Group items tagged

Nancy defines back-mapping in this way, " …a process whereby we ask students to reconsider what they have learned and how they have learned it".

Good site for content area literacy activities in the area of evidence and argumentation. Students use higher-order thinking skills when they learn to critically construct, evaluate, and defend their arguments using the "Showing Evidence Tool". Project examples and strategies are also provided here.

Improving Teaching and Learning Through Instructional Rounds

TextProject aims to bring beginning and struggling readers to high levels of literacy through a variety of strategies and tools, particularly the texts used for reading instruction.

The leader of this project, Elfrieda Heibert, is on the IRA Common Core ELA standards committee as well. One of the most interesting things I saw on the text complexity module is how we can modify the complexity levels of texts (higher and lower) by making a few changes to word choice, conventions, sentence length, etc. There are good examples included. This may be something valuable for students with IEPs and those learning English.

Website to support the book, "Fires in the Mind" by Kathleen Cushman.  The book highlights what students say about motivation and mastery.