A review of the Common Core Standards for teachers at Chestnut Accelerated Middle School. a TWO-DAY DISTRICT-BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SESSION.

1. UNPACKING
the
ELA COMMON CORE
STANDARDS
District-wide Professional
Development
Chestnut Accelerated Middle School
AUGUST 20-21, 2012 8:30-3:00
Presenters: Renay Jihad, ELA/Reading Instructional Leader
Melinda Franklin, ELA Department Chair
Linda Cortelli, ELA Special Education Teacher
Carmen Bruno, Read 180 Teacher - Assistant

2. Agenda Day 1
Time Topic
8:30-10:45 Overview of Agenda
(Objectives, Instructional Focus, Norms, and Learning Log)
Warm-up
Grammar Survey
Focusing the Learning – Theory of Action
10:45 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 11:30 Unpacking the Common Core: The Six Shifts
11:30 - 12:30 Lunch
12:30 – 1:30 Unpacking the Common Core: The Six Shifts
1:30 – 1:45 Break
1:45 – 2:45 Unpacking the Common Core: Impact and Structure
2:45 – 3:00 Debrief and Evaluation

3. OBJECTIVES - DAY 1
• WE WILL…
• Unpack and demystify the Common Core Standards.
• Learn the 6 KEY SHIFTS of the ELA Common Core
Standards and discuss the implications for literacy
instruction in our school.
• Identify and prioritize tools and resources to help us
understand and respond practically to the shifts.

6. WARM-UP ACTIVITY
15 minutes
Team Building - Form a “Common Chain” with your colleagues
Conversation starters – F.O.R.M. = Family, Occupation, Recreation,
Money/Marriage
1) The facilitator stands up and tells the participants something about herself .
2) As soon as someone hears something he/she has in common with her, that
person will stand up and link an arm with the facilitator.
3) The person who has linked his/her arm with the facilitator will then begin to
talk about him/herself, starting with the commonality.
4) The common chain continues until everyone has participated.
--------------------------------------------------
Learning Log – “How can community-building activities promote a healthy class
climate?”

7. GRAMMAR SURVEY
1. Rationale
2. Directions
3. Take Survey
4. Learning Log
“Grammar and mechanics should be explicitly taught in school.”
Jot down a comment which falls into one of the following four
categories: Assume, Agree, Argue and Aspire.
• Turn to your elbow buddy and share your answer.
• Resources for ELA teachers:
• Old grammar books
• http://www.teacherwritingcenter.org/common_core_essay_111611.pd

8. Theory of Action
If…
WE are clear in our expectations, focus on the
instructional core, provide appropriate support,
monitor performance with shared accountability
Then…
WE will dramatically improve student achievement
and close the achievement gap in A Culture of
Educational Excellence.
http://www.sps.springfield.ma.us/StrategicPriorities.asp

9. All Schools Will:
1. Identify and implement a schoolwide instructional focus.
2. Develop professional collaboration teams to improve teaching and learning for all students.
3. Identify, learn and use effective evidence-based teaching practices to meet the needs of each student.
4. Create a targeted professional development plan that builds expertise in selected best practices.
5. Re-align resources (people, time, talent, energy and money) to support the instructional focus.
6. Engage families and the community in supporting the instructional focus.
7. Create an internal accountability system growing out of student learning goals that promote measurable
gains in learning for every student and eliminates achievement gaps.
Supported by the district office, each school will work to improve CORE instruction within
a climate and culture that is
GOAL FOCUSED, ADAPTIVE AND COHESIVE

10. Continuous Improvement Process
3

12. Teacher Springfield School MA Data
Incentive Improvement Improvement Curriculum Warehouse
Fund (TIF) Framework Planning Frameworks
Educator School Wraparound Organizational Dropout
Evaluations Improvement Services Health Prevention
Grants Instrument Taskforce
Achievement Literacy and Credit Mass Core Magnet
Network Numeracy Recovery and Schools
Partnership Extended
(ANet) Learning
Time

13. How it fits together: the essential
pieces to raising student achievement
The work
Coach, develop and Implement a
evaluate educators consistent, rigorous
based on a clear vision of curriculum built on  Effective  Students
strong instruction common standards instruction in achieve
SIF #1,2,3,4 with common unit
every class, grade level
assessments
SIF #1,3,4,7
every day proficiency
 Shared, high  Students
expectations graduate
Deploy data that is Strengthen social, for all ready for
timely, accurate and emotional and academic students college
accessible to make safety nets and supports and career
decisions for students, for all students
schools and the district SIF #6
SIF #5,7

14. We are leveraging partners to
support the work
Topic Key Partners
• Implementing educator • District Management Council
Coach, develop and evaluations
evaluate educators • Coaching administrators • Focus on Results
• Achievement Network
• Cornerstone Literacy
• Development of a
Implement consistent, consistent, rigorous • District Management Council,
rigorous curriculum curriculum Cornerstone Literacy
• Principals’ Dashboard
Use timely data to show • Interim assessments and data • Achievement Network
what is working cycle
• Climate and culture feedback • Organizational Health
• 9th grade academies • District Management Council
Strengthen safety nets for • Wraparound services • City Connects
all students • Credit recovery
• Summer remediation and
enrichment

17. Points to Ponder…
Common Core Standards?
1. Why informational text is emphasized more so than literary text?
Pages 5 and 7
2. What the difference is between the Common Core Standards and
the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks? Pages 3 and 4
3. What the difference is between content (domain-specific)
vocabulary and academic vocabulary? Pages 7 and 10
4. What the difference is between college and career readiness
anchor standards and grade-specific standards? Page 4
5. Some key design considerations of Common Core Standard? Page 5
6. What Appendix B is?

18. Teacher as Expert Activity - DIRECTIONS
• This is a collaborative learning activity where you become the expert.
• You will read, learn and teach the new material to your colleagues.
• Note – This works best when you are teaching new material that can be divided into steps or parts.
• We will divide the group into small groups of three – to four. Need 4
groups.
• We will give each group one question with page number(s). Those page
numbers will help you find the answer to your question.
• Write your notes well. Share and refine your notes with your group.
• Now we will form new groups. Should be a 1, 2, 3, 4 at each table.
• One expert at each table for each question.
• When you report out refer to the page number you are speaking about.
• Each member teaches the rest of his/her group the answer to the
questions citing passages from the text.
• Jot down any questions on a sticky so that your facilitators can answer
them.
• Come back together as a whole group to further discuss what was
learned.
How does this activity help engage students in reading with a
purpose?

19. PARCC’s TIMELINE
• 2010-11: Launch and design phase
• 2011-12: Development begins
• 2012-13: 1st year pilot/field testing, research
& data collection
• 2013-14: 2nd year pilot/field testing, research
& data collection
• 2014-2015 School Year: Full operational
administration of PARCC assessments
• Summer 2015: Set achievement levels,
including college and career readiness

20. VIDEO: WHY COMMON CORE? WHAT IS COMMON CORE?
1. The Need: What NAEP and other data
says about college and career
readiness. (National Assessment of Educational
Progress)
2. The How: History of development of
national standards and assessments
Learning Log- Record notes there.

21. VIEW AND REVIEW VIDEO JIG
1. Break group into 5 small mixed-grade groups.
2. Select a facilitator, recorder, reporter and
timekeeper.
3. Pick up a computer from the cart and log on.
4. View the video, using the DVD.
5. Write the answers to your questions on
poster-size paper.
6. Go to lunch.
7. We will report out when we all return.

22. The 6 Key Shifts of the ELA Common Core
 Shift 1: Balancing Informational and Literary Texts, PK-5
 Shift 2: Knowledge in the Disciplines
(History and Science), 6-12
 Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity
 Shift 4: Text-Based Answers
 Shift 5: Writing to Inform or Argue from Sources
 Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary

23. ELA/Literacy Shift 1:
Balancing Informational and Literary Text
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•Build content knowledge •Balance informational & literary
text
•Exposure to the world through
reading •Scaffold for informational texts
•Apply strategies •Teach “through” and “with”
informational texts
23

24. ELA/Literacy Shift 2:
6-12 Knowledge in the Disciplines
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•Build content knowledge •Shift identity: “I teach
through text reading.”
•Handle primary source •Stop referring and
documents summarizing and start reading
•Find Evidence •Slow down the history and
science classroom
24

25. ELA/Literacy Shift 3:
Staircase of Complexity
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•Re-read •more complex texts at every grade
level
•Read material at own level to enjoy
meeting •Give students less to read, let them
re-read
• tolerate frustration
•More time on more complex texts
•Provide scaffolding & strategies
• Engage with texts w/ other adults
25

26. ELA/Literacy Shift 4:
Text Based Answers
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•find evidence to support their •Facilitate evidence based
argument conversations about text
•Form own judgments and become •Plan and conduct rich conversations
scholars
•Keep students in the text
•Conducting reading as a close
reading of the text •Identify questions that are text-
dependent, worth
• engage with the author and his/her asking/exploring, deliver richly
choices
•Spend much more time preparing for
instruction by reading deeply.
26

27. ELA/Literacy Shift 5:
Writing to Inform and Argue from Sources
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•generate informational texts •Spending much less time on personal
narratives
•Make arguments using evidence
•Present opportunities to write from
multiple sources
•Organize for persuasion
•Give opportunities to analyze,
•Compare multiple sources synthesize ideas.
•Develop students’ voice so that they
can argue a point with evidence
•Give permission to reach and
articulate their own conclusions about
what they read
27

28. ELA/Literacy Shift 6:
Academic Vocabulary
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•Use high octane words across •Develop students’ ability to use and
content areas access words
•Build “language of power” database •Be strategic about the new vocab
words
•Work with words students will use
frequently
•Teach fewer words more deeply
28

30. Learning Log for 6 Shifts

31. Learning Log
Rate the shifts from easiest to hardest to
implement and teach. Why?
Hard Easy

32. Significant Impact of Common Core
• Identify what Reeves says are the significant
strengths of the document.
• After we will…
Analyze the structure and organization of the
document.
***********************************
• Learning Log – Just your thoughts!!!

33. How the Standards Are Organized
GET YOUR GREEN BOOK AND TURN TO PAGE 47

34. How the Standards Are Organized
GET YOUR GREEN BOOK AND TURN TO PAGE 47

35. How the Standards Are Organized

36. Reading Standards for Literature 6–12 [RL]
The following standards offer a focus for instruction each year and help ensure that students gain adequate exposure to a range of texts and tasks. Rigor is
also infused through the requirement that students read increasingly complex texts through the grades. Students advancing through the grades are
expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Grade 6 students: Grade 7 students: Grade 8 students:
Key Ideas and Details
1. Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says 1. Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of 1. Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an
explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences
the text. drawn from the text.
2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is 2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its 2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its
conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the development over the course of the text; provide an objective development over the course of the text, including its
text distinct from personal opinions or judgments. summary of the text. relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an
objective summary of the text.
3. Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a 3. Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact 3. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story
series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot). or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or
change as the plot moves toward a resolution. provoke a decision.
Craft and Structure
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in 4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are 4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used
a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings;
the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone. analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and
(e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
section of a story or drama.
5. Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits 5. Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g., 5. Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and
into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning. analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to
development of the theme, setting, or plot. its meaning and style.
6. Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator 6. Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of 6. Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters
or speaker in a text. view of different characters or narrators in a text. and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of
dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Compare and contrast the experience of reading a story, drama, 7. Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its 7. Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a
or poem to listening to or viewing an audio, video, or live version audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or
of the text, including contrasting what they “see” and “hear” effects of techniques unique to each medium (e.g., lighting, script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.
when reading the text to what they perceive when they listen or sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film).
watch.

37. Reading Standards for Literature 6–12 [RL]
Grade 6 students: Grade 7 students: Grade 8 students:
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (cont’d.)
9. Compare and contrast texts in different forms or 9. Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal of a time, 9. Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes,
genres (e.g., stories and poems; historical novels and place, or character and a historical account of the same patterns of events, or character types from myths,
fantasy stories) in terms of their approaches to similar period as a means of understanding how authors of traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible,
themes and topics. fiction use or alter history. including describing how the material is rendered new.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend 10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, 10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature,
literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6–8 including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of
grades 6–8 text complexity band proficiently, with text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and
scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. needed at the high end of the range. proficiently.

38. College and Career Anchor Standards
READING WRITING SPEAKING AND LANGUAGE
Page 47 CC Page 53 CC LISTENING Page 64
Page 60 CC
Key Ideas & Details
Craft & Structure
Integration of
Knowledge and
Ideas
Range of Reading
and Level of Text
Complexity
Learning Log - Turn to the page in your Common Core document and fill in the
other anchor standards.

39. EVALUATION of Day 1
new ideas, concepts, understandings you
learned about the CCS.
questions you have about CCS.
thing you will further investigate regarding
the CCS.

40. UNPACKING
the
ELA COMMON CORE
STANDARDS
District-wide Professional
Development
Chestnut Accelerated Middle School
AUGUST 20-21, 2012 8:30-3:00
Presenters: Renay Jihad, ELA/ILS
Melinda Franklin, ELA Department Chair
Linda Cortelli, ELA Teacher

41. Agenda Day 2
Time Topic
8:30 – 9:00 Agenda Overview
Warm-up Activity
9:00 – 10:30 Deep Dive into Shift #4: Text-based Answers
10:30 – 10:45 BREAK
10:45 – 11:30 Overview of Pacing Guide
Schedule of Assessments
11:30 – 12:30 LUNCH
12:30 – 1:30 6 + 1 Writing Traits
1:30 – 1:45 BREAK
2:00 – 2:30 Grade-level Planning
2:30 – 3:00 Evaluations MLP

42. OBJECTIVES - DAY 2
• Teachers will gain and understanding of text
complexity and by examining shift #4.
• Teachers will gain an overview of the district’s
Pacing Guide.
• Teachers will examine this year’s schedule of
Assessments.
• Teachers will gain a practical approach to
teaching writing using the 6+1 Writing Traits
resource.
• Teachers will see My Learning Plan.

43. WARM-UP ACTIVITY
What’s in an Object?
• Break group into small groups.
• Select a timekeeper and recorder.
• Select an object from the bag.
• The first person in group begins a true story, inspired by the object.
• After 20 seconds, the next person continues the story, integrating the object they
are holding into the personal narrative.
• Continue until everyone has contributed to the personal narrative.
• Share your story with the group.
• ******************************************************************
• Learning Log – Write some other pre-writing activities you might use with your
students.
• Turn and talk to a processing partner. Share ideas for pre-writing activities.
• Resource – Common Core link – Writing to explain, persuade, or convey real or
imagined experience. P. 5

44. The Big Headlines For ELA Common Core
Deep-Dive into Text Complexity
 Shift 1: Balancing Informational and Literary Texts, PK-5
 Shift 2: 6-12, Knowledge in the Disciplines (Social Studies and Science)
 Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity
Shift 4: Text-Based Answers
 Shift 5: Writing to Inform or Argue from Sources
 Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary

45. SHOOT-OUT ACTIVITY
- TEACHING SHIFT 4: TEXT-BASED ANSWERS
Need Text, Reflection Sheet, and Instructions
Exercise/Learning Activity Outcome/Objective: Teachers will. . .
1. Anchor Standards in Action Exercise Explain how the reading standards are
with “Shoot-Out” by Guy Martin related and how they are grounded in
text-based answers.
2. Anchor Standards in Action Reflection Describe how a series of purposeful
with Sample Lesson Plan teacher questions can support students in
using evidence from the text more
effectively.
3. Anchor Standards in Action Reflection Identify specific instructional
strategies/tools that can support students
in giving text-based answers.

46. Anchor Standards in Action

47. Learning Log - Stop and Reflect
1. How does the analysis we engage in compare to the analysis you
observe when students are reading?
2. What is one manageable next step to support deep text analysis
with students?
3. What other ideas do you have about how to teach your teachers
about this common core shift around text analysis and text-based
answers?

48. ELA/Literacy Shift 4:
Text Based Answers
What the Student Does… What the Teacher Does…
•find evidence to support their •Facilitate evidence based
argument conversations about text
•Form own judgments and become •Plan and conduct rich conversations
scholars
•Keep students in the text
•Conducting reading as a close
reading of the text •Identify questions that are text-
dependent, worth
• engage with the author and his/her asking/exploring, deliver richly
choices
•Spend much more time preparing for
instruction by reading deeply.
48

49. Shifts 1, 2, 3: Change in Text Complexity and Range of Texts
Text Complexity Grade Old Lexile Ranges Lexile Ranges Aligned to
Band in the Standards CCR expectations
K–1 N/A N/A
2–3 450–725 450–790
4–5 645–845 770–980
6–8 860–1010 955–1155 (SAS)
9–10 960–1115 1080–1305
11–CCR 1070–1220 1215–1355

50. Relationship Among the ELA Common Core CCR Anchor Standards
10
From… To…
9 RANGE OF READING AND
KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
(Anchor Standard 1) 8 TEXT COMPLEXITY
(Anchor Standard 4)
7
#1: Read closely to
determine what the text #10: Read and
6
says explicitly …to make comprehend complex
logical inferences; cite literary and informational
5
TEXTURAL EVIDENCE… texts independently and
proficiently -
4 TEXT COMPLEXITY.
3
4 DOMAINS
AND CCR
ANCHOR 2 See Page 69 CC for
STANDARDS more information.
1-10 1

51. More About TEXT COMPLEXITY
Reading: Text Complexity and the Growth of Comprehension P. 10
Text Complexity definition P. 103
Measuring Text Complexity P. 69-70
New Lexile Scores (SAS)
Close Reading
Text Sets

52. On-the Job Lexile Requirements
National Adult Literacy Study Scientist
Teacher
Executive
Nurse
Supervisor
Sales
Secretary
Foreman
Clerk
Craftman
Construction
Clerk
Labor
700 900 1100 1300 1500
Lexile Score

53. ELA PACING GUIDE
See Handouts
Review with grade-level colleagues
Identify what’s the same.
Identify what has changed?
You will use this with next steps
planning.