How "common" is the Common Core?

Do you think the CCSS is “common” teaching?  For me, for ELA in particular, for the most part... Yes - for me, I consider it to be common.  It is what I do every day.  There are a few changes that I think will be difficult for everyone (including myself) but they are changes that we probably should have made a long time ago. 

 

In a nutshell, here is what the ELA CCSS emphasizes:

1.   Tiered Vocabulary – more to come on this topic…

2.   Language .  Now, this is not just your typical run of the mill language.  Yes, it includes conventions and their effective use and vocabulary just as the previous standards did but it also has a deeper meaning.  ORAL COMMUNICATION!!!  We need to teach our students to “text talk” so to speak.

3.   Speaking and Listening.  Being able to carry on a “flexible” conversation, being able to communicate ideas and have opinions, being able to collaborate. 

 

In order to do this within small group, I created a rule for the students.  They must respond to the previous comment about the text prior to sharing what is on their mind. 

So for example let’s say I stated that I thought Alice (in the text titled below) was a naughty little girl that didn’t listen because…  A student would have to say something like: “I disagree because…” OR “Yes, I agree with that because…”. 

 

It creates a group of intensified listeners and it is truly remarkable to see.  Now, I have only tried this with my 4^th graders so far but this coming year I am going to be working on this with my younger kiddos as well.

 

 

4.   Text-dependent questions.   Finding and using evidence-based answers is a common theme throughout all of the standards K-12.  I'm going to create another post on creating text-dependent questions and how to know the difference.

 

The students need to learn to respond to text.  How do you teach that?  Well, I start off small.  For example… the focus of instruction for my 4^th grade group was on character analysis.  I used a mentor text:  

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A teacher once asked me: “don’t the kids you pull need all comprehension skills?”

My response?  Not necessarily. Some students might be good at retelling or sequential order so I wouldn’t need to focus on that.

So how do I choose the skills to work on/focus on with my groups?

I choose them based on what I see that are common denominators within the group.

My 4^th graders had a ton of difficulty with inferencing - ALL. YEAR. LONG.  This included making EVIDENCE-BASED predictions (being able to explain why they predicted what they did and then reading on and being able to assess whether or not their prediction was correct), and character analysis which included character traits.

I found this information out just from working with the students.

For example, in previous guided reading lessons, I asked deeper questions about why a character did something or what does that (a particular action) tell us about the character? I would get blank stares!!!

As many times as I tried to reword the question, they still weren’t getting it!  They weren’t understanding what I was asking them to do!  I thought for sure they would understand what character analysis was and how to answer questions but they didn't and they couldn't. 

So, I showed them. 

I started off easy. Using pictures – asking: How do you know the character is happy – oh because he’s smiling!

Okay so how would you sound if you were happy? Blah blah blah.
You get the idea. 
Scaffolding at its finest.

I then used a guided reading text set (a.k.a. leveled readers) with my small group to get them to try to find the evidence in the pictures and then, find the evidence within the words.

 

I used this book to work on character analysis and to work on Monitoring and Clarifying (this book is a higher level text and it is difficult mainly because it has flashbacks from Suzy's journal interweaved throughout the story).

If they can understand the idea using pictures, they will understand the gist of it when trying to find evidence within the text(words of the text).  They just need to do it often or more often so it becomes second nature to them.

 

This explanation of language is really also the explanation of answering questions with/ responding to text with EVIDENCE BASED ANSWERS!!!

5.   Responding to Reading --- Being thoughtful about our answering, writing evidence based answers, really delving into the book.


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My instruction hasn't really changed all that much.  I still do read alouds just like I always have.
Using "mentor texts" is really just a  fancier way of saying that you are doing a "read aloud with a purpose".  My choice in texts and guided reading texts is much more purposeful. 

Good teaching is meeting the students where they are and building on what they know.  It is what we do.  It is scaffolding, guiding, and modeling strategies.  Something we have always done.  The only thing that has changed for me, is that I now get to use some really interesting and unique "mentor texts".  I created a list of mentor texts that go along with each of the 6 essential comprehension strategies.  More to come on that in another post. 

I think creating text-dependent questions is going to be the hardest part.  Mainly because I find that it is sooo very time consuming.  More to come on this topic as well...


How has your instruction changed with the adoption of CCSS? 

Thanks for Reading!


~*Gina*~