Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

"By setting up ways to get frequent feedback from students' works in progress, we can find out what they need-before it's too late. Several years ago, I decided that if I were going to spend time writing comments on my students' writing work or on assignments connected to their in-class reading, those comments had to do more than justify a grade. They had to give targeted feedback that would show students how to improve the quality of their work. I'd been finding the hours I spent writing feedback on students' work discouraging. For one thing, students didn't pay attention to my comments, and, for another, the quality of their work wasn't improving. A change in how I responded to their work was necessary. If I wanted my comments to fuel improvement, I realized, I had to build in time for learners to revise their work after receiving my suggestions. Not only did I change the timing of my feedback, but I also streamlined my process of writing comments, allowing myself more time to shift instruction in response to what I'd learned from reviewing work"

"Until the release of the Common Core State Standards, many educators didn't realize that writing skills need to develop incrementally, with the work that students do at one grade level standing on the shoulders of prior learning. It would be hard to achieve this high level of craft and knowledge if students weren't moving steadily along a spiralling curriculum, practicing and extending skills in each type of writing each year. After all, in math, teachers agree on content and ensure that students move up the grade levels with the essential skills that teachers agreed upon. That same focus on writing as content, as a set of skills, will move grade levels of students forward, rather than individuals who happened to get this teacher or that. writing will needto be given its due, starting in kindergarten and continuing throughout the grades."-LUCY CALKINS

"How in the world are we supposed to apply the Common Core writing standards to teaching English language learners? We've been asking that question of ourselves and others over the past two years, and we suspect we're not the only educators doing so. After reviewing the many resources available that attempt to provide guidance to teachers of English language learners (see "Resources of Note") and combining what we've learned through our daily classroom experience, we've developed a tentative answer to that question. Educators need to keep in mind three crucial elements when teaching writing to English language learners (ELLs) in the context of the Common Core State Standards:"

"Take a moment to think about how you learned to write. What steps did you go through? What was your process?"

"In response, we asked her if she was willing to send us her argument-writing unit so we could share it with other teachers. We're pleased to publish it below, including all of her handouts and recommended videos embedded. And, of course, all students age 13 to 19 can find this year's contest here."

"When I first started teaching writing in history class a number of years ago, I was totally focused on the students just getting their ideas out and being able to write on historical themes."

"I was just given a copy of the GaDOE's Curriculum Maps for ELA 9-12th grades. I need some help from you before I quit my job and lead the charge for every other high school English teacher to do the same. I have taught for many years, am am good at my job, am an asset to the school at which I teach, and love teaching."

:One of the things students struggle with the most - and it's relevant to every grade and subject - is distinguishing between argument and evidence. This problem manifests itself in both reading and writing. In this article, I want to briefly highlight these two key Common Core ELA-Literacy elements and point you to more in-depth discussion and resources at my Literacy Cookbook blog.

Lately, I've been working with teachers on how to help students write more effective paragraphs and essays. We have found that students can quickly master Step 1-applying the three rules for determining if a statement is an argument or not (it includes debatable/arguable words; it includes cause/effect language, or it raises "How" or "Why" questions). But they need more scaffolding to move from Step 2 to Step 3.

"The Common Core State Standards recognize that to thrive in the newly wired world, students need to master new ways of reading and writing."

"To be college and career ready, students need to be able to read sufficiently complex texts on their own and gather evidence, knowledge, and insight from those texts. These close reading exemplars intend to model how teachers can support their students as they undergo the kind of careful reading the Common Core State Standards require. Each of these exemplars features the following: i) readings tasks in which students are asked to read and reread passages and respond to a series of text dependent questions; 2) vocabulary and syntax tasks which linger over noteworthy or challenging words and phrases; 3) discussion tasks in which students are prompted to use text evidence and refine their thinking; and 4) writing tasks that assess student understanding of the text."

"Social studies supervisors and teachers across the country are revising their unit plans to meet their state's content standards, as well as, the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History and Social Studies. Simultaneously, many states are implementing new evaluation and observation frameworks. The performance ratings employed by the most popular evaluation models encourage a shift away from teacher-led direct instruction to more student-centered activities incorporating inquiry and synthesis. In social studies, primary source document analysis goes hand in hand with the 9-12 Common Core reading and writing standards. Here are five top resources to align your curricula to the Common Core with student driven lessons. "

"When students write a paper, it goes without saying that they must cite the sources that they use in creating it. For generations, students have created note cards to document and organize these resources and/or submitted a bibliography page with their finished work. In the modern classroom, student research and creation has taken on a new look. Before, when students created a poster, and then separately handed in a bibliography page to the teacher, justice was done and fair credit was given for the ideas used."

"For some, the Common Core State Standards seemed to come from nowhere, and appeared to be a sneaky attack on states' rights to control local education. But for those involved in writing the standards, it was nothing short of an exhaustive and collaborative years-long effort aimed at raising the achievement levels of students across the country. "

" I say "rough sketch" because, let's be honest, Arizona doesn't look like that. But it's also a rough sketch because you need far more than three colors of white board marker to tell the full story of the states' collaborations to build both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests. Related Posts Why Indiana Is Scaling Back Participation In Common Core Testing Consortia PARCC Before Today's Governing Board Meeting: Five Things To Know About PARCC Ritz: Pausing Common Core Rollout Keeps Standards, Assessments Aligned Education Next: Common Core Is A Set Of Standards, Not Curriculum Minnesota Warns Parents To Prepare For Lower Scores On New Common Core Tests How Michigan Might Provide A Template For States Hoping To Leave Common Core How Science & Social Studies Teachers Are Transitioning To The Common Core Topics The story isn't only complex because of Indiana's recent "pausing" of both the Common Core's implementation and the state's participation in the PARCC consortium. (Though state officials have stopped attending governing board meetings, Indiana hasn't officially left the group, so Elle still colored them blue.) Explaining to me why she mixed her work with my work of art, Elle broke it down like this: 20 states and the District of Columbia participate in PARCC: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Dakota*, Oklahoma** 24 states participate in Smarter Balanced: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Hawai'i, North Dakota*, Alaska*** * North Dakota participates in both PARCC and Smarter Balanced. ** Oklahoma announced this week it will develop its

"In this thoughtful article in Kappa Delta Pi Record, consultant/authors Mike Schmoker and Carol Jago say, "Done right, the ELA Common Core has the potential to right the ship of literacy, to facilitate, at long last, the creation of coherent curriculum in every course, and to rescue us from the fads and pseudo-literacies of recent decades." They believe the CCSS appendices and ancillary documents are the "true strength" of the document, providing resources for students "to engage in close reading of large amounts of high-quality, complex text, combined with opportunities to engage in discussion and writing grounded in text." "

"Shanahan on Literacy - nformation for teachers and parents on teaching and assessing reading, writing, and literacy, and information on Timothy Shanahan's upcoming professional appearances and publications."

"We must end the absurd notion that balanced literacy is somehow at odds with the Common Core. The best balanced literacy practices have advocated for some of the smartest and most rigorous work around nonfiction reading and writing, and other crucial Common Core practices, long before anyone heard the words "Common Core." Are there some schools that practice balanced literacy at the expense of rigor? Of course, but that is a flaw in the implementation, not the idea. "

It's always a little disconcerting when your students aren't understanding an objective you feel you've taught. It's even more frustrating when materials to support that Common Core State Standard don't seem to exist in read-to-use format anywhere. This is the case with our objective on writing structure in third grade. After a week of getting nowhere, I wrote some paragraphs, armed my kids with highlighters, and broke out the trusted flip book template for a lesson that finally connected.

"he chemistry students at Northwestern High School were not fiddling with Bunsen burners or studying the periodic table one recent weekday morning. They were sitting at their desks, reading an article about food coloring, underlining key ideas and preparing to analyze it in an essay. This is the beginning of what Prince George's County officials hope will be a significant shift in teaching and learning, one that mirrors a change taking hold in high schools nationwide as districts adjust to the Common Core State Standards. Literacy, long the responsibility of English teachers, is filtering into every other classroom - including math, science and even health class."