California Common Core State Standards A Teacher Leader’s Perspective Kathy Harris, Teacher, Olivet Elementary School Tulare County Office of Education September 28, 2011

Professional History  Classroom teacher since 1986  Site Director for California Reading and Literature Project  CTA leader since 1994  Member of various State committees focused on ELA and ELD  Recently appointed to California Commission on Teacher Credentialing

Personal CCSS Timeline  Fall 2009: joined NCTE Review Panel for CCSS, with focus on K-5 ELA standards  November 2009: invited to join K-2 Text Complexity subgroup, worked on qualitative scale for K/1 text  January 2010: attended Aspects of Text Complexity Working group meeting in Chicago  June-July 2010: member of Academic Content Standards Commission. California adopted the CCSS in August 2010

Timeline cont’d  January present: member, Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy team  Continuing as member of Text Complexity Working group, with current work focused on text analysis using CCSS qualitative scale and Coh-metrics web- based tool  CCCSS used as planning guide for third grade, and current 4/5 combination class

How has CCCSS changed the way I teach?  Anchor Standards  Fewer, clearer, higher  Text Complexity  Matching kids to text  Comprehension  Understanding, not strategies  Math  Pedagogically appropriate

Anchor Standards  College and Career Readiness Standards for Reading (K-5, 6-12)  College and Career Readiness Standards for Writing (K-5, 6-12)  College and Career Readiness Standards for Speaking and Listening (K-5, 6-12)  College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language (K-5, 6-12)

Not Adopted  The Anchor Standards are not currently part of the California CCSS  Pending legislation will include the Anchor Standards in the adoption process.  California did not adopt the appendices: Appendix A, B, or C. These documents are available as resources for teachers and professional development. Check them out!

CCSS Appendices  Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards, Glossary of Key Terms.  Text Complexity Resources  Reading Foundational Skills  Writing  Speaking and Listening  Language (Vocabulary)  Bibliography

CCSS Appendices  Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks for K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-10 and 11-CCR bands  Stories  Poetry  Read-Aloud Stories  Read-Aloud Poetry  Sample Performance Tasks for Stories and Poetry  Informational Text  Read-Aloud Informational Text  Sample Performance Tasks for Informational Text

Sample Performance Task  2-3 band, stories and poetry:  When discussing E. B. White’s book Charlotte’s Web, students distinguish their own point of view regarding Wilbur the Pig from that of Fern Arable as well as from that of the narrator. [RL.3.6]

CCSS Appendices  Appendix C: Samples of Student Writing  By grade level  Argument (Opinion)  “My fabit Book is do you Want to be my FRIEND” (K)  Informative/Explanatory  “Author Response: Roald Dahl (5)  Narrative  “My first tooth is gone” (2)

Text Complexity  Anchor Standard 10: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity  Grade 4, Informational Text, Standard 10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Measuring Text Complexity  Qualitative evaluation of the text  See Handout- Companion to the Qualitative Dimensions Scale, or Appendix A  Quantitative evaluation of the text  Lexile  Coh-Metrix

Measuring Text Complexity  Matching Reader to text and task  Reader Variables  Motivation  Knowledge  Experience

Measuring Text Complexity  Task Variables  Purpose  Complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed  Paying attention to cognitive load- are we putting the new on the new or the new on the known? Are students familiar with the vocabulary of the questions as well as the text?

Lexile Ranges  Text Complexity Grade Band in the Standards: 4-5  Old Lexile Ranges:  Lexile Ranges Aligned to CCR expectations:  Reference: CCSS Appendix A, page 8  Lexile assigns a measure based on word frequency and sentence length. Assessments assign a Lexile score to readers, to allow the matching of reader to text.

Coh-Metrix University of Memphis  Coh-Metrix system focuses on the cohesiveness of a text— basically, how tightly the text holds together.  A high-cohesion text does a good deal of the work for the reader by signaling relationships among words, sentences, and ideas using repetition, concrete language, and the like;  A low-cohesion text, by contrast, requires the reader him- or herself to make many of the connections needed to comprehend the text.  High- cohesion texts are not necessarily “better” than low- cohesion texts, but they are easier to read. (Appendix A)

Comprehension  1997 Framework and Standards: teach comprehension strategies (predict, infer, summarize)  CCCSS 2010: teach comprehension so that students will understand what they read  Refer to details and examples in a text (4), quote accurately from a text (5)  “Read the part that tells…”  Demonstrate understanding, Describe in depth, Explain

In My Class…  Vocabulary- Freddy’s Filters  All subjects  Read the part that tells  Informational text (Social Studies, Science, Math)  What I have right now- making it work

Resources  (Appendices A, B, and C- go to “The Standards” tab at the top of the page)  (California adoption of CCSS- standards unique to California adoption are in bold type)  (A Look at Kindergarten through Grade 6 in California Public Schools)  California Subject Matter Projects, California Reading and Literature Project  cational_Researcher/4005/ _07EDR11.pdf (Article about Coh-Metrix published by AERA) cational_Researcher/4005/ _07EDR11.pdf