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Mapping Comprehensive Units to the ELA Common Core Standards, 6–12
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Mapping Comprehensive Units to the ELA Common Core Standards, 6–12

May 2013 | 288 pages | Corwin
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Your blueprint for skilled Common Core literacy alignment!

Learn to artfully navigate Common Core - or any state/province - standards with concrete, step-by-step instruction from master teacher and curriculum specialist, Kathy Tuchman Glass.  Confidently map a unit of study aligned to Common Core’s rigorous, evidence-based writing and reading requirements.  Dive into in-depth analyses of informational text with supporting essential questions.  Glass walks you through the entire process with manageable chunks that eliminate overwhelm.

Chapters include thorough explanations, step-by-step exercises, and detailed templates, assessments, charts, tips, and prompts centered around key CCCS concepts for grades 6–12.

Teachers, curriculum committees, grade level teams, and professional development leaders will learn to:

  • Challenge and engage students in all content areas using the CCCS ELA framework
  • Use existing curriculum and materials to design new, CCCS-aligned units of study
  • Identify mandatory CCCS ELA essential understandings for informational text, evidence-based writing and other critical competencies
  • Conduct resource-rich workshops and professional development

This all-in-one instructional guide, with a companion website for extra help, improves your professional capacity to create, revise, or critique quality-driven units and lessons aligned to the ELA Common Core. Get this essential blueprint to building high quality 6–12 grade-level curriculum for skilled CCCS literacy-aligned success!

“Like them or hate them, the Common Core Standards represent one of the most significant opportunities for improvement schools have faced in decades. This book will be a great help to anyone engaged in the act of translating the Common Core into actual teaching practices.”
--Jim Knight, Author of High-Impact Instruction

 
List of Figures
 
Foreword
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
Introduction
 
Chapter 1: Standards and Knowledge
The Purpose of Standards

 
Key Areas of Emphasis in the ELA Common Core Standards

 
Understanding Fiction and Nonfiction Characteristics

 
Definitions of the Common Core Text Types and Sample Prompts

 
What Do Argument Texts Entail?

 
What Do Informative/Explanatory Texts Entail?

 
What Do Narrative Texts Entail?

 
A Closer Look at Appendix C: Samples of Student Writing

 
Identifying and Articulating the Language Standards Across Grades

 
Exercise 1: What Is the Best Way to Group Standards?

 
Unit Focus and Template

 
Considerations for Grouping Standards

 
Grouping Standards: Two Approaches

 
Definition and Examples for Knowledge

 
Exercise 2: How Are Standards Used to Determine What Students Should Know?

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 2: Essential Understandings
The Nature and Critical Importance of Essential (or Enduring) Understandings

 
Essential Understandings as Statements of Conceptual Intent

 
Examples of Essential Understandings Aligned to the Anchor Standards for Reading

 
Special Considerations: Time, Intellectual Growth, Clustering

 
Constructing Your Own Essential Understandings

 
Exercise 3: How Do Educators Create (or Revise) Essential Understandings?

 
Sharing Essential Understandings With Your Students

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 3: Guiding Questions
The Importance of Guiding Questions

 
Sharing Guiding Questions With Your Students

 
The Differences Between Essential Unit and Lesson Guiding Questions

 
Designing Text-Dependent Questions for Complex Text

 
How Do Teachers Facilitate Close Reading of Complex Texts?

 
Examples of Essential Unit and Lesson Guiding Questions for Grammar and Conventions

 
 
Constructing Your Own Essential Unit and Lesson Guiding Questions
Exercise 4: How Do Educators Create (or Revise) Essential Unit and Lesson Guiding Questions?

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 4: Unit Map Template and Example
Customizing and Adapting the Unit Map to Fit Your Needs

 
Organizing Unit Maps and Student Work

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 5: Summative Assessments and Preassessments
Types of Assessments

 
Summative (Culminating) Assessments

 
Rubrics

 
Checklists

 
Preassessments

 
Constructing Your Own Summative Assessment

 
Exercise 5: How Do Educators Determine an Appropriate Summative Assessment?

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 6: Skills, Activities, Formative Assessments, and Resources
Skills

 
Teaching Strategies and Learning Activities

 
Formative Assessments

 
Resources

 
Identifying Skills and Constructing Activities, Evidence of Assessment, and Resources for Your Targeted Unit

 
Exercise 6: What Targeted Skills With Associated Activities, Evidence of Assessment, and Resources Can Educators Design (and Find) for a Targeted Unit?

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 7: Differentiated Instruction
Content, Process, and Product

 
Readiness, Learning Profile, and Interest

 
Instructional Strategy: Rolling Dice or Cubes

 
Instructional Strategy: Using Manipulatives

 
Constructing Your Own Differentiated Instructional Strategies

 
Exercise 7: How Can You Indicate Differentiation on Your Unit Map?

 
Looking Ahead

 
 
Chapter 8: Lesson Design
Lesson Components

 
Sample Lessons

 
Next Steps After Designing Lessons

 
A Final Note

 
Lesson 1: What Are Inferences? How Do I Make Inferences About This Text?

 
Lesson 2: What Is Characterization? How Do Authors Use Characterization to Create and Develop Characters?

 
Lesson 3: What Factors Help Me to Evaluate the Credibility of Sources?

 
Lesson 4: What Are Elements of an Argument Paper? What Are the Expectations for My Finished Argument?

 
 
Resource: A Brief Primer on the ELA Common Core Standards
Creation and Purpose of the Common Core Standards

 
Who Led the Standards Initiative, and What Is the Goal?

 
Who Are the CCSSO and NGA?

 
Content and Structure of the Common Core Standards

 
Research Highlights for the Reading Strand

 
Logistics

 
Can States Add to the Standards?

 
How Can Standards Be Identified?

 
Collaboration, Limitations, and Assessment

 
Who Uses These Standards Besides the ELA Teacher?

 
What Aspects Are Not Covered in the Common Core Standards Document?

 
What to Look for When Aligning Existing Standards With the Common Core

 
Assessments

 
Closing

 
 
References
 
Index
Key features
  • Provides an overview of the layout, key benefits, and rationale for each of the ELA common core standards.
  • Presents a comprehensive plan for designing effective curriculum around the standards that can serve as a model for educators tasked with either revising existing curriculum to align to the CCSS or creating an entirely new ELA curriculum.
  • Includes templates and examples of unit curriculum maps for readers to reproduce

For instructors

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ISBN: 9781483331768
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