Tag Archives: Social Studies

Maximizing Literacy Skills with the OUT

At the Northern Nevada Council for Social Studies, I presented on using the 4th grade OUTs to maximize literacy skills with intermediate students. The 4th grade OUTs—Opening Up the Textbook—is a curricular resource matched to Nevada’s state history. Developed by … Continue reading

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NNCCS 2015 Juicy Sentences Session

The instructional move Juicy Sentences was shared at the Northern Nevada Council for Social Studies 2015 Conference. Juicy Sentences, created by academic Lily Wong Fillmore, has student diving into syntax to make, as Fillmore describes, “the invisible, visible.” You can … Continue reading

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Document Based Questions—Support and Materials

Many of you may already be using Document Based Questions in your 6th grade classroom but if you are not, it is an excellent resource to consider. DBQs reinforce important Common Core outcomes including building content knowledge with rich non-fiction; … Continue reading

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Promoting Civic Education through Open Discussions

A big part of doing Common Core well involves kids engaged in rich and rigorous conversations. The positive benefits of this have been documented in several posts on this blog including this one from Dr. Lauren Resnick and this one … Continue reading

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Instructional Move 4: Close Reading

Three years ago, as I started my first work around close reading, Google searches revealed almost nothing. There were a couple of videos and some books but none of these were created specifically for a K-12 audience. Now, of course, there is … Continue reading

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Washoe Shares CCSS Implementation Efforts with NV LCE

Several Washoe educators had the opportunity to describe the district’s implementation efforts around the Nevada Academic Content Standards and the Common Core to the Nevada Legislative Committee on Education. The presentation outlined how Washoe has leveraged free resources and internal professional … Continue reading

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Washoe Starts Scaling the Read Aloud Project (RAP)

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 … Continue reading

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Social Studies Close Read Exemplars Get a New Link!

Periodically, Edmodo switches things up and the links to the social studies close reading exemplars change. If you have been struggling accessing, a) it’s not our fault –at least we don’t think it is and b) you can now use … Continue reading

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Gaining Access to the Read Aloud Project for K-2

Educators, from throughout the country, are gathered in Las Vegas to train on the Read Aloud Project (RAP). RAP is an effort to create Common Core-aligned lessons for K-2 picture, informational, and chapter books. Lessons include text-dependent questions, Language exploration, … Continue reading

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Teaching American History Newsletter

The Northern Nevada Teaching American History Project has shared its most recent edition of Project Tahoe, a newsletter to support Social Studies teachers in their implementation of the Common Core. The newsletter includes teachers describing their use of close reading, … Continue reading

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