Essential Conditions for CCSS Achievement

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Director of High School Services, Mel Riddle, describes, “Five Essential Schoolwide Conditions for Common-Core Achievement.” These include: A culture of college and career readiness; schoolwide literacy; student engagement, collaboration, and inquiry; instructional time; and professional learning. Riddle’s recommendations are a nice compliment to the Action Brief shared at A&S last week.

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Fiction and Non-Fiction in the Common Core Era

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

In a piece for the Washington Post, former National Council of Teachers of English President Carol Jago describes the role of fiction and non-fiction in the English classroom.  She note that there has been some confusion about this issue and makes it clear that literature remains critical in English classes. What changes, Jago asserts, is that students have to read more in the content areas and writes, “Too many students make their way across the stage at graduation without having read a single work of history.” Full text here.

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A&S January 11th and the “3 Year Plan”

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

At the A&S January meeting, Curriculum and Instruction shared their “3 Year Plan” for Common Core implementation. This was matched to the National Association of Elementary School Principal’s Action Brief and C&I elementary recommendations. You can review all of the resources distributed during the session below.

A&S January 11 PowerPoint

K-6 “3 Year Plan”

K-6 “3 Year Plan” Supplement

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SBAC ELA Rubrics

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium released writing rubrics for the Common Core State Standards. You will find rubrics for narrative, opinion, and informative-explanatory writing. You can download them here.

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Resources on the CCSS for ELLs

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

If you are looking for items that will assist ELs in meeting the CCSS, Diane Staehr Fenner has shared the following Top Ten Resources. There are some familiar items, that have been linked from this blog in the past, including Stanford University’s Understanding Language, World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA), and Council of Great City Schools’ Common Core Works website.

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77 Seconds on Core Vocabulary and Complex Text

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Dr. Elfrieda (Freddy) Hiebert, at http://www.textproject.org takes 77 seconds to describe core vocabulary—what it is and how it can help children access complex text. You can watch the video here.

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What the Teacher Does…

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Susan LaFond, in a piece for Colorín Colorado, makes a series of connections between the “instructional shifts” and authentic classroom practice.  Through a series of tables (sample here) readers learn “What the Student Does…” and “What the Teacher Does…” Full link here.

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“My Turn” in the Reno Gazette Journal

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Many of the people visiting this blog may not know the history of the Core Task Project. If you are interested, you can read a piece in the Reno Gazette Journal describing our district’s experience with the Common Core and the spark that created the CTP (here).

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GADOE Wiki Space

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

The Georgia Department of Education has created a Wiki space to assist educators with the implementation of the Common Core.  The site includes lesson plans, useful links, video and a discussion forum.

As the authors of the site describe:

This site has been provided to allow for sharing and collaboration among English Language Arts educators across the state.

We strongly encourage you to share [[#|lesson plans]] and any other materials that you feel would help others grow.

It is your responsibility to investigate materials to determine their value and appropriateness for your district.

GaDOE does not endorse or recommend the purchase of or use of any particular resource found on this site.

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Common Core Cheat Sheet

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

If you are struggling with any of the Common Core acronyms, terms, and key points, this cheat sheet, developed by Dr. Kimberly Tyson of Learning Unlimited, might help.

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