Literacy and the Common Core

Recipes for Action

Sarah Tantillo

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781118839058
• eBook ISBN:
  9781118839089
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Tools and Insights for Meeting and Exceeding the Common Core Standards

Literacy and the Common Core offers K–12 teachers clear guidance on how to design units, lessons, and objectives to meet the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts; it's filled with practical strategies that teachers can use immediately to target key standards; and it describes how to analyze the standards to support instructional planning and curriculum development.

This book aims to make life a little easier for everyone—teachers, school leaders, parents, and students—as we all strive to prepare students for college and the careers they most desire. The book includes practical tools, templates, and rubrics ready to be downloaded and customized to meet your needs. Additional resources may be found on the companion site, www.literacycookbook.com.

Here are just a few of the essential topics addressed:

• Which standards to start with and how to tackle them
• How to bridge the gap when students are not on grade level
• How to engage and support parents
• How to teach students to write effectively
• How to translate the standards for actual use

Take the recipes in this book, make them your own, and enjoy your new "Common Core Master Chef" status!

If you've already read The Literacy Cookbook (and I hope you have), you are probably wondering, How are these Basic Ingredients different from those in the original Literacy Cookbook? Good question. The Literacy Cookbook deals with strategies for teaching comprehension, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This book explores instruction more broadly, so the Basic Ingredients here address how to develop and deliver curriculum units and lessons that will help students meet and exceed the Common Core Standards. We begin with strategic planning and resources; examine schoolwide approaches to reading; consider what it takes to bridge the gap when students are not on grade level; then tackle unit planning, objective writing, and lesson planning.

Chapter One
Strategic Planning to Strengthen Curriculum

Strategic Action Planning: How to Make Things Happen

I'm not sure who said it first, but one of my favorite quotes is: “You can make things happen, you can watch things happen, or you can ask, ‘What just happened?!’” In order to make things happen, you need a plan. More specifically, when it comes to the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core Standards and work related to the Common Core, your school needs a strategic action plan.

Here is a simple template to facilitate the action-planning process:

Topic/Issue/Task	What Do We See?	What Do We Want to See?	What Will We Need to Do in Order to See What We Want to See?	What Resources Will We Need? (including human and fiscal)	When Will We Tackle This Task?

Keep in mind that this is a template for organizing ideas and information. Don't let the size of the boxes fool you. To answer these questions, you will probably write lots and lots of notes. And although you can complete the template by working in isolation, this tool is actually more useful as a vehicle for collaborative reflection and problem solving. When I've presented it in workshops, participants working in teams are often surprised by how much agreement they find among colleagues whom they previously thought they disagreed with. Working together to identify and solve problems enables people to understand the perspectives of others, and these efforts will almost invariably fortify the sense of mission and purpose that you and your colleagues share. As with any other work, the more deeply that people are involved in the planning and development, the more personally they become invested in the results. The reverse is also true. For example, when only a few people sit in isolation and write the curriculum, it's not uncommon to see colleagues who were not involved in the process simply ignoring what was produced. Bottom line: Collaboration is essential, and every teacher needs to have a firm grasp of what the Common Core Standards entail and how to design units and lessons that will help students meet them.

To decide what to put in the “Topic/Issue/Task” column, you and your team might start by brainstorming a list of “things we need to work on,” then narrow it down to two or three items. Your longer list might include curriculum writing, lesson planning, standards, assessments, test prep, schedule, or even skills such as reading, writing, or speaking and listening. But try not to spend too much time haggling over which topics to address. As one workshop participant noted wryly after I'd given her group thirty seconds to pick a topic and go with it, countless meetings throughout history have begun and ended with nothing accomplished because people couldn't decide what to focus on. So when it comes to choosing topics, keep it simple. Start with one.¹

Of course I can't tell you what you see (column 2) in your school, but in the case of what you want to see (column 3) as you implement the Common Core Standards, that checklist should probably include the following items (and more):

• Teachers use a common lesson-planning template.
• Teachers are trained in how to write effective RPM (rigorous, purposeful, measurable) objectives and use them in their lesson plans.
• Teachers align objectives with other parts of the lesson plan.
• Teachers receive frequent feedback and support on their lesson plans and instruction.
• Teachers receive coaching on how to unpack the ELA Common Core Standards and design lessons and units based on the Standards.
• Teachers meet regularly for grade-level and vertical articulation in support of curriculum development and other professional development needs.

This list is just a start. And of course it's not enough to make a list. You and your colleagues must identify steps that will enable you to accomplish these aims (column 4), along with key resources (both human and fiscal—column 5) that you will need. For example, if your school does not already use a common lesson-planning template, you will need to create or select one (see the “Annotated Lesson Plan Template” in Chapter 5 for one option), then train staff how to use it effectively. As surprising as it might sound, it's not safe to assume that every teacher will know ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Online Materials
• Acknowledgments
• About The Author
• Preface: Why I Felt Compelled to Write This Book
• Introduction: What Problems This Book Attempts to Solve, and How
• Part 1: Basic Ingredients
• Part 2: Appetizers
• Part 3: Entrees
• Part 4: Desserts
• Index
• How to Access the Online Materials
• How to Use the Literacy Cookbook Website
• End User License Agreement