Useful Websites

1. Useful Websites • Curriculum maps: • http://www.doe.mass.edu/candi/model/maps/default.html • https://www.engageny.org/resource/grade-7-ela-curriculum-map • Curriculum Framework: • For grades 3-11, go to http://www.parcconline.org/mcf/ela/parcc-model-content-frameworks-browser • For grades K-2, go to http://parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/DRAFT%20PARCC%20K-2%20MCF%20for%20ELA-Literacy_011314.pdf • Model Units: • Mass DOE • http://www.doe.mass.edu/candi/model/files.html • Engage NY • https://www.engageny.org/common-core-curriculum • Click on your grade level. • Click Start. • Scroll down and click: • Download the full Grade 7 Module 1 as single PDF documentThe entire module, including module-level documents, unit documents, and lesson plans, appears in one PDF file. • Model Lessons: • www.achievethecore.org Click on ELA, Click on Model Lessons, Click on Featured Lessons • Evaluating Quality Units: • http://www.achieve.org/EQuIP • Sample Assessments: • www.parcconline.org • FREE Reading Materials: • www.readworks.org

2. Common Core State Standards English/Language Arts Curriculum Planning with the Common Core ELA Standards

3. Welcome! Schauna Findlay Presenter schauna.findlay@gmail.com

4. Agenda • Close Reading of the Standards and Vertical Articulation Exercise • Analyzing Major Shifts • Curriculum Maps • Curriculum Frameworks • http://www.parcconline.org/ • Evaluating Quality Units • http://www.achieve.org/EQuIP • Guided Teacher Work Session • Map Development • Unit Development • Resource Selection

5. A Close Reading of the CCSS Group Analysis: Group 1: RI.1, RL.1 Group 2: RI.2, RL.2 Group 3: RI.3, RL.3 Group 4: RI.4, RL.4 Group 5: W.1 • Identify the Central Theme/Idea for the standards. What is the Content that students must be taught? • What does each grade level standard ask students to “do” with their knowledge? What are the Skills that students must be able to do with the Content that is taught? • Describe the differences in expectations from one grade level to the next. • What type of evidence would need to be collected to determine whether the student has mastered the standard? • Provide a sample task that would engage students in learning to master this standard.

6. Introduction to the ELA/Literacy Shifts of the Common Core State Standards

7. The CCSS Requires Three Shifts in ELA/Literacy • Regular practice with complex text and its academic language • Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational • Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

8. Shift #1: Regular practice with complex test and its academic language

9. Regular Practice With Complex Text and its Academic Language: Why? • Gap between complexity of college and high school texts is huge. • What students can read, in terms of complexity is the greatest predictor of success in college (ACT study). • Too many students are reading at too low a level.(<50% of graduates can read sufficiently complex texts). • Standards include a staircase of increasing text complexity from elementary through high school. • Standards also focus on building general academic vocabulary so critical to comprehension.

10. What are the Features of Complex Text? • Subtle and/or frequent transitions • Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes • Density of information • Unfamiliar settings, topics or events • Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences • Complex sentences • Uncommon vocabulary • Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student • Longer paragraphs • Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures

11. Scaffolding Complex Text The standards require that students read appropriately complex text at each grade level – independently (Standard 10). However there are many ways to scaffold student learning as they meet the standard: • Multiple readings • Read Aloud • Chunking text (a little at a time) Provide support while reading, rather than before.

12. Considerations for ELL/SPED • Instruction must include both “macro-scaffolding,” in which teachers attend to the integration of language and content within and across lessons and units, as well as “microscaffolding” during the “moment-to-moment work of teaching.”1 • In order to develop the ability to read complex texts and engage in academic conversations, ELs and SPED population need access to such texts and conversations, along with support in engaging with them. • With support, ELs can build such repertoires and engage productively in the kinds of language and literacy practices called for by the Standards for both ELA and other disciplines 1 Bunch, George C., Amanda Kibler, and Susan Pimentel. "Realizing Opportunities for English Learners in the Common Core English Language Arts and Disciplinary Literacy Standards." Understanding Language, Stanford University. Web.

13. Close Analytic Reading • Requires prompting students with questions to unpack unique complexity of any text so students learn to read complex text independently and proficiently. • Not teacher "think aloud.” • Virtually every standard is activated during the course of every close analytic reading exemplar through the use of text dependent questions. • Text dependent questions require text-based answers – evidence.

14. Shift #2:Reading, Writing,and Speaking Grounded in Evidence From Text, Both Literary and Informational 14

15. Reading, Writing and Speaking Grounded in Evidence from Text: Why? • Most college and workplace writing requires evidence. • Ability to cite evidence differentiates strong from weak student performance on NAEP • Evidence is a major emphasis of the ELA Standards: Reading Standard 1, Writing Standard 9, Speaking and Listening standards 2, 3, and 4, all focus on the gathering, evaluating and presenting of evidence from text. • Being able to locate and deploy evidence are hallmarks of strong readers and writers

16. What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous? What can you infer from King’sletter about the letter that he received? “The Gettysburg Address” mentions the year 1776. According to Lincoln’s speech, why is this year significant to the events described in the speech? Content Shift #2 Text-Dependent Questions Not Text-Dependent Text-Dependent In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something. In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair. In “The Gettysburg Address” Lincoln says the nation is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Why is equality an important value to promote?

17. Sample Informational Text Assessment Question: Pre-Common Core Standards High school students read an excerpt of James D. Watson’s The Double Helix and respond to the following: James Watson used time away from his laboratory and a set of models similar to preschool toys to help him solve the puzzle of DNA. In an essay, discuss how play and relaxation help promote clear thinking and problem solving.

18. Sample Literary Question: Pre-Common Core Standards From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Have the students identify the different methods of removing warts that Tom and Huckleberry talk about. Discuss the charms that they say and the items (i.e. dead cats) they use. Ask students to devise their own charm to remove warts. Students could develop a method that would fit in the time of Tom Sawyer and a method that would incorporate items and words from current time. Boys played with dead cats and frogs, during Tom’s time. Are there cultural ideas or artifacts from the current time that could be used in the charm?

19. Sample Text Dependent Question: Common Core Standards From The Adventures of Tom SawyerWhy does Tom hesitate to allow Ben to paint the fence? How does Twain construct his sentences to reflect that hesitation? What effect do Tom’s hesitations have on Ben?

20. Shift #3: Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

21. Content Shift #3 Content-Rich Nonfiction • 50/50 balance K-5 • 70/30 in grades 9-12 • Studentslearning to read should exercise their ability to comprehend complex text through read-aloud texts. • In grades 2+, students begin reading more complex texts, consolidating the foundational skills with reading comprehension. • Reading aloud texts that are well-above grade level should be done throughout K-5 and beyond.

22. Building Knowledge Through Content-Rich Nonfiction: Why? • Students are required to read very little informational text in elementary and middle school. • Non-fiction makes up the vast majority of required reading in college/workplace. • Informational text is harder for students to comprehend than narrative text. • Supports students learning how to read different types of informational text.

23. Content Shift #3 Sequencing Texts to Build Knowledge • Not random reading • Literacy in social studies/history, science, technical subjects, and the arts is embedded • Resources Page 33 in the CCSS for ELA/Literacy – The Human Body example

24. www.achievethecore.org

25. Elementary Literacy “We, in America, in K-5 assessment and curriculum focus 80% of our time on stories, on literature…However, the research is overwhelmingly clear…that in kindergarten through 5th grade, the general knowledge that you develop in those years plays a crucial predictive role in not only your performance in those other disciplines, like science and history, but your ability to read more complex text itself. That is, the elementary school’s a magnificent place for students to learn about the world through reading.” Dr. David Coleman

26. Research on Brain Development • We learn information when presented in context better than items in isolation • Rote memory of the human brain is limited and inefficient • The adaptive memory, local memory, or context memory learns by internalizing networks of relationships • The brain seeks to discover, assemble, and create using association • The process of constructing associational webs starts at a very early age and appears to be innate and automatic

27. Analyzing Model Curriculum Maps We Do • http://www.doe.mass.edu/candi/model/maps/default.html • Grade 2 Sample • Grade 4 Sample Let’s read the maps and answer the questions below on our Evidence Interpretation Chart. • What are the text features of this map? • How is it organized? • What information is contained in each section? • How are the standards distributed across the units?

28. Analyzing Model Curriculum Maps You Do Go to this link and open the pdf. • https://www.engageny.org/resource/grade-7-ela-curriculum-map Read the map and answer the questions below on our Evidence Interpretation Chart. • What are the text features of this map? • How is it organized? • What information is contained in each section? • Looking at the last section, how are the standards distributed across the modules (quarters)? Would that distribution ensure students had learned all they need to before PARCC begins in March?

29. Analyzing PARCC Curriculum Frameworks • For grades 3-11, go to http://www.parcconline.org/mcf/ela/parcc-model-content-frameworks-browser • For grades K-2, go to http://parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/DRAFT%20PARCC%20K-2%20MCF%20for%20ELA-Literacy_011314.pdf • With your grade level group, use your Evidence Interpretation Chart to take notes about what Evidence you see and what your Interpretation is of what you observe. • How is what you are seeing similar to or different from what you saw in the sample maps we studied?

30. PARCC Framework Analysis Let’s read the framework and answer the questions below on our Evidence Interpretation Chart. • What are the text features of this framework? • How is it organized? • What information is contained in each section? • What is the recommended distribution of standards?

31. Evaluating Unit Plans

32. Analyzing Model Units • Mass DOE • http://www.doe.mass.edu/candi/model/files.html • Engage NY • https://www.engageny.org/common-core-curriculum • Click on your grade level. • Click Start. • Scroll down and click: • Download the full Grade 7 Module 1 as single PDF documentThe entire module, including module-level documents, unit documents, and lesson plans, appears in one PDF file.

33. Guided Teacher Work Session • Open your electronic copy of the Unit template and the Curriculum Map template. • Study the templates. • Study the Unit or Map you brought. • What pieces do you like best from everything you see? • Begin planning/revising a unit/map based on what you have learned in all of your professional development. • Use the rubric to evaluate your work. • http://www.achieve.org/EQuIP • Use the Student Work Protocol to evaluate your student tasks once they are developed.

34. Reflection: Do you feel more confident about implementing the CCSS? What questions do you still have about the CCSS? What resources do you have to find out more about planning with the CCSS? List 3 lessons learned thatwill assist you in improved curricular design, instruction, and assessment as a result of this training?

35. We Did It!