Dr. Shane Templeton, a Foundation Professor Emeritus of Literacy Studies at UNR, worked with Washoe educators on the topic of “Foundational Skills in the Context of the Common Core State Standards.” The presentation drew specific attention to the following topics: Word Study, foundational skills, development perspectives, and Core Action 4 within the K-2 Instructional Practice Guides.
You can download the PowerPoint here.
In announcing that the SAT would change, College Board President David Coleman noted that the SAT should reflect “worthy challenges” instead of “artificial obstacles.” This would mean that students would be reading more source documents and retrieving evidence. Likewise, there will be a greater emphasis on academic vocabulary and more attention to limiting or eliminating the advantages of test prep. You can read the complete list of “major changes” here.
Listed below are a few things that might help with your Common Core implementation efforts. (And keep you busy on a Sunday afternoon)
The California Department of Education has produced the following seven-minute video that explains how to read the ELA/literacy standards. The refresher is helpful especially if you’ve forgotten key terms like anchor, cluster, and strands and/or which standards hit outcomes like text types and purposes, production and distribution of writing, and research to build knowledge.
Dr. Tim Shanahan explains why you shouldn’t give the Common Core State Standards a close reading.
CCSS Graphic Organizer (here)
Dylan Wiliam Tweets, “Teaching in which students connect emotionally with teacher and content matters more than rigor or lively teaching.” (Full article here)
A new Fordham Foundation study describing the Common Core implementation efforts of four school districts. (Ok, I’ll admit it. I am only listing it because it mentions Washoe and the Core Task Project!)
Teachers in the Northern Nevada Teaching American History Project have developed a number of Common Core aligned Discussion Lessons. The lessons can be downloaded by visiting www.projecttahoe.org and clicking on the Teacher Resource link. Each lesson posted on the page implements an effective research based discussion strategy and uses rich primary and secondary sources to promote effective classroom discussion. Both small group and whole group lessons are included in these lessons. Additionally, these lessons address many benchmarks within the Common Core State Standards framework.
Topics include Early Constitutional Issues, Individual Rights vs. The Common Good, Federalism, Modern Issues, Colonial America, 19th Century America, Civil War (Prewar- Reconstruction), The 1920s, Depression Era, WWII, Post WWII- Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Contemporary Issues.
In a piece for the Kappa Delta Pi Record, Mike Schmoker and Carol Jago describe how you can break through the myriad ELA/literacy standards and immediately get of the “essence” of CCSS. In short, this involves focusing on “simple ‘instructional shifts.’” No real surprise for consistent readers of this blog but they provide greater context for why starting with the shifts allow for “a radical return to genuine literacy.”
You can read the entire article here.
A number of new links were added to www.63000resources.com including:
Free K-8 passages by reading level (here)
Common Core Implementation Guide for School-Level Leaders from the Aspen Institute (here)
Graphic organizer to practice textual evidence (here)
K-5 Writing Rubrics (here)
Grade 5 Evaluation Guide (here)
Grade 8 Evaluation Guide (here)
If you have access to an Apple device, you can take advantage of the free iTunes CCSS University Courses. The courses are divided by content and grade bands for K-2, 3-5 and 6-12 and give educators a structure to learn more about the Common Core and resources to promote their successful implementation.
The video (here) provides a three-minute tutorial for those unfamiliar with the iTunes University format.
Chris Hayes, Ben Dickson, and Kristen Campbell moved district educators through the Read Aloud Project training materials and lessons. The training looked at text complexity, text-dependent questions, and completed RAP lessons.
The RAP is a joint venture between Student Achievement Partners and the Council of the Great City Schools focusing on bringing robust picture book and chapter book read-alouds to our K-2 classrooms. The training materials and RAP lessons can be found at Edmodo with the join code pkx52i.
RAP PowerPoint (updated 2.25.14)
Brief Guide to Creating Text-Dependent Questions
Charlotte’s Web Chapter 1
Complexity Guide
Qualitative Rubric
Qualitative Scale
Read Aloud Project Complexity Guide
Spider and the Fly Completed Example
Spider Informational Book Completed Example
Educators at St. Albert Catholic School worked through a number of CCSS outcomes including an overview of the instructional shifts by Sandra Alberti; a review of the Metametric study on Lexile; Robert Pondiscio’s speech on the value of building content knowledge; work with Accountable Talk; and a chance to apply the Instructional Practice Guides. You can download the handouts and PowerPoint below.
St. Albert Presentation PowerPoint
Accountable Talk Sourcebook
Accountable Talk Graphic
Accountable Talk Stems
Accountable Talk Card Templates
In a blog post for the Hechinger Report, writer Anya Kamenetz connects Social Emotional Learning and academic success. She writes, “Non-cognitive or meta-cognitive skills such as self-awareness, self-control, empathy, communication and cooperation ” deserve being measured and taught in our schools. It’s a provocative assertion and one she buttresses with evidence. Trish Shaffer makes a similar claim here and the graphic below illustrates the point.
Core Task Project 
