CCSS activity 2- source 2

Source: Valarie Strauss's "Common Core's odd approach to teaching Gettysburg Address"
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/19/common-cores-odd-approach-to-teaching-gettysburg-address/

Again, I choose this article because the title grabbed my attention.
I kind of thought this article might be similar to one of those CCSS youtube videos with the sketches.

As I began reading I instantly felt overwhelmed with the wording of the standards.
I am sure this is something that is intimidating for many people even professionals. It took me several times reading the sentences over and over to comprehend the idea behind the standard.

Once I comprehended what the standard was calling for my next thought was for an activity to demonstrate understanding of "“close reading” of the address “with text-dependent questions”.
The idea is that students will be able to use textual evidence to draw a conclusion about what the text is describing without using the word. To meet this standard I came up with this activity:

Goal: Students will be able to recognize this description as The Gettysburg Address 

ask: "What is being described in this paragraph?"

"A long time ago people whose skin was black were "owned" by people whose skin was white.

the people with white skin did not respect the people with black skin and treated them very badly. Alot of black people were hurt and sad for a very long time.

Then one day a very important man said that the people with white skin can not treat the people with black skin like this anymore, because it was wrong. 

Well the white people in the north of America followed this law even though some did not like it.

White people in the south of America did not like this new law and wanted to get rid of it altogether.

So the people of the north fought the people of the south. 

It was really bad and alot of American familys suffered.

 because were supposed to be the same team. "

....Like it is stated in the article a gave a detailed summary of events depicting The Gettysburg address without giving it away by using specific terms such as civil war or Abraham Lincoln.

Getting back to my response..I noticed this aritcle also touching base on instructional shifts.
Which means this term is being reinforced yet again though this series of CCSS activities.
The differentiated use of these terms and concepts leads me to see the connections of how all these aspects of the CCSS are intertwined with each other.

To finalize, I loved the quote "developing students’ prowess at drawing knowledge from the text itself is the point of reading" because I feel it nicely sums up the meaning behind this standard.

CCSS activity two- source 1

Source: Kathleen Porter-Magee's "Implementing Common Core with Struggling Readers"
http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/common-core-watch/implementing-the-common-core-with-struggling

I choose this source first because the title caught my eye, being a special education major I am more interested in how to get struggling students to meet CCSS.

As i began reading the articel I relazed the auothur is also a blogger.
I felt a sense of hosititlity to CCSS when she refers to it as having "rigor demands".
When she says "my support for the Common Core literacy standards stems from three things" she lists the three key shifts for teaching common core that I incorporated into my blog for CCSS activity one.
This was reinforcing for me because here I am being exposed to those key shifts again and allows me to see those shifts used in a different context.

Kathleen makes an interesting point, which I took as opposing standardized testing, when she says research shows "an individual’s reading level ebbs and flows depending on the content covered, the vocabulary used, the syntax, and on". To summarize in my own words: a student's reading level could be based on their level of interest in the material, lack of interest will result in lack of comprehension.

I liked how Kathleen introduced me to a new term "educational malpractice". I never heard that before, but I feel like it is the same as setting student up for failure.

In response to Kathleen's questions at the end I would like to suggest focusing on the importance of how teachers can leave "breadcrumb trails" for students that may have difficulties. Teachers can do this by setting up questions leading students to an appropriate response, also arranging questions so it promotes students to think critically and incorporate problem solving skills.
When she asks how to "focus on knoweldge building in a ever minute counts school" I would suggest using every oppurtunity for incidential teaching by relating any indicdent or discussion that may relate to the text. Teachers could also tie aspects of text into other lesson plans to show how the text can be associated through various lessons in attempt to spark connections and associations between all subjects.

CCSS activity one

Anchor standards

Three shifts used to teach and meet standards-

-          Regular practice with complex texts and their academic language

-          Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from texts, both literary and informational

-          Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text

The instructional shift between the anchor standard for grade one and the anchor standard for grade three is related to focus and content area. In grade one the anchor standard (in my own words) is to read and make inferences (predictions) based on what you read. In grade three the anchor standard is to summarize what you read and based on that, tell why things happened the way they did, and identify any changes that occurred throughout the reading. So from grade one to grade three the anchor standards instructional shift is going from making predictions to identifying defining traits in the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.3
Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

As grade three anchor standard is focused on analyzing how characters, events and changes effect the plot of a story, grade five anchor standard is focused on identifying the key parts of the text that make these changes in plot occur, for example a specific quote from the text. So in third grade you learn to identify how each aspect of the text affects the plot, than in fifth grade learn to analyze these specific aspects by using textual evidence. Basically, the instructional shift between third grade and fifth is from identifying problems, changes, behaviors, to analyzing specifically how and why they occurred and  piecing these together to fit into the text as a whole

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.5
Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

References

 http://www.corestandards.org/other-resources/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts/ 

***Summary**** 

For this assignment I was somewhat unclear about what to do but after watching the video on youtube this is what I came up with....

My train of thought was to pick three anchor standards, from three different grade levels and describe the instructional shifts in between the grades.

I started at grade one's anchor standard for literacy and described the instructional shifts to grade three's.

I repeated this process for grade three's anchor standard to grade five's.

I also included the three "key shifts" used to teach common core because as they say, common core "can not be isolated". 

In the end I feel like this assignment was worth while because as Dr. Mcvery stated in the youtube video it gave me the opportunity to play around with CCSS a little bit more and gave me the chance to analyze and utilize these standards for an assignment.