A Close Read of a Close Reading Video

by Tim Shanahan

My daughters are Erin and Meagan. When they were little, Meagan would get upset because we always “ran Erins,” but never “ran Meagans.”

That’s cute when a little one doesn’t know the meaning of a word. But such miscommunication can be a real problem in Common Core State Standards implementation.

It’s getting so that I […]

• Articles
• Common Core
• Comprehension
• Literacy
• Reading
• Teaching

8 Traps to Avoid with the Common Core and Your Reading Program

By Jill Jackson

Think about it…you go to your Common Core-aligned curriculum and you plan to teach what it tells you to teach for tomorrow.  It’s not that you’re not engaged in the curriculum, but you are trusting that what it tells you it will do (teach the kids to master the Common Core standards for […]

• Articles
• Common Core

Teaching: A last-resort college major or a highly respected profession?

According to Amanda Ripley’s article, “Higher Calling: To improve our schools, we need to make it harder to become a teacher,” some American universities are beginning to treat teacher preparation like that of training physicians, pharmacists, pilots, and other professions by increasing the rigor of teacher preparation and making it harder to become teachers. Maybe […]

• Articles
• Common Core
• Leadership
• Professional Development/Learning
• Teaching

When Will We Ever Learn

Dissecting The Common Core State Standards with Dr. Louisa Moats

Dr. Louisa Moats, the nationally-renowned teacher, psychologist, researcher and author, was one of the contributing writers of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The CCSS initiative is an attempt to deal with inconsistent academic expectations from state-to-state and an increasing number of inadequately prepared high school […]

• Articles
• Common Core
• Literacy

How to Organize Daily Literacy Instruction

By Tim Shanahan

Twice this week—from a NY teacher and an Illinois school administrator—I’ve been asked how to organize instructional time for literacy with Common Core. One was an email inquiry, the other face-to-face, but both noted my earlier concerns about Daily 5 and CAFE. 

In both cases, they were right that I am not a big […]

• Articles
• Common Core
• Literacy
• Professional Development/Learning

Typing: 21st Century Handwriting

As Louisiana continues to implement more rigorous academic standards, students are required to exhibit higher level, critical thinking skills. Upon full implementation of these standards, Louisiana students in grades 3-8 will no longer take the current state standardized test, known as the LEAP; rather, they will take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College […]

• Common Core
• Testing

To Multi-Text or Not to Multi-Text in Close Reading

By Tim Shanahan

You say close reading requires students to rely solely on the text during reading. But many of the Common Core Standards (and the PARCC and Smarter Balanced prototypes) require that students compare texts. This seems contradictory. What’s up?

This is a bit confusing. The basic idea of close reading is, just as you say, […]

• Articles
• Common Core
• Literacy

CCSS and Units of Study: To Theme or Not to Theme

By Timothy Shanahan

Question

Dear Dr. Shanahan,

My colleagues have been debating the use of thematic units in the Common Core. Several of them argue that this practice does not fit a “standards based curriculum.” They argue that essential questions and enduring understandings need to be specific to the ELA standards. So, for example, a unit with an essential question for […]

• Articles
• Common Core

Power Standards or Why the Common Core is Like a Second Marriage

By Timothy Shanahan

Recently, I received a note from an educator trying to develop “power standards” for the common core. Power standards is a concept developed by Doug Reeves and Larry Ainsworth. Their idea was that school districts needed to identify the most important curriculum standards – the ones students really needed to learn—and then to […]

• Articles
• Common Core

The Common Core Ate My Baby and Other Urban Legends

By Timothy Shanahan

Urban legends are plausible stories—told as truths—that revolve around the complexities and challenges of modern life. Such legends are usually told as though they happened to someone the teller knows (a friend of a friend), such as the story about the friend’s grandmother who dried her poodle in the microwave. (If these tales […]

• Articles
• Common Core