EngageNY.org The Common Core Implications for Teacher Educators

What Has Happened to Public Education while your Students have been in College Nearly every state set common expectations for what students should know and be able to do. Unlike previous standards, these standards are tied to college and career readiness, and students who meet the standards are expected to be able to go on to postsecondary education without the need for remedial classes. These standards are internationally benchmarked, and match the expectations of the highest-performing nations. These standards are tied to evaluation of teacher efficacy. 2

Standards Key Ideas and Details: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. Craft and Structure: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper). 3

The Asks ( Finn Jr. & Porter-Magee, Common Core in the Schools: A First Look at Reading Assignments 2013 ) The Common Core asks That text be central to the English Language Arts curriculum Teachers to assign texts that provide language complexity appropriate to grade level That students have substantial experience reading informational text Many still Try to fit texts to skills, instead of grounding skills instruction in appropriate texts Assign texts based on students’ present reading prowess, especially in elementary school Need to use more non fiction text in the classroom, especially at the middle and upper level.

5 6 Shifts in ELA/Literacy Balancing Informational and Literary Text Building Knowledge in the Disciplines Staircase of Complexity Text-based Answers Writing from Sources Academic Vocabulary 5 Instructional Shifts Demanded by the Core Why We Can’t Fake It 5

ELA/Literacy Shift 1: Balancing Informational and Literary Text What the Student Does…What the Teacher Does… Build content knowledge Be Exposed to the world through reading Apply strategies Balance informational & literary text Scaffold for informational texts Teach “through” and “with” informational texts EngageNY.org

ELA/Literacy Shift 2: Knowledge in the Disciplines What the Student Does…What the Teacher Does… Build content knowledge through text Handle primary source documents Find Evidence Shift identity: “I teach reading.” Stop referring and summarizing and start reading Slow down the history and science classroom EngageNY.org Principal’s Role: Hold teachers accountable for building student content knowledge through text Support and demand the role of all teachers in advancing students’ literacy Give teachers permission to slow down and deeply study texts with students Principal’s Role: Hold teachers accountable for building student content knowledge through text Support and demand the role of all teachers in advancing students’ literacy Give teachers permission to slow down and deeply study texts with students

ELA/Literacy Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity What the Student Does…What the Teacher Does… Re-read Read material at own level to enjoy meeting Persevere to understand More complex texts at every grade level Give students less to read, let them re-read More time on more complex texts Provide scaffolding & strategies EngageNY.org

ELA/Literacy Shift 4: Text-Based Answers What the Student Does…What the Teacher Does… Find evidence to support their argument Form own judgments and become scholars Conduct reading as a close reading of the text Engage with the author and his/her choices Facilitate evidence-based conversations about text Plan and conduct rich conversations Keep students in the text Identify questions that are text-dependent, worth asking/exploring EngageNY.org Principal’s Role: Support and demand that teachers work through and tolerate student frustration with complex texts and learn to chunk and scaffold that text Provide planning time for teachers to engage with the text to prepare and identify appropriate text-dependent questions. Hold teachers accountable for fostering evidence based conversations about texts with and amongst students. Principal’s Role: Support and demand that teachers work through and tolerate student frustration with complex texts and learn to chunk and scaffold that text Provide planning time for teachers to engage with the text to prepare and identify appropriate text-dependent questions. Hold teachers accountable for fostering evidence based conversations about texts with and amongst students.

ELA/Literacy Shift 5: Writing from Sources What the Student Does…What the Teacher Does… Generate informational texts Make arguments using evidence Organize for persuasion Compare multiple sources Spend much less time on personal narratives Present opportunities to write from multiple sources Give opportunities to analyze, synthesize ideas Develop students’ voice so that they can argue a point with evidence Give permission to reach and articulate their own conclusions about what they read EngageNY.org Principal’s Role: Support, enable, and demand that teachers spend more time with students writing about the texts they read – building strong arguments using evidence from the text Principal’s Role: Support, enable, and demand that teachers spend more time with students writing about the texts they read – building strong arguments using evidence from the text

ELA/Literacy Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary What the Student Does…What the Teacher Does… Use domain specific words across content areas Build content vocabulary through reading Develop students’ ability to use and access words Sequence texts so that students encounter vocabulary within a particular domain over and over in increasingly complex contexts Be strategic about the new vocabulary words Work with words students will use frequently Teach fewer words more deeply EngageNY.org Principal’s Role: Shift attention on how to plan vocabulary meaningfully using tiers and transferability strategies Demand the spiraling of increasingly complex texts within particular domains Principal’s Role: Shift attention on how to plan vocabulary meaningfully using tiers and transferability strategies Demand the spiraling of increasingly complex texts within particular domains

What this Means for Your Students Reasons for becoming a teacher Favorite books Favorite teachers How they were taught to write What they were taught to read for How they and their peers were placed Roles of teacher and students Expectations 12

13 The Statistics of Success The ELA proficiency results (NYS Levels 3 or 4) for race/ethnicity groups across grades 3-8 reveal the persistence of the achievement gap

“Students living in poverty often have a gap in their knowledge of words and knowledge about the world.” -David Liben EngageNY.org14

The Teacher Lounge It matters where you place them. The attitudes about the Common Core and its Implementation vary……Greatly. The New Uncomfortable Keeping students first in the classroom Developing a mature perspective Empowerment with local control 15

Options Take apart a module Close-Read the appendices – particularly Appendix A