Keeping Interest High

While Common Core ELA shifts may cause some teachers to change their instructional practices, it does not mean they can't make lessons fun or engaging. This may be particularly important for students from traditionally underprivileged communities. Just as there have been achievement gaps, there are opportunity gaps for students.

regard, especially teachers with historically underprivileged, non-native, or struggling learners.

What are some practices you use? As we look to the future, consider some of the best educational practices that ELA teachers can use to implement the Common Core Standards.

Best Practices, Suggestions and Future Implications

Informational Text -- Nonfiction vs. Literary Analysis -- Fiction

Particularly striking is the increase to read more informational text as opposed to working on literature analysis in the classroom. Valerie Strauss (2014) in a Washington Post Op-Ed notes that schools should be doing either 50/50% (50% informational vs. 50% literature) of both, or 70/30% (70% informational vs. 30% literature). In college, students write more research-based papers with academic sources, as opposed to literary analysis.

Thus, the shift to use more informational texts means students will need to defend answers with specific evidence from these texts.

Tools. Providing students with tools and lessons on how to read informational texts using before, during and after reading strategies is an effective instructional practice, especially for K-5 classrooms. Tools such as think and read aloud, modified reciprocal teaching, and annotating provide some of the engaging strategies teachers use to increase students' reading comprehension levels and rigor.

Example. Because of the increased use of informational text, teachers also must shift to asking students to select answers based on the text.  When reading an informational text about how humans and bears behave, the teacher could ask students what is one way humans and black bears behave similarly, and then tell them to support it with information from the text. 

An  Essential Question chart is used to provide students with a graphic organizer to display evidence. 

Pinterest has many sites that have useful graphic organizers for citing evidence.  

Writing: Textual Evidence and Support

The Common Core Standards require students to use argumentative, fact-supporting and evidence-based writing. This practice is the basis for most college writing courses.

T-charts. Using tools such as t-charts can be extremely effective, especially if students must complete a major writing assessment at the end of a unit. Students can refer back to these t-charts when they have to cite evidence from the text in an argumentative, explanatory, or a persuasive essay. Rather than searching through multiple chapters to find evidence, students can complete weekly t-charts to organize evidence.

Combining small writing assignments for a final, longer paper. Students can complete smaller writing pieces throughout the semester, collating them for a final writing assessment. Struggling writers are given the opportunity to reflect on previous writing assignments, edit and modify them for the final product, and finish a better draft of a writing assignment or assessment if provided these supports throughout the semester.

Active games and movement to support learning. Engaging games can also help students with different learning styles and modalities. For example, in an eighth-grade classroom, I used a modified version of musical chairs as a way to help students remember the parts of an essay, as well to identify the best ways to write particular parts of an essay. Because my students were extremely kinesthetic learners and the class period was an inclusion class mix, a simple teacher-centered review would've lost student interest.

• Step 1: In preparation, I hung essential parts of the essay (i.e. intro, body, conclusion, or thesis statement), around the classroom (i.e. transitional words and phrases, ways to begin a thesis, attention-grabbing strategies, etc.), as well as wrote and typed up parts of model essays to display around the classroom.
• Step 2: Then students were instructed to stand up, and walk around the classroom until the music playing stopped.
• Step 3: When the music stopped, I drew a student's name written on a popsicle stick out of a jar, and whichever paper was nearest, the student would read his/her statement or question, rip the paper down, and would answer the question.  (Watch for a fuller explanation in an upcoming CEI Blog post.)

Future Implications

There are many new standards the ELA Common Core Standards attempt to measure. The Council of Chief State School Officers released a statement in early December addressing actions they are taking in their Opportunities and Options: Making Career Preparation Work for Students report. This report challenges schools and districts to include career preparation and readiness as part of its curriculum. The announcement can be read online. From listening and speaking standards, to collaborative work environments, the Common Core is bringing high level standards to classrooms to maximize future student achievement.

References

Dixon, B., et al. (2012, May). Common core teaching and learning strategies. Isbe.net. Retrieved from http://www.isbe.net/common_core/pdf/ela-teach-strat-read-text-k-5.pdf

Strauss, V. (2014, January, 18). Everything you need to know about the common core - ravitch. WashingtonPost.com Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-common-

core-ravitch/ 

• Many students continue to experience bullying on school grounds.
• Usually bullies target students who are alone, who don't have friends and who are considered different.