“Fall” into the Common Core!

1. ELA: Focus on Collaborative Conversations & Writing FCUSD Instructional Focus Meeting Sara Parenzin September 20, 2012 “Fall” into the Common Core! Welcome! Please sign in and start the Name Tag Mixer We will begin at 3:10PM!

3. “Fall” into the Common Core! • September 20: ELA – Collaborative Conversations & Writing • January 24: Math – Math Practice 3 & Math Discourse • March 21: ELA & Math - Best CCSS Practices

4. “Fall” into the Common Core! • Teacher as Learner • Teacher as Professional  • Teacher as Practitioner

5. Session Outcomes Today we will… • Learn about Speaking & Listening and Writing strands in California’s Common Core State Standards • Explore what collaborative conversations are and why they are important to students’ success • Explore the communicative purposes of writing applications – to persuade, to explain, and to convey experiences • Consider implications for teaching

6. Teacher as Learner • Why is collaborative discussion important in the classroom? • Review Structure of the CCSS • Reading • Writing • Speaking & Listening • Language

7. Teacher as Professional • “Including but not limited to skills necessary for formal presentations, the Speaking and Listening standards require students to develop a range of broadly useful oral communication and interpersonal skills. Students must learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information from oral, visual, quantitative, and media sources, evaluate what they hear, use media and visual displays strategically to help achieve communicative purposes, and adapt speech to context and task.” Council of Chief State School Officials and National Governor’s Association (2010)

8. Teacher as Practitioner • Locate your handout of the CCSS for ELA and turn to the speaking and listening standards. • How many are there? • What are the subheadings within the strand? • Read the standards for your grade level and the grades immediately before and after • What do you notice about the standards? • Share one thing that stands out to you with your table group • In grade _____ something different is… • In grade _____ something the same is…

9. Teacher as Practitioner • Trace the progression of Standard #1 • College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard #1 • “Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.”

10. Teacher as Practitioner • Trace the progression of Standard #1 cont. • Read Speaking and Listening Standard #1, K-12 to explore the progression • As you read through the standards, highlight or underline the specific actions or tasks students are expected to perform at each grade level • Share your observations with your table partners • Discuss parts of the standards that you are currently including in your classroom and what you will begin to incorporate into your instructional practice as you transition to the CCSS.

11. Teacher as Practitioner • Connect to the Curriculum • How do the CCSS correspond to what you already have in your curriculum? • Take a look at your TE and focus on the next 4-6 weeks of instruction • Are opportunities provided frequently for students to have collaborative conversations? Are they explicitly stated? • If not, use post-it notes to note opportunities for students to engage in collaborative conversations • Discuss what you need to do to ensure that you are providing opportunities for students to develop the skills necessary to engage in collaborative discussions

12. Putting it into Practice • Establish norms for classroom conversations • Give students multiple opportunities for discussions with their peers (whole class, small group, or with partners) • Explicitly teach discussion strategies and provide sentence frames, stems to scaffold discussion for ELLs or struggling learners • This is not exclusive to ELA; encourage collaborative conversations in H/SS, science, and math, too!

13. Teacher as Learner/Professional • Writing is … • “The activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text.” • “Researchers, conscious of how social influences shape the composing process, define writing as an action shaped by its intended goal and by the expectations of a reader.” • “Moreover, writing is not merely a school-based practice but a lifelong skill used to accomplish specific goals and convey particular messages within community and workplace settings.”

14. Teacher as Professional • To Persuade: Convince an audience to take action or change a viewpoint on a variety of topics important to others (e.g., peers, school, the nation) • To Explain: Seek to present information and ideas to others in a manner that aids understanding of a topic • To Convey Experience, Real or Imagined: Bring real or imagined experience to life for readers using descriptive details, voice, style, reflection and evocation of emotional response National Assessment Governing Board (2011) adapted from Writing Framework for 2011 NAEP

15. Teacher as Practitioner • Locate the writing standards in your CCSS packet • How many are there? • What are the subheadings within the strand? • Text Types and Purposes • Production and Distribution of Writing • Research to Build and Present Knowledge • Range of Writing

16. Teacher as Practitioner • Read the standards for your grade level and the grades immediately before and after • What do you notice about the standards? • Share one thing that stands out to you with your table group (e.g. new, different, or same) • In grade _____ something new is… • In grade _____ something different is… • In grade _____ something the same is…

17. Teacher as Practitioner • Trace the progression of a Writing Standard • Read Writing Standard #1, #2, or #3, K-12 to explore the progression • As you read through the standards, highlight or underline the specific actions or tasks students are expected to perform at each grade level • Share your observations with your table partners • Discuss parts of the writing standards that you are currently including in your classroom and what you will begin to incorporate into your instructional practice as you transition to the CCSS

18. Teacher as Practitioner • Connect to the Curriculum • How do the CCSS correspond to what you already have in your curriculum? • Take a look at your TE and focus on the next 4-6 weeks of instruction • Identify opportunities for opinion, informative explanatory, and narrative writing. • Use post-it notes to identify opportunities for “quickwrites” on the writing applications that are less evident in your upcoming lessons • Discuss what you need to do to ensure that you are addressing the CCSS in your writing instruction

19. Putting it into Practice • Establish a community of writers in your classroom, that includes you! • Give students multiple opportunities to write with their peers (whole class, small group, or with partners) • Explicitly teach writing genres/strategies and provide scaffolding for ELLs or struggling learners • This is not exclusive to ELA; think of opportunities to write in H/SS, science, and math, too! • Just write!

20. “Fall” into the Common Core! Thank you! • Exit Ticket • I learned… • I valued… • I’d like more information about… • Comments… *no need to write your name, but if you could please write your grade level on your exit ticket, that will help us organize needs & concerns by grade level!