Author Archives: Aaron Grossman

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About Aaron Grossman

I am a 5th grade teacher at Roy Gomm Elementary in Reno, Nevada. I started working with elementary students as part of the Montana Reads program and AmeriCorps. In 2001, after graduating from the University of Montana and moving to Reno, Nevada, I student taught at Rita Cannan Elementary before receiving a 6th grade position at Veterans Elementary. I moved out of the classroom to be a Literacy Coordinator, then an Instructional Coach, and finally a School Improvement Program Coordinator. In 2011, I began working on the Nevada Academic Content Standards in the district’s Curriculum & Instruction Department. I returned to the classroom for the 2015-2016 school year to teach 4th grade at Huffaker Elementary. Before returning to the classroom, I helped develop the Core Task Project that has been featured by National Public Radio, the Gates Foundation, American Radio Works, Eduwonk, the Fordham Institute, Vox, and the Center for American Progress. In 2014, I received the Leader to Learn From Award for my teacher-centered initiative and work to bring college, career, and civics ready outcomes into Northern Nevada classrooms (here). In 2015, I was appointed by Governor Sandoval serve on the Statewide RPDP Council. The same year, Nevada’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Steve Canavero placed me on the state’s State Improvement Team. This year I will be part of the National Council on Teacher Quality’s Teacher Advisory Group. I am Google Certified Educator and a Nevada Teacher Ambassador. I believe strongly that teaching content is teaching reading and I make sure my students have ample opportunities to work with social studies, history, science and art outcomes. I do what I can to blend the learning for my students and this blog is part of that effort. You can contact me at coretaskproject@gmail.com

Guide to Close Reading

Tennessee has created a Guide to Close Reading that answers the following questions: What is close reading? Why is close reading important? How is close reading done? The guide answers these questions with explicit links to the standards, assessment, and lifelong … Continue reading

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Free Resources to Build Foundational Skills and Content Knowledge

Finding materials that are free, vetted, and well-matched to the Common Core is a popular request. One set of free resources, that build content knowledge (shift 1) while simultaneously addressing foundational skills are the Beginning Reads, from http://www.textproject.org. There are … Continue reading

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The “Bureaucratic Machine”

In a Ted Talk, Sugata Mitra who started the Hole-in-the-Wall project, reveals the impetus for the modern school—which began three hundred years ago. He describes how the British Empire needed a way to keep track of an enormous expanse of … Continue reading

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SEL and Common Core Instruction

At Sustaining Momentum, CASEL’s Cross-Districts Learning Event in Nashville, Tennessee, educational leaders learned how Washoe is integrating Social Emotional Learning with Common Core instruction. The following PowerPoint was shared as well as Washoe’s SEL Standards Matrix and the Instructional Practice … Continue reading

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Lesson Plan: Characterization

In the previous post, a video of Jon Corippo is tagged describing how educators can introduce and scaffold students to the successful understanding of conflict. Further into the video, Corippo describes a process helping students with characterization. Corippo has generously … Continue reading

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How to Do Common Core: Mastering Conflict

Jon Corippo, Apple Distinguised Educator and Google Certified Teacher, describes how he teaches students to identify the five types of conflict within text. Begin watching Corippo’s explanation at minute 9:55 for full context or at minute 12:25 if you simply … Continue reading

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Winter Professional Development Opportunities

Washoe County School District’s Curriculum & Instruction Department is offering a range of half-credit literacy inservice courses to support teachers with Common Core outcomes. The courses build backwards from the instructional shifts with classes on building content knowledge, shift 1 … Continue reading

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Instructional Practice Guide & Accountable Talk Crosswalk

Bonnie Krupa, the Instructional Coach at Sparks Middle School, has created a crosswalk between the Core Actions within the Instructional Practice Guides (IPGs) and Accountable Talk Moves. The document assists in describing the explicit link between what the Common Core … Continue reading

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Breaking the Standards into Parts

In this past we have linked to resources and video presentations from Dr. Timothy Shanahan. You can review some of this work, from the former president of the International Reading Association, on CCSS topics including policy (here) the instructional shifts … Continue reading

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What is Social and Emotional Learning? (SEL)

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) describes the ways in which children and adults develop skills for life effectiveness. It has been a point of emphasis within the ELA/literacy Common Core rollout and part of the Core Task Project and Core … Continue reading

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