Category: Common Core

PARCC Prep: Literary Analysis Writing Task

Are your students ready for Common Core ELA assessments? Using the PARCC as a springboard, literacy consultant Sarah Tantillo details a 10-lesson strategy to prep for the Literary Analysis Writing Task and links to other preps at her blog. Teachers in non-PARCC states may also find the ideas helpful.

The Gr-2 ELA Standard You May Need to Teach

For literacy consultant Sarah Tantillo, Reading Informational Text (RIT) Standard 2.1 is both essential and easy to learn. Yet she suspects many students well beyond Grade 2 haven’t mastered it. She shares a quick technique to teach this high-leverage skill in middle grades.

PARCC Prep: A Better Way to Teach Compare & Contrast

Common Core tests require students to analyze two literary texts and compare & contrast themes or points of view. Literacy consultant Sarah Tantillo shares a better tool to help students organize these essays. Included: Links to all her PARCC Prep articles.

Have You Tried Making Common Core Lemonade?

The Common Core experience may leave a sour taste on some educators’ palates, middle school ELA teacher Amber Chandler concedes. But she and her colleagues are coping with new challenges and limited resources by making their own brand of CCSS lemonade.

Tools to Unpack the ELA Common Core Standards

Author and literacy consultant Sarah Tantillo shares six tips and a simple, user-friendly graphic organizer that can guide middle grades teachers as they unpack the ELA Common Core standards to create objectives & activities. From her upcoming book.

Making Room for Poetry in Standards-Based Classes

How often do you share poetry with students? Reading interventionist and literacy coach Gwen Flaskamp shows how increasing students’ experience with poetry can build literacy, analytical and social-emotional skills and help meet Common Core standards.

Why We Need CCSS Math

MS math teacher Kathy Felt makes her case for the Common Core standards and the need for educators to “teach mathematics in deep and engaging ways.”

Good Math Tools for the Common Core

Learning consultant Mike Fisher shares more ideas for integrating technology and the Common Core. This time: Digital resources that can deepen math learning by capturing “a moment-in-time assessment of student ownership,” provided teachers are savvy about the ways students use the tools.