Group items tagged

"Last year, Mr. Olsen and Ms. Gross, who work at High Technology High School in Lincroft, N.J., a school that U.S. News ranks as the No. 1 S.T.E.M. school in the nation, created short daily reading and writing prompts for their students to use with that day's Times. They told us they wanted to do it again this year, but wanted to tailor the tasks more closely to Common Core demands. So we agreed. Each week, they will send us the questions they tried in class that they and their students felt were the most successful. So, beginning Sept. 21, each Friday you'll find three quick, classroom-tested tasks that ask students to do Common Core-focused work with that week's Times. Our hope is that you'll see at least one each Friday that works for you, and that you'll write in and help us shape the feature as we go. It's an experiment, after all."

"Each Friday we collaborate with a classroom in New Jersey to test and publish three short writing ideas that address Common Core Standards and that are grounded in New York Times content. This week, all three prompts focus on the common theme of life on a coastline - a topic of great importance to our classroom collaborators, who recently went through weeks of disruption because of Hurricane Sandy."

"Students who write for their teacher write for a grade. Students who write for an audience write to connect, to argue, to entertain, to inform. And when they have other purposes for their writing other than a grade, they begin to care about the craft, choose carefully their words, shape thoughtfully their sentences. Isn't this the goal of writing standards? So the question is: Does your school provide or cheat your students out of an audience? Or, to cut to the chase: Does your school actively support a newspaper or broadcast program? If it doesn't, please stop going on about how you're meeting the Common Core standards. Because in spirit you're not."

Nice article about how to use badges with the Common Core. I'd love to see how we could do this at Central. If there was only more time in a day....

Poetry's role in the common core skill set!

"Educators around the country are exploring innovative ways to teach the new common-core literacy standards, and some are calling attention to an approach they say is working well: interdisciplinary thematic units."

The Common Core: What Danielson would do!

reading non-fiction as inquiry - plug in author for scientists in the chart to add an inquiry angle to the text.

Other than a mention of the need to "evaluate information from multiple oral, visual, or multimodal sources," there is no specific reference in the common standards to critical analysis and production of film, television, advertising, radio, news, music, popular culture, video games, media remixes, and so on. Nor is there explicit attention on fostering critical analysis of media messages and representations. A 1999 national survey of state standards found elements of media literacy in almost every state's teaching standards. As states adopt the common-core standards, the result may actually be a reduced focus on media and literacy instruction formally contained in state standards. We therefore recommend four ways to address the common standards' limited focus on media/digital literacies:

NY state resources for the common core - k-8 for now but good frameworks and test blueprints

"Technology tools also have value beyond teaching the core curriculum. Here are our recommendations for research-proven tech tools that can enable more comprehensive assessment and better collaborative discussions. We also explore the best resources for teaching digital literacy in the classroom."

Tips for teaching and studying non-fiction. Genre study

For those of you who do the six word story - this lesson focuses on close reading and word choice.

"The Common Core State Standards--has, in some places, contributed to narrowing students' experience of writing inside school. In that contradictory and shifting environment, the NCTE Executive Committee charged a committee to update the Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing, attempting to reflect some of the historically significant changes of recent years. What follow are some of the professional principles that guide effective teaching."

"To read a text closely one must only rely on the words in the text and their relationships to each other. They don't turn to other sources. Close readers learn to notice metaphors or symbols, interesting juxtapositions of information, ambiguities, and the like (clues authors might have left behind to reveal the text meaning to those who read closely).             The Common Core State Standards require that we teach students to be close readers-to not only grasp the literal and inferential meanings of a text, but to understand how an author's word choices and structures convey higher-level meanings; how to figure out the subtler aspects of a text.             As such, close reading only makes sense is if texts have deeper meanings. If there aren't deeper meanings requiring such text analysis, then close reading would have no value. That means close reading requires certain kinds of text complexity."

"School 21, a public school in London has made "oracy" a primary focus of everything they do. From the earliest grades on up teachers support students to find their voice, express differing opinions politely, and challenge one another's thinking. These are skills called for in the Common Core, but can be hard to find in many classrooms because students haven't been taught how to make "turn and talks" truly effective. The Edutopia team visited School 21 and captured some amazing videos of students practicing their communication skills with support from teachers."

"Ah, listening, the neglected literacy skill. I know when I was a high school English teacher this was not necessarily a primary focus; I was too busy honing the more measurable literacy skills -- reading, writing, and speaking. But when we think about career and college readiness, listening skills are just as important. This is evidenced by the listening standards found in the Common Core and also the integral role listening plays in collaboration and communication, two of the four Cs of 21st century learning. So how do we help kids become better listeners? Check out these tactics for encouraging a deeper level of listening that also include student accountability:"

"During the school year, students are expected to listen to and absorb vast amounts of content. But how much time has been devoted to equipping students with ways to disconnect from their own internal dialogue (self-talk) and to focus their attention fully on academic content that is being presented? Learning to listen well is a prime example of a skill that many assume shouldn't need to be taught. The Common Core State Standards for Language Arts recognize the importance of listening as an ability that students must master to become college and career ready. Listening is a crucial aspect of school and life, but it is often expected of students without ever being taught. The HEAR strategy described below is designed to help students recognize and block out that noise as they devote their attention to listening."

"The adoption of the Common Core could usher in a new era of standards-based grading."