Getting Ready For the Common Core..And What You Need to Know About Writing

2. Getting Ready For the Common Core..And What You Need to Know About Writing Agenda: • Common Core Self Assessment • Why the Common Core Standards? • How Will the Common Core Standards Change Your Teaching Approach? • Comparing Your Curriculum to the Common Core. • Crosswalk Analysis • Why Writing Across the Curriculum? • Breaking down the Writing Standard 2: Informative/Explanatory • The Role of Informational Writing • Beginning the Process

3. Self Assessment • Using the rubric below, assess your level of progress related to the Common Core State Standards. • Score Points and Descriptors • 4: I have started to identify curriculum issues that will need to be addressed. I have started to identify what professional development will be needed to fully implement the standards. • 3: I have started to identify what lessons/activities will be necessary . I have asked teacher to use Common Core Standards in their lesson plans. • 2 :I have read through the standards and have read the appendices. • 1:I have glanced at the standards or read some of them

4. Standards Based Instruction • Standards-Based Education System • Standards-based education is a process for planning, delivering, monitoring and improving academic programs in which clearly defined academic content standards provide the basis for content in instruction and assessment. • Standards help ensure students learn what is important, rather than allowing textbooks to dictate classroom practice. • Student learning is the focus - aiming for a high and deep level of student understanding that goes beyond traditional textbook-based or lesson-based instruction.

5. Reflection “The standards come alive when teachers study student work, collaborate with other teachers to improve their understanding of subjects and students’ thinking, and develop new approaches to teaching that are relevant and useful for them and their students.” - Linda Darling-Hammond, 1997

6. Why the Common Core Standards? • Preparation: The standards will help prepare students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the education and training after high school. • Competition: Common Core Standards will help ensure students are globally competitive. • Equity: Expectations are consistent for all and not dependant on the student’s state. • Clarity: The standards are focused, coherent and clear. Clear standards help students understand what is expected of them. • Achieve presentation-September 2011

7. How will the Common Core Standards Change Your Teaching Approach? • Jig Saw Activity • Read “5 Things Every Teacher Should be Doing to Meet the Common Core State Standards” • http://ped.state.nm.us/ped/CCDocuments/5ThingsCCSS_Davis.pdf • In groups of two or three read your assigned section and write down three things you learned and one “Ah Ha” Moment. • Table Talk • After reading the article, what level of importance is placed on writing across the curriculum? • In what way does this shape curriculum development?

8. Comparing Your Curriculum to The Common Core • Although California's 1997 academic content standards and the CCSS for English-language arts and mathematics share many similarities in content and design, there are a number of notable differences between the two sets of standards. • For example, since students are often required to write, research, and analyze non-literary texts in college and the workplace, the CCSS place an emphasis on developing literacy in history, science, and technical subjects. • Common Core State Standards Systems Implementation Plan for California , March 2012 • The standards define the knowledge and skills students should have in their K–12 education, emphasize learning goals, describe end-of-year expectations, and focus on results, leaving room for teachers to determine how these learning goals should be achieved • With this in mind, it now becomes necessary to compare your curriculum to the Common Core State Standards.

9. Luckily, much this work has already been done already. • California has developed a Common Core “Crosswalk” • The Crosswalk provides a comprehensive listing of all Common Core Standards as well as an alignment to California State Standards • These documents will be useful as a starting point in identifying content to be addressed in each grade or course in updating curriculum and preparing students for assessments aligned to the CCSS.

10. http://www.scoe.net/castandards/multimedia/k-12_ela_croswalks.pdfhttp://www.scoe.net/castandards/multimedia/k-12_ela_croswalks.pdf Analysis
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Core Standards Grade 7 ELA Crosswalk

11. Comparing your Curriculum to the Common Core • Questions to ask: • Which of the concepts and skills required in the Common Core State Standards are included in my state’s standards? • How strong is the match between the two sets of standards? • How similar are the Common Core State Standards and state standards with respect to the grade levels at which concepts and skills are taught? At what grade levels are there differences where state expectations address concepts and skills earlier or later than the CCSS? • Which concepts and skills required in your state’s standards are not included in the Common Core State Standards? • Achieve Presentation August 2011

12. Cross Walk Analysis Please evaluate the degree of alignment between the California Standards and the 2010 Common Core State Standards for ELA. The score you assign on the rubric should reflect alignment between the old and new standards. • Score Points and Descriptors • 3: The concepts and skills of the California Standards are strongly aligned to the concepts and skills in the English Language ArtsCommon Core State Standards (ELA CCSS). • 2 : The concepts and skills of theCalifornia Standards are reasonably aligned to the concepts and skills in the ELA CCSS. • 1: The concepts and skills of the California Standards are minimally aligned to the concepts and skills in the ELA CCSS.  • NE: It is a new expectation found in the ELA CCSS.

13. Looking at Gaps • In Pathways to the Common Core, Calkins, Ehrenworth and Lehman summarize where we are: “The CCSS have been written, but the plan for implementing them has not…We trust…you will be poised to think between your existing approach to literacy and the goals outlined in the Common Core.” • The authors recommend beginning implementation with a “spiral, cross-curricular K-12 writing workshop curriculum.” Why? • It is inexpensive • When students are taught writing and given opportunities to write every day, their skills develop in a visible fashion • Writing can be used as a tool for thinking across all disciplines

14. Why Writing Across the Curriculum? • The (Common Core) Standards insist that instruction in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language be a shared responsibility within the school. • The K–5 standards include expectations for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language applicable to a range of subjects, including but not limited to ELA. • The grades 6–12 informational writing standards are divided into two sections, one for ELA and the other for history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. • This division reflects the unique, time-honored place of ELA teachers in developing students’ literacy skills while at the same time recognizing that teachers in other areas must have a role in this development as well. • Introduction Common Core State Standards

15. The Role of Informational Writing • How can My Access! be used as tool for writing to learn? • Model MS Social Studies Lesson: • A Time Machine • Imagine you have found a time machine that can magically transport you to any place in time. Write a story about your adventures in a time machine. • Model High School Math Lesson: • What are Tangents and Secants? • What are tangents and secants in reference to a circle? What facts do we know about them? • Model Middle School Science Lesson: • Inherited and Learned Traits • You are a unique person. Write about yourself in a scientific way. Explain heredity and give examples of inherited as well as learned traits.

16. In Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher’s Guide, Daniels, Zemelman and Steineke argue that all teachers need to care about writing. • “To get learning power, kids need to grapple with ideas, transform them, and put them in their own words” (26). • All teachers need to be trained to regularly use two types of writing: • Writing to Learn – Using writing as a tool to “figure stuff out, not as a way of announcing with certainty what we know.” It’s short, spontaneous, exploratory, informal, personal, unedited, and ungraded. • Public Writing – Substantial, planned, authoritative, conventional, audience centered, drafted, edited, assessable. Exactly what the CCSS map out!

17. Beginning The Process • Many schools are beginning the process of transitioning to Common Core • Roundtable: • What work has your school done? • What has been the most successful part of your implementation? • In what way have to tackled challenges that have come along with transitioning to Common Core?

18. An Example of One School Transitioning to Common Core • Lynn, Massachusetts Work Plan: • Spring 2012: Leadership Training • Begin to outline the process of implementation • Roles and Responsibilities • Timeline for Implementation • Creating Action Plans • Defining Learning Communities • Introduction to Lesson Study

19. Lynn, Massachusetts Work Plan • Summer 2012: Curriculum Development Planning Teams • Our Focus: Transition to Common Core using an Standards Based Education focus • Introduction to Standards Based Instruction • Introduction to Lesson Study • Ensuring PLC Success • Deconstructing Standards • Collaborative Lesson Planning

20. Lynn, Massachusetts Work Plan • School Year 2012-2013 • Coaching and Mentoring • One Standard Per Month (Different Standard Per Curriculum Leader) • Design Units/Lesson plans using Common Core Standards • Implement new Lesson Plans in the Classroom • Feedback based on observations • Standards based assessments

21. Closing Thought From the Common Core Standards (2010a, 6): “The standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach.”

22. Works Cited • Achieve Inc. “Understanding the Common Core State Standards”. Power Point, September, 2011. Web. 15, April 2012 < http://www.achieve.org/achieving-common-core>. • Achieve Inc. “Comparing Current State Standards to the Common Core State Standards: Conducting Gap Analysis”. Washington, DC. August 2010. Web. 15, April 2012. < <http://www.achieve.org/files/CCSS&GapAnalysis.pdf>. • Calkins Lucy, Ehrenworth, Mary and Lehman, Christopher. 2012. Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. • Daniels, Harvey, Zemelman, Steven, and Steineke, Nancy. 2007. Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher’s Guide. Portsmouth, NH. Heinemann. • Davis, Lauren. “Five Things Every Teacher Should Be Doing to Meet the Common Core Standards.” Eye on Education. 2012. Web. 15, April 2012. <http://ped.state.nm.us/ped/CCDocuments/5ThingsCCSS_Davis.pdf>. • Graham, S., Harris, K., and Hebert, M. A. “Informing writing: The benefits of formative assessment”. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act report. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education. 2011. •  National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers. Common Core State Standards (ELA). National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington D.C. 2010. • Sacramento County Office of Education. “Analysis of California ELA Standards to Common Core Standards” 2010. Web.http://www.scoe.net/castandards/multimedia/k-12_ela_croswalks.pdf>.