1. Databases and the Common Core
How your library and your library’s research databases can help you implement Common Core Standards in the classroom.
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2. Training Objectives
Attendees will learn about aspects of the Common Core like informational texts and what those mean to students.
Attendees will learn how databases can help with certain aspects of the Common Core.
Attendees will be able to search by Lexile score to be able to locate informational texts to help implement the Common Core.
Attendees will come away with a list of resources available in Tennessee that will help in professional development when understanding recent research into implementing the common core.
Here are today’s training objectives…

3. Created by…
Common core was created by the council of chief state school officers and the national governors association. The goals… 3 3

4. Common Core
“A clear set of expectations for elementary and high school students nationwide.”
“To make sure that kids graduate high school with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and, ultimately, to contribute to an increasingly competitive global workforce.”
To create a clear ser of expectations for elementary and high school students nationwide. Kids need to graduate with the skills to compete in the global workplace. Here’s a link to the Common Core standards page…

5. Aligned with college and work expectations
Common Core Goals
Aligned with college and work expectations
Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills
Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards
Internationally benchmarked so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society
Based on evidence and research
State led – coordinated by NGA Center and CCSSO
Heres a set of common core goals

6. Great Article!
“All aboard! Implementing Common Core offers school librarians an opportunity to take the lead.”
Rebecca Hill. School Library Journal. 58.4 (Apr. 2012) p26. 
We will be sending after a bookmarked reading list that will link you to articles in the gale databases that help you learn more about common core. We know you don’t have much time so you if you can only read one, this one is recommended.

7. Tennessee Common Core Resources
Here are some great links to resources for how TN teachers can help implement the common core…

8. Math English Subjects Covered
There are two subjects that the common core is covering first…Math and English.

9. Common Core Key Components
Literacy
Critical Thinking
Inquiry Process
The Common Core hopes to cover several key skill areas. Literacy, Critical Thinking, and the Inquiry Process. These skills are very familiar to librarians. We call them 21st century skills or information literacy skills.

10. Informational texts will soon take center stage.
Fourth graders will be expected to read the same amount of fiction, or "literary" texts, as informational texts.
By eighth grade, they'll be expected to read 45 percent literary and 55 percent informational texts.
In their senior year of high school, the scale will dramatically shift to a relatively modest 30 percent literary texts and a hefty 70 percent nonfiction texts.
So how is common core going to help teach these skills? With something called informational texts…
Nonfiction Matters - blog

11. What is an Informational Text?
A subset of the larger category of non-fiction
Primary purpose to inform the reader about the natural or social world.
Different from fiction, and other forms of non-fiction, informational text does not utilize characters.

12. Everything you see here…
What are in Databases?
Everything you see here…
Magazines
Academic Journals
Websites
Reference Books
Databases are made up of just these informational texts from a variety of resources.
Newspapers
Videos
PowerSearch Plus

13. Informational Texts are NOT…
Procedural, because its purpose is to tell how to do something.
Narrative nonfiction, because it tells an event.
Not all nonfiction is an informational text. Though the definition is open to interpretation.

14. Example Informational Text
Here’s an example of an information text from one of the databases. This is an Encyclopedia article about the country of Australia. This article is nonfiction and conveys information about the natural and social world. Use the bookmark tool to link the articles to class websites and lesson plans. Hover over the symbol to see the lexile reading level.

15. Informational Texts - POV
“From fifth grade on, students will be introduced to a point of view as an inherent aspect of nonfiction, and will be trained as readers, researchers, writers, and speakers to compare and contrast sources, assemble evidence, and make contentions of their own."
Topic Overviews
Cover Stories
Biographies
Editorials
Point of View will be a large aspect of helping with the common core. Use the Document Type built into the databases to help figure out the point of view.
Letters
Interviews
Article

16. Videos on Text Complexity
Video on Introduction
to Text Complexity
Here are some great videos to watch about choosing informational texts for classes there are three main parts. Two, Qualitative and Reader and Task Considerations are up to Professional Judgments. The Quantitative aspect works with
Video on LCD
Text Selection

17. Choosing the Right Texts for your Students
Use the Advanced Search to search by Lexile Score.
Use the Advanced Search to search by lexile score. Just type in the range.

18. Bookmark the Search
Bookmark a search results set and put the link into a lesson plan to get updated articles every time you click on it. Now you have articles at a certain reading level with a chosen subject. Students can use these articles to read and respond.

19. Contextual Information
In the Common Core, students need contextual information to be able understand what they've read. They need resources that provide background, overview, and multiple perspectives to help them learn to interpret what they're reading.

20. Examples of Instructional Priorities - Grade 3
1. By the end of the year students will need to read and comprehend informational texts (Locate informational text in the databases)
2. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate the understanding of a text, referring to the text for the answers (Write questions from the article)
3. Write opinion pieces on topics on a topic supporting a point of view with reasons
Introduce the topic or text that they are writing about, state an opinion, and create and organizational structure that supports that opinion
Provide reasons to support that opinion
Use linking words and phrases (e.g. because, therefore)
Provide a concluding statement
4. Research:
Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic (Find reference articles in the databases and read for basic information)
Recall information from experiences or gather information about a topic from print and digital sources and take brief notes and sort that information into provided categories (Find articles in the databases that help explain the topic)
Here are some instructional priorities examples.