1. Writing and the Common Core
State Standards
Esther Wojcicki
Founder, Palo Alto High School Journalism Program
California State Teacher Credentialing Commission Teacher of
the Year in 2002.
2. Discussion topics today
• What are the Common Core State Standards in
Writing and Language Arts?
• The challenge: including non-fiction in the
classroom
• How to meet the State Standards
• requirements in your classroom
• Examples from the real world
4. Not much has changed in 100 years
• Little or no project based learning
• Lots of worksheets—now online
• Little student control of learning
• Collaboration is seen as cheating
• CHANGE IS IN THE COMMON CORE STATE
STANDARDS
5. What should school today look
like ?
CREATIVE, INNOVATIVE, EXCITING,
COLLABORATIVE
27. All kids have tremendous capacity for
innovation
We educate innovation and creativity out
of them with all the testing and
controlled curriculum
28. We are educating kids for a future that
we don’t know
We need to teach them to think,
to find information for themselves.
not to memorize useless facts
29. How do you get creativity into the
schools?
Add project based learning into
the scripted curriculum
31. WHY JOURNALISM?
Journalism is the
most effective and authentic project based
learning
for all students
WHY?
It’s real
32. Why Journalism?
• It ties directly to the Common Core
State Standards
• The Common Core State Standards
can help change the classroom
33. CCSS---Key Design Consideration
Research and media skills blended into the Standards as a
whole
....students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate,
synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct
original research in order to answer questions or solve
problems, and to analyze and create a high volume and
extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old
and new. The need to conduct research and to produce and
consume media is embedded into every aspect of today’s
curriculum...
34. WRITING STANDARD
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.10 Write routinely over
extended time frames (time for research,
reflection, and revision) and shorter time
frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a
range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes,
and audiences.
35. Journalism is research,
primary research
It provides….the ability to gather,
comprehend, evaluate, synthesize,
and report on information and
ideas, to conduct original
research….
44. JOURNALISM MEANS INTERVIEWING
Students need to know how to interview, how to
ask good questions, how to do primary
research. Students learn by doing…(John
Dewey)
45. WRITING STANDARD
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.3 Write narratives to
develop real or imagined experiences or events
using effective technique, descriptive details,
and clear event sequences.
46. Example: PERSONALITY FEATURE
At the beginning of the school year, have
students interview each other and write a
personality feature (profile) about each other
47. The NY Times Learning Network has
100s of resources supporting
the teaching of journalism
51. Personality Seventh grade was when it all started. The
feature song “Careless Whisper,” by George Michael,
hooked Orion into the musical world, and kept
lead by 9th him there. With its catchy melody by his side,
Orion was able to excel at alto saxophone, and
grader find a supportive group of friends that share
similar interests as him.
“It’s the song that got me into music.” Orion
says, when referring to “Careless Whisper”. He
and his friends have been playing that song for
several years now, and it still holds a special
meaning for them. Orion described how he
and his five other band friends played Careless
Whisper after band practice one day. “We
played it over and over,” he said. “We even got
some of the teachers to come out and dance!
Our friends came out and walked with us and
they talked, and we just kept playing.”
52. Other people to interview
• Adminstrators
• Teachers
• Student leaders
• Parents
• Grandparents
• Community members
• Business people
59. JOURNALISM is Opinion Writing.
It ties to CCSS
• All kids are opinionated starting at birth…by
the time they are in elementary school they
want to run the show.
• Give them an opportunity to write about
something they care about and be
independent
60. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.1 Write opinion pieces in
which they introduce the topic or name the
book they are writing about, state an opinion,
supply a reason for the opinion, and provide
some sense of closure
62. PARENTS ARE A CHILD’S FIRST
TEACHERS
• They are also the most influential of all the
teachers.
• Parents are part of the educational team
63. MY PHILOSOPY WITH MY CHILDREN
• Trust
• Respect
• Independence
• Collaboration
• Kindness
64. WORKS IN THE CLASSROOM,
TIES INTO CCSS
• It empowers students
• Fosters collaboration
• Helps teachers implement the project based
CCSS curriculum
• Motivates students
• Makes kids feel valued
66. Reasons for dropping out
• School not relevant to real world
• Feel disconnected to school
• Difficult home life
• Economic issues
67. Help them feel connected
• Give them a chance to express their ideas
(OPINION WRITING)
• Let them work together in groups (MORE FUN
TO WORK WITH YOUR FRIENDS)
• Have them write everyday about what is
important to them (or react to what is going
on in the world) (USE GOOGLE DOCS TO
SHARE)
68. EXAMPLES OF STUDENT OPINION
WRITING
• STUDENTS CAN WRITE ABOUT
– Local issues
– Family issues
– School issues
– International issues
– Class issues
– So many topics
69.
70.
71.
72. WRITING STANDARD
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.2 Write
informative/explanatory texts in which they
name a topic, supply some facts about the
topic, and provide some sense of closure.
NEWS WRITING
Ties to the CCSS
73. WRITING STANDARD
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.8 Recall relevant
information from experiences or gather
relevant information from print and digital
sources; take notes and categorize information,
and provide a list of sources.
74. NEWS WRITING
What is News Writing?
• Collecting information and or data
• Distinguishing fact from opinion
• Evaluating sources
• Evaluating information
• Writing it up in the inverted pyramid
format, most important to least
important
75.
76.
77. You don’t need a dedicated
journalism program
• Opinion writing can be done in an English
class, a social studies class, a science class
• Easiest classes to integrate journalism into is
5th through 9th grade English classes
78. Book Reviews instead of
Book Reports
Have students read professional book reviews
• Ask them to support their opinions about the
book with examples and quotes
• You can still ask them to evaluate plots,
characterization, theme....
• Have students peer edit using Google Docs
• Publish the reviews in a blog online
84. From: Key Design Consideration
Standards for 6–12 ELA requires much greater
attention to a specific category of
informational text—literary nonfiction—than
has been traditional.
91. Kids are not afraid of making mistakes
But through schooling we
stigmatize mistakes
By the time they graduate they are
good at memorizing but not
thinking
102. WHY ???
• Why don’t schools change??
• 1. Schools of education have not changed
• 2. Teachers teach the way they were taught
• 3. Teachers are reluctant to give up any
control to students
• 4. Teachers are given scripted curriculum
103. Everyone is interested in education
Let’s see if we can make a difference in getting
kids
engaged (not threatened)
in their learning
Let’s see if we can implement the CCSS