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Colleagues -- My hope is that you find this little blog a useful reminder of our work together, as it will continue to inform us all; it will help us to have some touchstone of the shared experience as a point of reference. Please help clarify and add insights, responses, nuanced clarifications, etc. as you see fit.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

5. ELA Group Review of the Anchor Standards

We spent the first part of Saturday reviewing the anchor standards in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language, briefly pointing out the gist of each and their implications for changes or modifications in teaching and learning.

Content area standards do not call on those teachers to teach reading, but to use reading as the vehicle for not an add on, it's a way to structures how they read and write in ways that are specific to your discipline. History teachers read history texts differently than science teachers read science, so the anchor standards. ... not expected to teach students foundational skills, but to read write and communicate within the domain (art, health, music, chemistry, math). This explanation promoted good questions of clarification and some discussion.

"One of the paradigm shifts inherent in the standards is the way we adults in a building interact with each other." - Darion Griffin

Key Takeaway: Part of our work as a team is a way to communicate that is not a gotcha and not more work on top of other work. There's no script for that, and we may have to spend more on creating the kinds of resources to build the needed bridges.

Qriting standards in the content areas:
Write subject specific arguments, use data / evidence and reasoning to support claims, use domain specific vocabulary.


Activity with a partner: read the anchor standards with grade level partner, look vertically, see the scope. Specifically: take a closer look examine the gr 6 ela standards for reading p 39 to writing p. 44 to the grade 6-8 literacy standards for reading and writing p 61, 65. Identify the similarities and differences. And record your findings. Share out. Discussion.

Because there is so much opportunity for coherent alignment, there may arise a natural feeling of connection once we get into the use of practicing the standards in our classrooms.

For homework, read the walk through the standards over the grades, read the appendices B and C.
The document is loaded and intended for you to discover connections.



Key Takeaway: The message is not throw out everything you've ever done and put on these new clothes, it is to assess the degree to what it is you do reflects the standards. These standards are rigorous, and we have now to make substantive changes in our assumptions, practices, and it is a push back against the reductionist standardized test approach. Critical thinking is at the heart, but it is the close examination and analysis of text that makes up the core. My analogy: a heart without a pulse is just cardiac tissue; similarly, the standards without our vigorous work scaffolding instruction up to them is just a string of words.

Inherent in this work is the substantial time for teachers to get this work, curriculum developed, planning at the macro level haas morphed into an immense task... And collaboration can't be optional.


Link to a second draft of the publisher's criteria.




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