaggregating results by subgroup reveals inequitable patterns that aggregate scores can hide.

Professional learning community questions

Four guiding questions: what should students learn, how will we know they learned it, what if they did not, and what if they already did.

Co-teaching models

Arrangements such as one-teach-one-support, station, parallel, alternative, and team teaching; success requires shared planning time and joint accountability.

Culturally sustaining pedagogy

Paris's framework extending culturally responsive teaching by treating students' languages and cultural practices as resources to sustain, not obstacles to overcome.